NYC Dopers: Do you really eat food from street vendors as much as portrayed?

[Missy2U]

@What Exit?

I did last Christmas. They were very good.

romansperson: What is a DH as used in your post?

ralph124c: Would you care to cite your dubious claims concerning “the risk of getting hepatitis is real and growing”? Does it actually apply to NYC or SF?

Jim

Jim, DH means Dear Husband.

As to the hepatitis question, yeah - ralph124c - cite?

[Spectre_of_Pithecanthropus]

@Malienation

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?

Oddly enough, I just don’t remember seeing a lot of street vendors on my trips to San Francisco, but L.A. has them in the parts of downtown that have heavy pedestrian traffic during the day. Street hotdogs…mmmmmm.

[Tamerlane]

@Dooku

I would simply never trust food from a streetside cart in San Francisco.

Huh. I eat pushcart hotdogs in SF and the East Bay from time to time with no ill effects. But then I spent a formative part of my childhood in NYC and regard them as perfectly normal. Though it’s certainly true that pushcarts are FAR less ubiquitous out here.

But if you extend that to mobile food of any sort, you’re seriously cheating yourself. Because one thing the Bay Area has that NYC doesn’t is a bounty of “taco trucks.” Roach coaches serving Mexican food. They’re generally cheap and usually pretty damn good.

• Tamerlane

[Morbo]

@Colibri

Why would you be more nervous about a vendor than some other eating place?

Pretty much what TroyMcClure SF said. They just don’t look all that sanitary out here. That said, sounds like this is just a misconception on my part. Next time I’m in the Mission I’ll bite the bullet and try a taco truck.

[Tamerlane]

@Dooku

Next time I’m in the Mission I’ll bite the bullet and try a taco truck.

An article for you:

http://www.sfgate.com/cgi-bin/article.cgi?f=/c/a/2001/10/21/CM161079.DTL&hw=taco+trucks&sn=002&sc=495

• Tamerlane

[romansperson]

@Missy2U

Jim, DH means Dear Husband.

As to the hepatitis question, yeah - ralph124c - cite?

Yes.

And I’d think that as far as hepatitis A goes you’d be more likely to get it at a restaurant where more people are going to be handling your food.

[ralph124c]

@Tamerlane

Huh. I eat pushcart hotdogs in SF and the East Bay from time to time with no ill effects. But then I spent a formative part of my childhood in NYC and regard them as perfectly normal. Though it’s certainly true that pushcarts are FAR less ubiquitous out here.

But if you extend that to mobile food of any sort, you’re seriously cheating yourself. Because one thing the Bay Area has that NYC doesn’t is a bounty of “taco trucks.” Roach coaches serving Mexican food. They’re generally cheap and usually pretty damn good.

• Tamerlane

Roach serving Mexican food. They’re generally cheap and usually pretty damn good.
Aren’t “roach coaches” called that for some reason? Do you like roaches skittering across the foodhandling surfaces in these things? Granted, most are probably safe…but its the exception to the rule that’ll kill ya!

[What_Exit]

@ralph124c

Roach serving Mexican food. They’re generally cheap and usually pretty damn good.
Aren’t “roach coaches” called that for some reason? Do you like roaches skittering across the foodhandling surfaces in these things? Granted, most are probably safe…but its the exception to the rule that’ll kill ya!

Does this mean you cannot back up your earlier statement?

[Marley23]

I favor the honey-roasted cashews from Nuts 4 Nuts, but I don’t get them that often because of all the sugar. Most of the other street vendors are selling kebabas and non-vegetarian things, so I pass on those. But the pretzels are great.

[Voyager]

@ralph124c

I would NEVER eat street food, in any city-the risk of getting hepatitis is real and growing. Plus, unless the vendor wears gloves or has access to soap and water-means he is transferring everything he has touched into your lunch. Not to mention the sooot, ash, and diesel smoke falling onto your food-and pigeon droppings…bleechh!
A few years back we were touring san Juan PR-and asked the cab driver to stop so we could buy some food from a street vendor-his reply was “don’t…we call this place hep alley”! :eek:

The only bad outdoor eating experience I’ve ever had in New York was not from a cart, but from the outdoor cafe in Rockefeller Center. They were doing tar work nearby, and the odor was horrible. They got shut down the next weekend for health violations.

(Does anyone else besides me truly miss the restaurant closing list that used to run in the Times?)

[D_Odds]

@ralph124c

Roach serving Mexican food. They’re generally cheap and usually pretty damn good.
Aren’t “roach coaches” called that for some reason? Do you like roaches skittering across the foodhandling surfaces in these things? Granted, most are probably safe…but its the exception to the rule that’ll kill ya!

The trucks that drive around selling food could be [Gunnery Sergeant Hartman]“so sanitary and squared-away that the Virgin Mary herself would be proud to go”[/GS Hartman] eat their fare, and they would still be called a Roach Coach. It’s a term of endearment. If it really was a Roach Coach, no one would use it.

[Incubus]

Back when I used to work in Santa Cruz, a Roach Coach would stop by our shop and beep its little horn. I absolutely loved the ‘5-speed burrito’. Pretty much scrambled eggs, bacon, ham, peppers, and hash browns- a diner-esque breakfast crammed into an enormous burrito. I’d eat it with salsa and it would give me the strength to deal with the constant stench of melted plastic and misogynistic comments at work.

[lisacurl]

@ralph124c

I would NEVER eat street food, in any city-the risk of getting hepatitis is real and growing. Plus, unless the vendor wears gloves or has access to soap and water-means he is transferring everything he has touched into your lunch. Not to mention the sooot, ash, and diesel smoke falling onto your food-and pigeon droppings…bleechh!
A few years back we were touring san Juan PR-and asked the cab driver to stop so we could buy some food from a street vendor-his reply was “don’t…we call this place hep alley”! :eek:

Have you been following major news sources about food borne illnesses at fast food restaurants lately? Wasn’t there a major outbreak that shut down an Olive Garden recently that’s being traced to a sickness of one of the restaurant workers? I think you’re just whistling in the dark. Dining on any food that we don’t personally prepare is an act of trust, when you get right down to it.

[toto_dies]

Well hey ralph124c has a point, although I wouldn’t mind eating a hot dog from a vendor if I were the hot dog eating type, but anything more “exotic” than that and I fear I might get an icky tummy and I rarely eat out at restaurants as I like to prepare my own food, but when I do you just gotta throw your overly cautious nature to the wind and if it tastes good, well, just eat it, enjoy it and see what happens

[lokij]

Here in Nashville some of the best ethnic food IMO is prepared from small stands that are basically trailers parked in a temporary location (usually a parking lot). If you want authentic mexican, honduran pupusa or a good cheap chicken masala, you could do alot worse than trying these guys. Most are scrupulously clean because you can peer in and see just about every square inch of their prep area. They have electrical hookup and water too… usually and I’ve never had a problem with them. We don’t have alot of human powered cart type vendors, I have seen a couple of mexican popsicle guys on pedal carts lately but that’s about it.

[Mindfield]

Around here, “roach coach” refers to catering trucks that usually make the rounds at businesses. But then we don’t have trucks that actually wander around selling other kinds of food – just ice cream trucks, and a Chico’s in Brampton that sells hot dogs.

[gigi]

I never ate at a vendor when I lived in NYC, but I didn’t spend much time walking the streets. Train from the Bronx to work, maybe stop in a deli for a fried breakfast sandwich. Train home.

I would opt for a slice or two from a pizza place before going to a cart.

[JRDelirious]

ralph must not have been riding through Piñones (Travel tip: in Puerto Rico, do not do carts in the middle of San Juan; drive off to Piñones, Luquillo, Guavate, or Rte. 167 and do a fixed roadside stand. Get some good healthy grease in you…)

But really, back to the OP, in NYC street vendors* with permits* are not just regulated by the City but they have to face a population of archetypal “tough customers”. If I’m in Manhattan and I feel like a quick bite, and can observe a cart doing brisk business with a crowd of locals, I’m looking closer to see if it’s something that interests me. Now, if they’re serving something I’m not familiar with, or that I have a history of having a touchy stomach about, I’ll be careful …just as I would at a bricks-and-mortar joint. Other towns, OK, maybe I would not be so nonchalant about street fare… but I’m cool with NYC.

[Suburban_Plankton]

@Maastricht

Perhaps the cold in New York, as apposed to the balmy temeratures in San Francisco, helps reduce the risk of food going bad? NY-street vendors, at least in winter, are pretty much operating in a big open air fridge.

San Francisco…balmy?

I take it you’ve never visited Baghdad by the Bay in July.

@Mark Twain

The coldest winter I ever spent was a summer in San Francisco.

OK, he probably didn’t actually say it, but that doesn’t mean it’s not true…