Street Food in New York
Smells like chicken: At the award-winning "Sammy's Halal" in Queens.
Photo: Beyond the Buffet
By Tara Kyle
New York City's summer tourist season is gearing up, which means the sidewalks will soon be crawling with even more people looking to stretch their dollar in our famously expensive city. Wendy recently highlighted a list of things to do in town for free, but even if you spend nothing on activities, a meal or two in Manhattan's pricey restaurants is enough to blow a travel budget.
Fortunately for those of us without an expense report, there's a great way to get a taste of New York's global flavors without breaking the bank. Just as Manhattan has some of the best and most varied restaurants in the world, it also has a veritable fleet of international street food stands to write home about. Where to find them and how much will they set you back? I talked to Sanjay Surana, Conde Nast Traveler's Ombudsman (and resident street food expert) for his top three picks around Times Square, home to the magazine's offices, and tourist central ...
- Go to the Muslim Trinidadians at the Southeast corner of 43rd Street and 6th Avenue for the area's best Halal Food. Sanjay loves the curried vegetables (potatoes, chick peas, cabbage) over yellow or white rice, and while he's a vegetarian, he reports that the chicken dishes also do a "brisk trade."
- At the Egyptian-run falafel stand at the Northeast corner of 40th and Broadway, in front of Citibank, for just $3, you'll get "coriander in the falafel balls, slightly smoky fried eggplant, and lip-smacking hot sauce."
- Although not technically street food as it operates out of a storefront, the 24-hour pizza shop on the Northwest Corner of 36th Street and 8th Avenue gives you the true eat and run experience: There are no tables and little floor space, so you'll have to join the bike messengers, fashion district delivery men, and office workers who down their $1 slices standing on the pavement out front. Sanjay raves about the tomato sauce's "perfect combination of sweetness and tartness."
Venturing beyond 42nd Street? You've got plenty of other options in this city of more than 10,000 registered street food vendors. Each fall, the Urban Justice Center, an advocacy group who supports the legal rights of these entrepreneurs, salutes the best of street fare with its annual Vendy Awards. Two 2006 finalists are in well-traveled Manhattan neighborhoods: Calexico, at Wooster and Prince Streets in Soho, with $3 Tex-Mex tacos; and Thiru "Dosa Man" Kumar, who serves Sri Lankan-style vegan fare from his cart in the NYU area at Washington Square South and Sullivan Street. (Check out Beyond the Buffet: Indian Food in a New Culture, a recent Columbia Journalism School project, for a video interview with Thiru).
To sample the Vendy Awards' top-rated street food, you'll have to take the 20-minute ride on the 7 line to Jackson Heights, Queens, home to much of New York's vibrant Indian community, and, at 73rd and Broadway, Vendy winner Sammy's Halal, where owner Samiul Haque Noor doles out the gold standard of chicken, lamb, or beef over rice. (See this story from local news channel New York One to see Samiul do his thing.)
Hey, New Yorkers: Any other street food to recommend?
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