And she had the best eggrolls, too! AND her fried rice didn’t taste like curry!
I’m pretty sure I know the place you mean, in other words. 
My parents ate their eggrolls when they were a young newlywedded couple. My dad ate them when he was a college student.
She was so great. At five pm you could get a dozen eggrolls for about five bucks. 
I love street vendors, too bad I;ve never lived in an area that has any signifigant amount of them. I am in Albany occaisonally, and on their large park during lunchtime there is about fifteen different vans, and more carts, full of any kind of food one wants. When i was working there one summer I could go two weeks and easily not order from the same place.
I compulsively consume food from street vendors, and will choose them over a “normal” resturant any day, any meal, any time. Hot Dogs, arepas ( I will kill for arepas) egg rolls, ice cream, tamales, I love it all.
See, my idea is that after eating street food, your body will have a stronger immune system than people who consume things cooked in a sterile environment and toted around in tupperware.
The world’s best fish tacos are only sold by the vendors on the streets of Ensenada, Mexico. I usually just had the vendor a twenty, and tell him to keep tacos and Tecate in front of me until the twenty is gone. Right nummy treat. Just the thing after a day of sailing. Never had a bad one.
Ditto the previous about street tamales. Heaven on earth.
Picturing this just made me laugh.
Thumbs up for cart eating.
Ah, how I remember stading outside of Ha’Penny Lion in D.C. before happy hour, in the evening summer sun, munching on a couple 'a red-hots with mustard and onions. The single best street dogs I ever had.
I’m another one that will choose street vendor food over restaurant food if I have a choice.
I bought jerk chicken from street vendors every night when I was in Jamaica. I didn’t really think about how dirty it was because I was drunk. haha.
Wow Guys and Gals- thanks so much for posting!!!
I never thought about working a cart on campus, but that sounds pretty good.
I kind of feel iffy on food from a truck. Something about not really being able to see what they’re doing to the food doesnt sit well with me. A cart is cool because the person working it genuinely cares that you enjoy your meal.
Dopers- you have given me the green light!
Forgive my ignorance but where is “The City of Ultimate Sin?” :o
I most certainly would buy food from a street vendor. I’ve done it in NYC, and I’ve done it in FL. Besides, when I’m hungry, I need to eat - pronto.
I’ve thought about opening up a PB&J stand myself and calling it “Mom’s”.
Fionn reminded me of something…how could I be so STUPID?!?!
Down on Sixth Street on the weekends, there’s a little mobile vendor that sells wursts and kraut and onions and it’s the food of the gods! I tell ya, there’s absolutely nothing like a BEST WURST!
Especially when there’s a super drunk guy hanging out in front of the stand screaming for all the world to see “Man, this is the Best Wurst Ever! Buy your woman a Best Wurst and Get Some! I got two, what have you go? You ain’t got shit! Man, this is the Best Wurst Ever!!”
Good times and great food for just $3.50. Man, I could kill for one just about now…
El Elvis Rojo, one of my closest friends had some of that wurst when he was drunk as a skunk and waiting for us to pick him up (ain’t no designated driver like the one that you call at 1 a.m.: ‘Guys? I’m really really drunk, can you pick me up?’)
When we got him into the car he had half a wurst in his hand. He said: “Guys, I may be drunk, but this is the best damn wurst I’ve ever had in my life!” He proceeded to tell us the same story you’ve given us, which I had completely forgotten until now.
I would have gotten out and tried one, but I was still in my pajamas.
All of you folks who buy and consume food from street vendors…you hafta be out of your minds! The NYC health dept. set up cameras a fewyears ago on a bunch of street food vendors…and the videos were horrible!
Firts, these guys don’t have any access to running water, so they CAN’T wash their hands (after picking their noses, scratching their asses, and other unmentionable things!
Second, the food sits out all day, and is usually NOT maintained at 160 F temp…so what you are eating is a massive culturemedium for bacteria!
Finally, you should be awre that you can pick up typhoid, hepatitis, and a host of serious diseases from street food…so go ahead, enjoy! P{ersonally, I would NEVER eat anything from a strett vendor…except a bottle of beer (that I opened)!
Sure, I’ve bought food from street vendors. Mind you, you’ve got to be careful buying stuff from C.M.O.T. Dibbler and his ilk, but it can be tasty. Doesn’t hurt to have a cast-iron stomach, either!
There’s a woman here in Ann Arbor who has a tamale stand. She’s so good, she’s started to offer prepackaged meals and catered dinners. Yeah, that’s right, a foodcart operator as a caterer.
On one level, the whole “no access to running water” thing skeeves me out, but I know that I’m exposed to all kinds of awful things, all over, in restaurants and in my own home. Avoiding a hot dog stand is not going to keep my body free of impurities.
Hell, yeah. Nothin’ like a dirty water hotdog in NYC. Or nutella crepes in Paris. Mmmmm.
Have done it all over the world, as well. Here at home, we have a guy who sells the best damn reindeer sausage ever, smothered in onions caramelized in Coke, and a squirt of his famous “MFG” sauce. Heaven…
On the other hand, there was an investigative piece done by a TV station in Washington, DC on street vendors. They had hidden cameras. It was pointed out to one vendor that he had unrefrigerated dogs under the counter. The guy says “oh, I was just going to throw those out”, and proceeds to gather them up and put them in the garbage can. Reporter leaves, and the camera catches the guy retrieving them from the trash.
Wow, I didn’t even know street vendors were a rare thing! I’ve eaten many a hotdog off of a cart and, now that I’m vegetarian, still have the option to buy the tofu dogs off the carts here in San Francisco. There are lots of street vendors downtown around here. I also used to live down in Southern California where we had lots of ice cream carts pushed by hand roaming the streets. Oh and churros. Mmmm… I also used to work in the suburbs in one of those areas with huge offices and warehouses where all the corporate headquarters and operations were based. There were a few guys who would show up around lunchtime with hot dog carts towed from their trucks. They set up plastic lawn furniture on the sidewalk and always had hotdogs, cold sodas, and chips for very cheap. Everyone ate from them because they were cheap, quick, and right outside the building. Better than a cafeteria too. Those guys, who were all happily self employed and made way more money selling hot dogs than we did with our boring office jobs!
That, Laurasia, is exactly why I’m looking into this business. I live in Las Vegas (the city of ultimate sin) and really you never see food carts. I have always believed that it was due to the difficulty in obtaining a license. Also, alot of the casinos on the strip and downtown have cheap restaurants inside. But there is a lot of foot traffic downtown and on the strip that could use a hotdog as they walk from casino to casino. The downside is the summer. It gets to be about 115 degress out here between end of May through September