NYC Food Truck Lunch: Brisket Sandwich From The Jolly Fat Pig Truck

Perry, the founder of New York Street Food, brings you his latest review on New York City street food.

The circle of life continues. Food trucks close and food trucks open. Mexico Blvd recently closed, and Jolly Fat Pig recently opened.

You may be wondering why we broke one of our own rules, getting beef brisket from a truck with "pig" in its name. We got there late (after 2pm), and were told the pork belly sandwich and steak sandwich were sold out. When the two most poopular items are sold out, we ask the guys in the truck what they recommend. The answer was a brisket sandwich, which cost $9.

While lunch was being prepared, one of the guys told us that everything on the truck was homemade except the bread. That sounded promising.

Our sandwich had thinly sliced brisket, garnished with lettuce, tomato, caramelized onions, mozzarella cheese, and their homemade maple bbq sriracha sauce.

The brisket was nice and tender, with a little fattiness that helped keep the meat moist and juicy. We just wish there was more of it. Same thing with the mozzarella cheese. One slice of cheese was barely noticeable in the sandwich.

The bbq sauce was tasty, but we expected it to be spicier with the sriracha included. The maple wasn't really a factor, either.

One of our pet peeves has to do with "caramelized onions". Everyone seems to have caramelized onions on their menu these days, but you shouldn't call onions "caramelized" unless they are the color of caramel (or darker). This sandwich had sauteed onions, which were fine, but they were not caramelized.

The ciabatta roll was lightly toasted, which worked perfectly because the rest of the roll was very soft. We're not sure who their bread vendor is, but they made an excellent choice.

Lunch at the Jolly Fat Pig was good, but not great. They were a little shy on both the brisket and the bbq sauce, which is easy to fix if they want to. We wouldn't call this an authentic Southern bbq brisket, but that's a tall order to expect on the streets of NYC.

We will definitely be back to the Jolly Fat Pig to try something porkier. Especially since they made sure to tell us the truck will be around the corner from our office every Wednesday, on Broadway between 55th & 56th St.

You can find the Jolly Fat Pig on Twitter here and on Facebook here. Their menu is here. It's not hard to spot the Jolly Fat Pig from a distance.