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Forest Hills Food Truck Scene Expands With Jerk Chicken and Juice Carts

 Food trucks offering Caribbean dishes and juices and smoothies will make regular stops on 71st Avenue.
New Food Trucks in Forest Hills
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QUEENS — Lunch is on a roll in Forest Hills.

Two food trucks will be making regular stops on 71st/Continental Avenue this season — TMT Caribbean Delights, offering West Indian fare, and Healthy Cart which dishes out juices and smoothies — greatly expanding the neighborhood's food truck scene.

The trucks join Wafels & Dinges, which sells Belgian waffles and has been making regular stops on 71st Avenue on Sundays for the past two years.

TMT, which first came to the area last year, returned to Forest Hills earlier this month and will be stopping on the Continental Avenue, between Queens Boulevard and Austin Street, every Wednesday and Friday, said one of its owners, Mark Anthony.

The truck, which plays upbeat Caribbean music, offers a variety of dishes including jerk chicken, oxtail and fried fish.

“We try to cater to all Caribbean communities,” said Anthony, who is originally from Guyana.

Prices range from $7 to $10 for a plate served with rice and beans.

Healthy Cart, which comes to the area every day, has been doing business in Forest Hills for a couple of weeks now. Prices for fresh juices and smoothies range from $5 to $6.

Adham Bakr of Healthy Cart said the most popular option among fruit juices is a combination of banana, mango, pineapple and strawberry. Among vegetable juices, a combination of carrot, celery, parsley, spinach and beet is the top seller, he said.

Leslie Brown of the Forest Hills Chamber of Commerce said she worried that food trucks may be taking business away from local restaurants which “hire employees, pay taxes and high rent.”

But Susan Oludele, 23, of Jamaica, who studies at a beauty school in Forest Hills, said she welcomed additional food options in the neighborhood.

Last week, she said she bought a juice from Healthy Cart twice.

“It tastes really refreshing and it doesn’t weigh you down,” she said. “And they have really good prices.”