In just about every cop show set in New York, they all stop off for pretzels / hot dogs / pizza at sidewalk food carts. I’ve seen it in movies quite a bit too - most recently in that Kate Hudson movie “How To Lose [del]An Audience in Ten Minutes[/del] A Guy in 10 Days.”
Do New Yorkers really do this? I can’t imagine going near a street vendor in San Francisco and buying food from them, unless I was craving rat, or wanted a nice dose of E. Coli, or perhaps Dysentery. Perhaps the vendors are strictly regulated in NYC or something? Maybe it’s an East Coast thing?
I used to buy a donut and coffee every morning from one of those carts. Now, when I’m in the financial district I try to buy lunch from one of the carts. Good spicy ethnic food. They depend on repeat custoemrs, so it has to be good, and healthy.
My wife and I moved to San Francisco from NYC two years ago and were JUST lamenting the total lack of street vendors! It’s great to get a cheap (but fairly mediocre at best) cup of coffee off the street. Hot dogs? Fantastic. Gyros, falafel. Hell, even crepes. Fantastic and economical.
Yes, I lived in NYC all my life and ate from street vendors at least several times a week.
I usually get a dog or pretzel outside Yankee Stadium. I have always bought pretzels and drinks in Manhattan. It is extremely common in my experience. I have not bought falafel, but I know many that do.
Salty Water Dogs are quite popular for a quick lunch on the go. Ice cream vendors in Central Park in July are printing money they do so well.
Sounds like there’s little concern for the quality of the food you would get. I guess it’s a “seller’s market” kind of thing. I would simply never trust food from a streetside cart in San Francisco.
It’s not as random as it seems. They’re street vendors, not nomads. When you work/live in the city, you pass the same carts every day. Get a bad meal, you’ll never return, and everyone in your office will know how you got sick. Get a good meal, a good cup of coffee, you’ll be back a couple times a week.
Repeat business is good business for a street vendor.
My oldest daughter used to prefer hot dogs from one particular vendor when I took her in to work. I’d offer her a meal anywhere in Manhattan and she’d lead me to this one hot dog cart with her eyes aglow in anticipation of her favorite meal in the world.
Are vendors in San Francisco not licensed or regulated by the Department of Health or some equivalent? Why would you be more nervous about a vendor than some other eating place? Do you actually know people who got sick eating from vendors in SF?
What Cheesesteak said. The mark of a good “food town” is the ability to get a good meal at a good price at all price levels…and that includes the street vendor level. Well, NYC’s got that. What’s the deal in San Francisco? Why wouldn’t you trust food from a street vendor there? I mean, is there a epidemic of food cart related food poisoning or is SF a little too precious to rub elbows with the lower class? And c’mon: you throw hot dogs in a propane heated tank of water. How do you figure someone’s gonna fuck that up?
Occasionally I’ll get a hot dog or a pretzel. I went through a knish phase. I’ll get a gatorade in Central Park on my bike rides in the summer. We often get our fruit from sidewalk fruit stands. I’m not big on the kebabs, though.
Not NYC, but Toronto, and I gotta say: Nothing beats a street vendor hot dog. I don’t know what it is – the brand of franks, the cooking method, the city air or what, but there is absolutely nothing like a dog from a cart. Unfortunately TO doesn’t have nearly the kind of street vendor prevalence that NYC does – you might find the odd pretzel vendor or something, but it’s almost exclusively hot dogs and sausages.