In praise of street food

What could be a more proximal kitchen, at least from the consumer's perspective, than street food? In my own cooking, I generally think about the proximity of my primitive food sources to my kitchen, but the cart warrior offers another perspective: He (or she) cooks it fresh, all day long, right in front of you, not in some glass-walled, Michelin-starred kitchen, but on the sidewalk. I don't know about you, but I reckon whipping up massive quantities of super tasty food, on a sidewalk in midtown Manhattan, without giving your customers food poisoning, with Mobius-like repetitive consistency, is one of the great culinary feats of our times. I mean, seriously, are you kidding me? The best of the best of the street food community - not to be confused with the ones serving stale pretzels and three-day-old boiled hot dogs, I mean the ones preparing food of real quality, fast, cheap, and on the street - is, if you'll excuse the language, the effing bomb.

This particular thread occurred to me because the finalists for the Vendy - the biggest award in the street food hierarchy, the moral equivalent of a third Michelin star or a food-tops rating in Zagat's - were just announced. If you're not familiar with NYC street food, and you get the opportunity, I highly recommend working off of NY Mag's list of the Concrete Elite (it is to the undying credit of the city and the vendors that this list, while dated, remains virtually unchanged by either name, location, or qualitative scale). Seriously, the Vendys are fine, but why bother buying tickets and fighting the throngs on Governor's Island? If you had the choice, would you rather have Thomas Keller cooking for you in his own kitchen at the French Laundry, or at some kitschy demo for the Food Network? I say, go to the carts. You can do unfathomable arterial damage well inside of a 10-block radius in midtown, so why mess with it?

I have not had the pleasure of eating at any of this year's finalists, but I was in NYC last month, and I made a point of visiting what I take to be The Best Halal/Gyro In The Known Universe, the guys on the southwest corner of 53rd St and 6th Ave. There are dozens of impostors, and many within a one-block radius, so if you go, be sure to check the corner; you'll know when you're there, because the line is longer than the competition by a thoroughly justifiable order of magnitude. What other gyro-style stand has its own Wikipedia page? Who else make lamb-on-rice so good that you can get knifed for cutting in line (yes, it really happened). Where else have the customers taken to referring to the white sauce as "crack sauce"? Trust me, it's worth it.

I'm sure the other guys (they are almost exclusively guys, sorry) have their own merits, but if I were to do the street-meat tour, and I faced either temporal or gastrointestinal constraints, I would - in addition to the Halal gurus above - make sure to stop by Rolf's Hallo Berlin sausage cart at 54th and 5th (between the Democracy Special and the Dictator Special, you can't go wrong) as well as Mohammed Rahman's Kwik Meal at 45th and 6th (the only street chef I know of who trained at the Russian Tea Room and marinates cubes of lamb - not pressed into gyros, fresh cubes - in his own concoction of papaya juice to tenderize it - be sure to try it with a side of his freaky, very hot, not-quite-Middle-Eastern green jalapeno chili sauce).