Oh boy, street meat is good. Legend has it that the halal cart at 53rd and 6th is the best in the city. People will line up down the block at all hours just to get a plate of rice, lettuce and lamb or chicken.

The truth is that it’s not that good. I’ve repeatedly gotten food poisoning from it…nothing serious, but the kind of feverish-I-shouldn’t-have-eaten-that-dirty-food sort of discontentedness…and I like to think of myself as having a pretty strong stomach, having eaten dirty street food all over Asia.

So if 53rd and 6th is no good, who is? Well, there’s a guy/cart, one block from my work at Beaver St. and Broadway. He’s one of the happiest street vendors I’ve ever met and his food is fresher and better tasting the rest. He makes each order individually–the whole time smiling and joking around. He recently got a new type of sauce, dubbed “blue sauce.” Check out the video, you’ll see what I mean.