When speaking last week with Gamal, who runs the 100% Healthy & Halal Cart at 55th and Park — home of my favorite street cart salad, I found out that he also owns and operates the Halal Cart at 54th and Park. He told me he gives his guys over there 100% freedom in terms of coming up with menu items and the food preparation.  I guess he’s not a control freak. He told me they’re doing some good and different stuff over there and that I should check ‘em out. It being beautiful yesterday I decided to give it a shot. I was pretty surprised by some of their offerings. The guys mentioned that their cart is pretty busy even though they haven’t received as much online publicity as Gamal over the past 6 months. They said they were going to put together a combination for me with “a little bit of everything” so I could get a good sampling of what they can do (low res pic not included). The first thing I noticed is that these guys do their rice several different ways — regular, spicy, as well as a few other flavor combinations.  I went with the spicy rice. I also coudn’t help but notice the lightly breaded fish and fried shrimp sitting above the grill. I asked about the fish and was assured that it was as fresh as any tilapia I could find. The fish and shrimp is certainly a differentiator for this cart. The fish was indeed fresh, as promised (at least it tasted fresh) and there was a seasoning in the lightly fried exterior that I really enjoyed but could not place.  I’m gonna have to ask them what it is the next time I stop by.  The fried shrimp was also fresh and good (though I must confess I’m not a huge fried shrimp fan). Another differentiator is their side of jalapeno pickles (that’s what they called it, though it seemd to comprise more pickles than jalapenos) – this side comes free with all combination platters. It didn’t have a massive kick that I was expecting and that I would have liked, but the pickles were in some sort of light, clear sauce that made them pretty damn tasty. Also in my “kitchen sink” combination, they threw in some lamb and onions, as well as a falafel, that were sitting on the grill cooking when I walked up. Nothing too special here, really. Good, but probably no better than the lamb and onions you’re going to get at any other Halal cart in the city.  Last but not least, I tried some grilled eggplant. Can’t say I’ve seen eggplant like this being offered at too many carts, and it was great. The big negative for me as far as this street cart goes was in the “sauce” category.  The white sauce really had nothing much to it and the only thing they had in terms of hot sauce was a runny, tabasco-ey sauce. They did mention a thick, spicy green sauce that they usually have but had run out of yesterday. Overall, I was pretty impressed with the fish (probably more so by the fact that they even had fish than the actual fish itself, though it was seasoned quite nicely) and the rice variety. They need to get some thick hot sauce like Gamal has, though, or next time I’m gonna have to stop by  the 100% Halal & Healthy on my way back to the office to load up.

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