All New Yorkers Talk About Is Food

May 15th, 2010Blog0 comments

It’s true. There are no other topics of conversation in this city. Any attempt at talking about anything else will result in the participants steering the conversation back to food. It is automatic and inevitable. Everyone has places that they love in every category of food, and all of these places must be mentioned as soon as that category of food is mentioned: “Oh my god, there’s this excellent Tibetan place on 2nd Avenue…”, “Oh, that’s a great place, but there’s an even better place on 9th…” BLAH BLAH BLAH

Why is this? 1) The food in this burg is excellent, 2) It is one of the purest creature comforts available, and 3) FOOD. But still, it’s starting to get a little old. We don’t talk about food this much in LA. Probably because we don’t want to be reminded of it b/c we’re all anorexic, but that’s how we roll.

Speaking of food: Halal food carts. I love them.

There are four basic types of food carts in NYC: The ubiquitous dirty water hot dog carts, the “breakfast pastry type” carts (donuts, croissants, etc..), the NUTS 4 NUTS carts, and the Halal food carts. These last carts serve foods like gyros and what we call shwarma foods in LA.

For years I avoided these carts even though they smelled so good: Fatty meats frying on an open grill. The danger of food-borne contaminants/poisoning seemed too high. But then our directors’ assistant Matt said that I had to try them (“They will change your life”), so I made the plunge. Chicken over rice. Five bucks — which, compared to the average cost of food in NYC, is almost free.

So good. So good so good. My stomach is fairly steel-like (I’ve only gotten food poisoning once in my billions of years on earth), so I think my fears were unfounded. But the taste and the price make the risk worth taking. Do not fear the Halal food cart. It is your friend, and it only wants what’s best for you.