EVERY six weeks, Trinity Kitchen at Trinity Leeds opens its doors to five new street food traders - hoisting them up through the roof with a crane to give Leeds folk a taste of the grub people are eating at street feasts around the country. Here's our guide to what you can expect to find in there until 18 September:
Eat New York
The closest thing to a classic Manhattan diner experience without Meg Ryan interrupting your lunch with a fake-orgasm.
Eat New York specialises in bagels packed full of hot, tender salt beef, with homemade pickle-slaw and yellow mustard. The Grill Melt (£5.5) seals the salt beef inside slices of grilled swiss cheese and knocks the heat up a notch with jalapenos and burger sauce. Little Italy (£5.5) caters for vegetarians, as well as people who just really like cheese - there’s deep-fried mozzarella with gorgonzola mayo; as well as homemade marinara, garlic butter and pesto.
Our favourite, though is the Eat New York Fries (£5): a monster portion of their skin-on, house-seasoned fries topped with salt beef, blue cheese, swiss, jalapenos and pickles - had us groaning in a way that would’ve made old Meg proud…
Mr Pitta
A firm favourite of local food & drink festivals, Mr Pitta makes his pitta breads, and then rolls them up filled with your choice of chicken or pork souvlaki, grilled halloumi or falafel, kebab-shop salad and a handful of chips. You get your choice of tzatzikis as well (the chilliziki is a game changer) and, if it gets a little spicy, you can cool off with a Mythos beer; everybody’s favourite holiday romance.
Shoot The Bull
Street food with fine-dining aspirations. They grabbed everybody’s attention last spring when they turned up to Trinity Kitchen with blow torches for their mackerel, and citrus gels: now they’re back from Hull again, and they've brought their toybox with them.
Thankfully they’ve shown restraint with their Steak Sandwich (£7.5), grilling rare-breed flat iron in signature steak butter and serving it on a toasted brioche, and the Pork Belly (£7.5) in a warm flatbread with fennel slaw, bourbon BBQ sauce and watermelon salsa. Macaroni Cheese (£6.5) is set to be a popular contender, too. Topped with a huge squirt of bacon-whipped cream and a drizzle of spiced tomato gel, all that’s missing is a savoury flake. Bonkers, but who’s going to be able to resist bacon-whipped cream?
Chaat Cart
Born out of owner Aarti’s frustration at not being able to find the South Indian dishes of his childhood anywhere in the UK, Chaat Cart started up in Manchester four years ago. Since then they’ve travelled the country serving up kati rolls and chaat - courtesy of aunts back in India, who had to be begged for their family recipes - and set up a residency at The Kitchens in Manchester’s Spinningfields.
Their signature dish is the kati roll - with 24-hour marinated chicken thighs and fresh, lip-smacking heat from rainbow slaw and chilli and garlic chutneys.
Ambiente Gets Cracking
Before Ricci’s, Iberica and Pintura, Ambiente was the first high-quality Spanish restaurant in a city centre where tapas meant La Tasca. Now, they’re going street-food.
Huevos Rotos (£5) - broken eggs - is their thing, a magnificent hash of garlic confit potatoes along with your choice of chorizo, serrano (our favourite), octopus, avocado or pancetta; topped with a runny fried egg ready to be smushed all together. Fine dining it ain’t, but it’s bloody satisfying. Wash it down with a glass of Vermouth (£5) if you fancy a touch of sophistication - or book a table at their restaurant on The Calls.
