Street meat

I thought it was only appropriate that my first post be about a New York City trademark.


Street meat.


It's a pretty broad label-- hot dogs, sausages, kebabs, philly cheesesteaks, gyros, knishes...


I fell in love with cart food on my first trip to New York five years ago and as an unpaid intern, I practically lived on $1 hot dogs for an entire summer. But really, a hot dog is just a hot dog, unless we're talking about a Costco Polish dog, in which case, that hot dog just got upgraded to a little piece of heaven.


My advice? Skip the street dog and move to the cart next door for spicy chicken over rice. Over the past two months I've made it my personal mission to sample a variety of carts serving the finest Halal food in order to provide you with a list of the best of the best. In fact, I took my duty so seriously that I ventured into three boroughs before presenting you with my findings. One of those boroughs being Staten Island where, in my short 30-minute jaunt, I was offered a 40oz of Old E and an array of drugs by a friendly former Sing-Sing inmate...so, you're welcome.


Ask any New Yorker where the best cart food is and nine out of ten will tell you it's the guys in the yellow shirts on the corner of 53rd and 6th.  What those guys have going for them is quality ingredients and a lot of it. The gyros easily weigh over a pound and they've mastered the famous red sauce. But what they are missing is some serious flavor. It's good for a bland palate that really just wants a boat-load of high-quality shredded white meat chicken, but if you're looking for authentic Middle Eastern flavor, keep looking.


So I did, I kept looking...all the way to Jackson Heights, Queens. Good thing I did, too. This cart is perfection. Nestled under an overpass on a busy intersection of what has got to be the most diverse little community I've ever been to, Sammy's Halal is the perfect combination of meat, a trio of sauces and toppings galore. I ordered my standard chicken over rice, topped which red, green and white sauce. I thought I was being clever by asking for the "Christmas sauce combo", but apparently no one calls it that. Awkward.

Anyone who knows my dietary habits can tell you that, as a general rule, I don't eat birds. Nearly every time, chicken is over cooked and under flavored. Not this stuff. Super spicy, like, you keep eating faster and faster just so you don't notice the fire erupting inside of your mouth spicy. The green sauce, which isn't offered at too many carts, adds a great cilantro flavor while the white sauce, which really might as well be called ranch dressing, cools everything down. Best part about this? It was $3.99. It probably weighed a solid 2.5lbs. I've never really been great at math, but I know that pencils out to be a great deal.