NY Street Food #2: DiSO's Italian Sandwich Society, Halal Carts, and Mister Softee

In a continuation of the last few posts here on Watch Me Eat about foods consumed while in New York, this post is all about various street foods from my most recent trip to the area. My street food adventure began on Governor's Island. Here, I had lunch from a food truck called DiSo's Italian Sandwich Society. As the name implies, they served various types of Italian style sandwiches.

I had a sandwich called Jimmy Two Times. This consisted of prosciutto, fresh mozzarella, sauteed eggplant, sweet roasted peppers, and herbed ricotta spread. The sandwich was served on a bread with a very nice, chewy crust.

The generous amount of prosciutto on the sandwich was sliced very thinly, but the amount of eggplant on the sandwich wasn't nearly as generous. Even worse, I found lots of thin strips of aluminum foil which had somehow made its way into the sandwich with the eggplant. I had unfortunately bought the last sandwich of the day from DiSO's and they closed after making my sandwich, so I couldn't go back to complain. I peeled most of the foil out for this next picture. Could have been a good sandwich. Too bad it was ruined by aluminum foil...

Up next on my street food adventure was Kimo's Halal Food. This Halal cart was parked on a corner across from Bryant Park. I saw somewhere on this cart that Kimo's was serving Egyptian food. I honestly didn't notice a difference in the menu that made this cart any more Egyptian than any other similar cart in the city.

I ordered the Lamb Platter. Like most Halal carts, this consisted of a mountain of rice topped with gyro meat. Iceberg lettuce was served on the side as a salad. The entire thing was smothered in both white sauce and hot sauce. This was very tasty. I do enjoy eating large amounts of Middle Eastern food covered in delicious sauces.

After exploring Central Park, I decided to stop for food and visited another Halal cart. This cart was set up on the edge of the park at Bolivar Plaza. I didn't see a name associated with this cart.

 

Here, I ordered a falafel platter. Pretty same setup as the Lamb from Kimo's, but nowhere as good. The falafel was served in crumbs and tasted burnt. The rice was it bit hard as well. I don't know if I got the bottom of the barrel, or if this cart was just bad. Don't get food from here.

For my last bit of street food from this visit to New York, I had some Mister Softee from a truck parked outside the 190th Street Subway Station.

I had a vanilla cone dipped in chocolate. It tasted exactly how a dipped Mister Softee cone should!

Mister Softee Ice Cream Truck

Mister Softee is an ice cream truck franchise that seems to be very prevalent in the New York/New Jersey area. These trucks are found all over the place, whether it be in a city park, street corner, or doing the traditional ice cream truck thing by driving around residential neighborhoods. Unlike many of the ice cream trucks that are found down south, Mister Softee serves soft serve ice cream rather than only pre-packaged stuff. On my various visits up north, somehow I always find myself making a purchase from a Mister Softee truck. There's really nothing exceptional about the ice cream, but I enjoy the novelty of ice cream trucks. Here's a vanilla cone dipped in chocolate from a Mister Softee that I waved down on Long Island.

Mister Softee trucks make it to the middle of the East River too. I found this truck parked on Governor's Island. I noticed the Mister Softee trucks parked in New York City parks have much higher prices than the trucks that drive around outside the city.

Mister Softee recently appeared in Orlando for a while. This Mister Softee truck was often found at the local food truck events and was occasionally spotted driving around neighborhoods. I'm not entirely sure if this truck is still around, but it has been a while since I've seen the Orlando Mister Softee Truck.

One thing that bothered me about the Orlando Mister Softee was that the people running it said it was impossible to dip a cone in both sauce (chocolate or cherry) and nuts. The Mister Softee trucks up north all do it, so I don't see while it would be impossible in Florida. Here's a cherry dipped vanilla cone from the Orlando truck when they were at Lake Lily in Maitland.

This discussion of ice cream trucks has become much longer than I originally intended when I started writing this post, but I enjoy ice cream trucks. I apparently enjoy writing about them too...