Kiflu’s Lunch Truck

Another one of the endless cheap lunch options available to the working masses starving (for food? for love?) in the area.
It’s cheapISH. Almost everything is $ 5.50. The tilapia plate is $ 6. The Midtown Lunch blog (
) raved about the fish plate, so I ventured over to try (yes, braving the taboo of seafood from a mobile kitchen!).
The tilapia over yellow rice comes with chickpeas and curry potatoes, which I appreciate. But the food was just okay… Was it a different dish than what Midtown Lunch had received? The pieces of fish were small, tasteless, and falling apart. There was no rosemary, and it tasted just like the rest of the sauce used on everything else (kind of ordinary). There wasn’t even that much food in the container. The salad was a small, wilted clump — I think they ran out. Maybe I’ll come earlier next time? The goat curry looks fabulous.
The guys who run the truck are friendly. They’re open for business on the corner of Ann and Nassau, 11am — 4pm. I went at 2pm: Lo and behold, there was a line! (About 6 or 7 deep, which suggests that at least the curry, which everyone was getting, is worth waiting for.)

On the Northwest corner Nassau St. & Ann St. & Nassau St. is a large silver truck serving up some eccentric dishes ranging from Tilapia Fish ($ 5.50), Goat Curry ($ 6.00), Beef Stew ($ 5.00), Chicken Stew ($ 5.00), Grilled Chicken Salad ($ 5.00), and your typical Halal.
I’ve been craving fish for quite sometime, and it’s just so darned expensive hitting up a brick & mortar, so when I saw this food truck selling Tilapia, I had to check it out. Pulling up to the window, I let the guy know I wanted an order of Tilapia Fish, he then asked if I wanted white rice or yellow rice. I asked if I could have a little of both, and he said, «Sure. Half & Half.» As I watched him scoop the heaping mounds of rice into the styrofoam platter, I noticed the white rice had chickpeas mixed in. Nice! He then put a few scant pieces of salad and the yellow curried vegetables & potato, and then proceeded to hand it off to another gentleman who scooped the tilapia on top of the rice. I wasn’t sure what sauces to put on at this point, so he suggested to eat the fish as is because it has a great garlic taste, and to put some white sauce on the salad. I obliged and also asked for some hot sauce on the side, just to see what he was packing. We did a quick handoff of money and platter while he mentioned to come back next time to try his delicious Goat Curry. Mmmmm…
The food must’ve weighed a good 1.5−2 lbs. Good for me cause I had quite the appetite for some fish. There wasn’t much salad in the platter, but who really wants just plain ol’ crisp lettuce and fresh tomato? However, it was pretty good with a decently made white sauce. In the yellow curry stew corner, sat a mix of soft cubes of potato, large sliced and diced carrots, cabbage, corn, peas and onions. The yellow curry had some nice flavors, but the vegetables weren’t consistent throughout. Everything was soft except for the large slices of carrots which were still a bit raw and had a strong crunch to it still. I also got a couple tastes of the hot sauce at this point, and boy oh boy, it packed some heat that I wasn’t expecting at all. Slightly smoky in flavor, maybe even erring on the slightly bitter pepper side, I was actually liking their hot sauce quite a bit. But the real treasure was the boneless fried tilapia cooked in a garlic rosemary sauce with sliced onions and sauteed sweet red peppers. The tilapia was moist and exploded with flavor. Damn good and I can’t say much more about it, except to go try it out yourself! Underneath the fish was the rice. I didn’t care much for the yellow rice which didn’t have a lot of taste. The white rice with chickpeas for some reason had more flavor, but that could have been because it absorbed the flavors of the tilapia sauce.
My only gripe was that, although I was more than full, everything in the dish was a bit too greasy. The grease seemed to drown everything, even the rice and salad. But overall, this was one hefty meal definitely off the beaten path from your typical Halal stand. Fish and curry for $ 5.50? Not too shabby. If the fish was that good, I’m going to have to come back and try the goat curry that Kiflu kept touting his horn about. I hope you do the same…