NYCReview
Express Eatz
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Express Eatz serves a small menu of Nepali-influenced chaats, momos, and fried meat sticks that feel like the contraband your mom said you weren’t allowed to eat on the way home from school lest you ruin your dinner.
You can always get your momos plain (fried or steamed), but why would you? Bo-ring. Instead, upgrade to the momo chaat with papdis, potatoes, and crispy-crunchy sev and vegetable confetti. This chaat comes coated in a tangy housemade tomato achar—which is the main reason why we won’t shut up about this place. Express Eatz sells containers of their achar, and you should buy some and add it to anything you’d put sriracha on.
Notably, this is the only spot in the city where we’ve found one of our favorite Indian street foods, a chaat made with instant noodles (sometimes referred to as “Chinese bhel”). Here, it comes with uncooked Wei Wei noodles and a mix of various namkeens, chickpeas, potato, peanuts, onions, tomatoes, and herbs. All chaat should be a party in your mouth where you get every texture at once, and Express Eatz does this right by making sure the sharp onions and juicy tomatoes are always fresh, to balance out the crunchy stuff. Wash everything down with a Dopeboy lassi (named after the owner, Dopeboy Bobby) made special with the pile of almonds on top.
Eating anything from here is just fun. The food is colorful and spicy, and they add something unexpected to every chaat. This restaurant is delivery and takeout-only, but if you go in person, you’ll find things that aren’t on the delivery menu like housemade Nepali potato chips and Frooti juice boxes. You’ll want to keep this spot a secret so you can get chaat masala in your mouth as quickly as possible—but Express Eatz deserves to be on everyone’s radar.