My best street food hack was hiring the Wafels & Dinges truck to cater desserts at my wedding. Food trucks are the trendiest form of street food right now, but your favorite eatery might be a cart, a stand, a trailer, or someone rolling a cooler through the park.
City street food can become legend. San Francisco’s Tamale Lady, may she rest in power, used to feed the drinkers at bars like Zeitgeist. And I never caught Austin’s Arrested Development-inspired Bananarchy during operating hours, despite making a trip across the river just to eat a frozen banana.
Even generic carts selling ice cream or pretzels or peanuts can become an essential part of a city or a neighborhood. There’s always a line for breakfast sandwiches on the sidewalk northwest of Union Square. And one winter night, my wife and I got off a 12-hour Amtrak ride from my parent’s house. It was a blizzard, one of the big ones, and all the restaurants had closed. Tromping home on un-shoveled sidewalks, we found a halal cart, still serving. We were home.
Street food starts trends. A lot of great restaurants, cafés, and dessert spots started as street food: New York has Big Gay Ice Cream, Van Leeuwen, Halal Guys, Korilla, and more. One of Twitter’s early practical uses was as a way to track taco trucks. As a genre of cuisine, it tends to be cheap, fast, and democratic. While it’s popular in all kinds of cities, it’s especially useful in a pedestrian city, where you can eat lunch on the way to your next appointment.
What’s the best street food in your city, or in a city you’ve visited? What are the underrated carts that don’t attract crowds? How do you class up a five-dollar meal on the go? How do you eat a pita sandwich without dripping all over yourself? What surprising foods have you found for sale on the street, or in a park, or in some other transient spot in town? Where have you become a regular, what kind of perks have you earned, what street vendors deserve more business and some friendly chit-chat?
And what’s your street food etiquette? Got any advice for forming an orderly line, or how much to tip the person who just made you a gyro inside a steaming hot truck? Learned anything that street food vendors especially like to hear? Tell us your tips in the comments below, and we’ll feature the best ones under the Staff tab.