kenav

If anyone's going to NYC and wants to know the best (according to New York Magazine) food you can buy from the carts on the street - here's a link for it.

It's a cheap way to go for lunch or a snack - and you can always take it to Central Park, Bryant Prk, etc., or a vest-pocket park (little parks between the big mid-town office buildings).

http://nymag.com/restaurants/features/33526/

Just click on the link "New York's 20 best. . . "; it's to the right of the lead story about street food on this page.

kenav

ttt -

Just want people to know I'm not asking about this, but am giving some information.

bookhall

Thanks! Was trying to find this info for someone who was NYC-bound. Looked all over the NY Times website....

happytrailstoyou

There was another article in New York Magazine recently explaining why street food carts are not the most sanitary sources of food in the city.

For better--and cleaner--food, go to Whole Foods at Columbus Circle or, better yet, Union Square for dining with a great view.

MikeT

But who wants to spend all that time wading into Whole Foods for a tofu salad and weaned-on-Mozart faux chicken salad sandwich when you can get great, ethnic street food????

kenav

Whole Foods is soooo expensive. Kind of ridiculous. Street food is great 'cause it's cheap (and, yes, ethnic).

But if you're worried about sanitation - I understand. Get the well cooked stuff.

BTW - Big article in NY Times (?) on places like Whole Foods that that give one the "feeling" of doing good, but in fact add to the energy problem by flying fruits out of season on big planes to the U.S. - all just so we can have raspberries in December.

MikeT

And there is nothing that is more New York than getting some flafel from a vendor or some dosa.

happytrailstoyou

I'll take the calamari and shrimp salad and other goodies at Whole Food to the who-knows-what served under conditions of questionable sanitation any day.

But thenI'm a persona of considerable refinement. You know--the kind that doesn't participate in hot dog eating contests or open beer bottles with my teeth.

kenav

There are many places in which you can get salads and sandwiches and even hot food to go, and even eat-in, in NYC, that aren't as expensive as Whole Foods.

There's a place across the street from Bryant Park. It's on W. 40th St between 5th and 6th Avenues (closer to 5th). Forgot the name, but it has wonderful to-go food and I always buy stuff there and then go across the street and relax in beautiful Bryant Park.

Try it!!

MikeT

"But thenI'm a persona of considerable refinement. You know--the kind that doesn't participate in hot dog eating contests or open beer bottles with my teeth."

Honey, if you had refinement, you wouldn't be grazing at the salad bar with the hoi polloi. The line between street food and a supermarket food bar is pretty thin.

happytrailstoyou

Also, while in NYC June 22-July 2, we had excellent salads at one of the PAX outlets. We selected our greens and "add-ons" and they mixed them for us. The cost was under $10 for both salads. These places also sell tempting sandwiches, and they are popular with locals.

I'm sorry, MikeT, that my gentle nature brings out your dark side. Please don't kick your dog.

MikeT

I kid. If you want the same salad you can get anywhere in America on any salad bar in American, that's your choice.

Lovers of street food are the culinary risk-takers of the world, not the Chicken caesar eaters who have no idea what's going on in the prep kitchens before it lands on the salad bars where 1000 people have coughed and pawed it with their dirty hands.

happytrailstoyou

I'm delighted to learn that street food is clean--cleaner, perhaps, than food prepared under strict rabbinical supervision.

If I believe everything I read on this forum, I can discard virtually all I previously accepted as being common sense. It will be like having a brain transplant. Perhaps I can get then get a part in Mel Brook's new musical--"Young Frankenstein."

And I can pass of as a "joke" my put-downs of others. It will be a new, wonderful world of idioicy.

MikeT

I say "c'est la vie." I'll enjoy the exciting flavors of street food and you
enjoy your generic Chicken Caesar salad.

kenav

happytrailstoyou -

I doubt that the shrimp and calamari salads are under strict rabbinical supervision. I'm sure that's not wht you meant!