There’s a Bombay Chopstix restaurant in Irving and Richardson, and then there’s Bombay Chopstix’s food truck, Bombay Street Food, that features highlights from the restaurant’s menu. When I first heard that a food truck serving Indo-Chinese fusion was hitting the streets, my ears perked. I scoured George’s handy dandy food truck schedule. I waited. Then I pounced.
Bombay Street Food is now its fourth week of operation. Last week, when I visited, I went up to the fire engine red truck and received maybe the best food truck service I’ve ever had. Of course, this could be due to the fact that no one else was around me. My first free eggroll came on a paper plate with Sriracha sauce. It was vegetarian, stringy from cabbage bits, and not crispy at all. Still enjoyable, though, because it was free. Seeing how I couldn’t decide what to order, one of the Bombay guys asked me, “What do you like? What do you usually get at Pei Wei or P.F. Chang’s?”
If I’d been smarter, I would’ve left as soon as I heard that last question.
But hunger sometimes makes you do stupid things, so I ordered the Desi Manchurian and General Tso’s chicken lunch platters. My friend whose family has owned a Chinese restaurant in Atlanta for ages once told me that, in order to be successful, a restaurant owner must pay the most attention to his or her General Tso’s chicken. It’s a staple of Chinese American cuisine. If the General Tso’s chicken is a successful dish, then everything else can’t be far off. Bombay Street Food’s General Tso’s chicken came with pineapple chunks, red and green peppers and one eggroll. I chose to pair it with basmati rice mixed with carrot pieces. After a couple bites, and even after pleading one of my co-workers to take it, I had to throw it away. (Now, if you know me, this is significant. It hurts me to waste food.)
The chicken pieces were lumpy, soggy, and didn’t even have a hint of any Indian spice. Pairing them with the translucent, dry basmati rice just made it worse. The eggroll was completely inedible, even after dousing it in Sriracha sauce. The Desi Manchurian lunch platter was no better. Small pieces of chicken were drowning in a goopy soy sauce, probably pitying themselves, too. This wasn’t Indo-Chinese fusion. There was no spice, no kick, and not a single hint of the aromatic flavors that capture richness of Indian food. This was just bland Chinese American food that I wouldn’t even feel comfortable feeding my dog.
I feel pretty terrible saying all those bad things, but just to let you know, I’m still rooting for Bombay Chopstix’s food truck. It has fantastic service. Everyone is accommodating and willing to help, and the food comes out so quickly you wonder if there are little green elves working inside. Maybe the little green elves will fix these glitches. One can only hope.
