Hungry nieces and nephews

You’ve probably noticed the small colony of food trucks that appears every day at lunch time between 116th and 117th on the Columbia side of Broadway. Bwog sent regular Jacques Food-Cartier Maud Rozee to explore its deliciousness, and tell you what it was like.

Yesterday, there were no less than five carts competing to sell me Chinese street food – a red one without an English name, a green one without an English name, Healthy Corner, Roly-Poly Express (aka the opposite of Healthy Corner), and Uncle Luoyang. Why hadn’t I ever eaten at one before? Aversion to risk? Fear of the unknown? Limited experience with Chinese street food? I wouldn’t let these things hold me back anymore.

Uncle Luoyang had a huge line, so I figured it must be the best. This line was pretty serious; the girl standing behind me gave up and left after ten minutes. The guy who was now standing behind me confirmed that it was, in his opinion, the best of the lunch-time cart options. He also thought that Uncle Luoyang was the first Chinese food cart to cater to the lunch-time crowd, and that all the others were trying to get in on its success. Then, the only other non-Asian person in line ordered his lunch in fluent Chinese. Clearly, I had made the right choice.

I had no idea what to order. One would never order a fish fillet from a halal cart, and I was worried that there was an equivalent unwritten rule for Uncle Luoyang’s. I consulted the guy behind me. He was getting a B1: beef potatoes over rice. He said the dumplings were also good and that I might like the chicken fries, because they were just like something you could get from KFC. Then he asked if I had ever used chopsticks, so clearly he thought I was hopeless. I would have titled this article “I Exposed The Extent Of My Cluelessness To The Guy Behind Me In Line At Uncle Luoyang’s So You Don’t Have To”,  but he was actually super nice about it. So go ahead.

I ended up ordering the beef potatoes over rice, because I wanted to impress the guy behind me.

The person sitting across from me thought I was instagramming

Price: 5$, less than I usually pay for some sad sushi or a cold sandwich from the Diana.

Portion size: Huge. I am a hungry hungry hippo and I didn’t come close to finishing all the rice under my beef potatoes.

Taste: The beef had a delicious stewed, beefy flavor. The green beans were also good. The green stuff on the left side in that photo threw me a little because I had no idea what it was (I think some of it was cooked celery? But I have no idea what the long serrated green things are?). Still, it was tasty.

Ambience: Super nice patrons, fresh Broadway air. I waited in line for about 20 minutes, so I had lots of time to soak it all in.

Verdict: I’ll definitely be back next week to try the dumplings and chicken fries.