Food - street food

New York is renown for its street food - the characters in Law & Order are constantly shown buying coffee or hotdogs or something. As a food tech, I'm a little wary of buying food from someone who has no refrigeration or way to wash their hands. But I'll pack my Hydralyte, give it a burl, and hope for the best.

However, having gone through the list of street food types from the Wikipedia article on New York cuisine, I was left feeling rather underwhelmed. Only the Puerto Rican cuchifritos (fried pork things) and the Yiddish knish (cf samosa, sort of), and possibly stromboli (pizza rollups) held any interest or appeal. We have gyros and falafel and burgers here, and I really don't think the NY ones will be significantly better.

So I tried googling "new york street food", and came up with a blog with exactly that title. It looks to have lots of interesting ideas and foods - their list of categories is very extensive. And they have an iPhone app, which will make it easier to assess the options depending on my mood and location on a given day.

I've found several other blogs that I may refer back to once I'm there. From virtualtourist.com, I have discovered that a "dirty water dog" is a hot dog with the lot (sauerkraut, onions in tomato relish and mustard, but definitely not ketchup).

And www.eatingintranslation.com has a tag for street food too. The first entry that comes up is about glutinous rice balls, which I've seen mentioned in a walking tour. They don't look terribly appetising, to be honest. It also critically, if briefly, reviews some other, less common, vendors. I'll browse through this list in due course too.

www.gourmet.com has an eighteen-month-old article reviewing eight great street-food vendors in NY, of which the first, El Peluche sounds intriguing. (The magazine has since folded, so nothing more recent.)

Deep in the heart of Dominican El Alto, almost under the shadows of the rickety elevated 1 train, rain or shine, you’ll find the El Peluche truck. You can get your basic fritura, your chicharrónes, yourpasteles—but what you really want is the chimichurri. And no, we don’t mean the Argentinean parsley-garlic sauce, wonderful as it is; a true chimichurri is a Dominican hamburger of coarsely chopped beef served with a tangy mayonnaise-ketchup sauce and plenty of shredded cabbage, tomato, and onion on a soft, pillowy roll. Which might lead some to say that it’s not just in baseball where Dominicans know how to improve on the original. Tenth Ave. and 204th St., Manhattan

An undated entry at www.allny.com lists seven staple street food vendors, including the rather appealing

• Daisy May's BBQ - Texas-style chili, and sometimes pulled pork sandwiches
• NY Dosas - a dosa is a South Indian crepe made of lentils and rice batter and spices - sounds fabulous
• The Arepa Lady - Colombian corn meal-based, stuffed thingys (?akin to pita bread) 

There's even a twitter accumulator for New York Street Food, at alltop.com.

So, despite the dodgy start from Wikipedia, I think I might find some cheap, interesting food (albeit of moderate quality) from the street carts of New York.