Since then, I've managed a couple of visits, and I think I can safely these guys serve some of the city's finest street cart fare.
Apart from the ingredients, it's the guys that work the cart that really make it something special. Ahmed is the public liaison - he'll take your order, chat you up, and really make you feel attended to. He just radiates good spirit. Quietly tending the skewers with careful attention is equally good-spirited Ishem (I hope I got his name right). Both of these guys prepare their food with real care and pride - watching them cook and assemble dishes is a thing of real beauty. They prepare all the excellent ingredients by hand, and the difference is palpable. There's a bucket of skewers on the sidewalk waiting to be loaded up, and that's exactly what happens when a customer's order is placed - nothing is sitting around waiting to be slapped on the grill.
The offerings seem to vary slightly from day to day, but they almost always have half-chickens (spatchcocked and grilled to order, of course), beef kebabs, chicken kebabs (cubes of white meat marinated in yogurt and spices), kofta (ground lamb kebabs), homemade beef sausages, and lamb chops. I had a really lovely chicken kebab, wrapped with some greens in a pita: a large, thin - delicate, even - pita, not the thick, chewy abominations most Middle Eastern joints in NYC serve.
More recently, I decided I wanted to try beef and kofta. So, chunks of good-quality beef were loaded onto one skewer, and ground lamb mixture was expertly formed on another.
(Okay, those are two kofta kebabs. But they're just so pretty!) I was even asked how well-done I liked my meat...even better, it came out that way! They have two kinds of rice to choose from: a terrific, fragrant brown (the color of the dish, not the grain - Ahmed said it's cooked with a bit of tomato and green pepper, but there are definitely other spices working their magic in there) and a delicately-perfumed yellow rice.
I naturally couldn't decide, so opted for half and half, over which Ahmed beautifully arranged the freshly-grilled chunks of meat.
They have a bunch of sauces to choose from: tahini and their hot sauce seem to be the stars, but there is also white sauce, "French sauce" (essentially an excellent French dressing to put on greens), and a complex, slightly sweet brown sauce I forgot to inquire about.
The finished product:
Prices, like their offerings, apparently vary a bit, but sandwiches seem to run $5-7 and rice platters $6-12 (the only posted menu is in Arabic, which I can't read, and I haven't yet inquired about the price of their lamb chops). They get there sometime in the late afternoon and stay open until 4 a.m. - MY kind of cart! And if you happen to live near enough, they will deliver telephone orders.
Al-Shamy Halal Cart
Steinway St., east side, between 25th and 28th Aves., Astoria NY 11105
718-777-8871
(M or R train to Steinway St., then 5 blocks north)
