Chris E.
Yelp
Long lines during weekday lunch times and good word of mouth via Yelp make Indian King Biryani House one of the most popular carts in the downtown FiDi area.
But the question is, is the praise warranted? In my opinion, yes and no. First, the good. The menu at this cart is huge and in all of my years of eating from food carts, I don't recall ever seeing a menu with so many items listed. They have multiple sections to their menu falling into either Veggie Halal, for the non-meat eaters, or Special Indian, which is for the carnivores. There's your usual lamb over rice and chicken over rice and chicken/lamb biryani dishes, but where this cart really differentiates itself are the other mouth-watering items listed, such as, saag paneer with naan/rice, tikka masala or the multiple curry dishes. I didn't get to try them, but rest assured I will definitely be back for them.
Since it was my very 1st time at Indian King, I went with the traditional Chicken Biryani. Can't lose with that one right? Unfortunately, I didn't find it as satisfying as I thought I would. I've had biryani numerous times from the other biryani cart nearby, Biryani House Cart, and I definitely would prefer the biryani from there. All of the right ingredients were in this biryani dish, including the half tea egg. However, what disappointed me was the rice. The rice was dry and over-cooked. It surprised me that something so simple could be overlooked, but the dryness of the rice really took away from the rest of the dish since there was so much rice. The rice is really the cornerstone of chicken and rice or biryani and when the rice is not where it needs to be, it's obvious. In addition, the chicken was in very large chunks and not cut up into smaller pieces. I typically prefer smaller pieces of protein because with larger pieces I tend to eat it within a bite so there tends to be less protein as I get closer and closer to finishing.
I won't fully judge the cart just on 1 dish, but not fully coming through on one of their signature and more popular dishes is a bad start. We'll see how it fares for round 2.