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Favorite Street Foods


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I miss the street food in Hong Kong. From egg puffs to peanut butter waffles to fish balls to stinky tofu to chestnuts, I love them all! How I would love to go on a street food trip around Asia. :wub:

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Where to start?!!?

Tortillas de Queso - large buckwheat pancakes stuffed with achiote-oiled fresh cheese and cooked on a flattish copper pan over wood flame.

Arepitas - tiny gold corn disks stuffed with queso fresco and diced green onions, fried in very little oil on a steel pan over charcoal

Empanadas Dulces - whole wheat wrappers around some sort of panela-mollasses-spice filling, cooked as for Tortillas de Queso.

Pinchos - street kebabs, basically; the ones I like are usually a chicken breast and five or six nice chunks of assorted sausages in a garlic-herb-butter baste, a piece of ripe plantain, and a small potato.

Cevichocos - a healthy bowl of lupines (lupini beans) drenched in ceviche sauce, with fresh shredded carrot.

Volquetero - only in the jungle town of Puyo, a Cevichochos with popcorn, tostado, and chifles, drowning in ceviche sauce and with a nice chunk of tuna on top.

Maduro Con Queso - a large ripe plantain, blackened on a charcoal grill, split in half, and filled with cilantro and fresh cheese.

Helado de Paila - from the pushcart in front of the Cathedral. He's been there for 55 years selling just Mora helados in hand-made cones. Sooo goood!

Espiral de Mango - spiral-cut green mango with hot aji powder and vinegar.

Salchipapas - new potatoes and little bits of chorizo cooked together in an enamel bowl over a small fire burning in a bucket. The term just means sausage and potatoes, but this is how it's done on the street, and it's how it ought to be done everywhere (IMHO).

Llapingachos - these are the simple fried potato pancakes that accompany Lechon Horneado (roast suckling pig) and appear on large carts on the weekends. What makes them special is that they're fried in fat that the Horneado lady pulls off the pig right there and then.

Choclos con Queso - grilled white corn with a generous slab of fresh Mozza.

Jugo de Tamarindo - for some reason, the best Tamarind juice comes from the lady with the big bucket of it in the Cathedral square....

oh, the list goes on and on.... I could eat very well all day even if I only stuck to the pushcarts.

Elizabeth Campbell, baking 10,000 feet up at 1° South latitude.

My eG Food Blog (2011)My eG Foodblog (2012)

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Keep the ideas coming. I'm doing some research ;)

If possible think along the lines of what you'd love to see in your city and why.

Aman Adatia

eat my LIFE

@amanadatia

Don't ask what the world needs. Ask what makes you come alive, and go do it. Because what the world needs is people who have come alive. -Howard Thurman

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Yes, falafel! An amazing falafel on rue des Rosiers in Paris, this is one street food I will never forget. It's so messy, yet delicious. L'As du Falafel use to be one of my favorite.

Since I move to Japan, the shawarma truck might have been the street food that has made me the happiest. I remember walking in Tokyo and when I saw the guy carving the meat, I was almost jumping up and down like a kid.

Are you planning to open a food truck or something?

Well, everything I'd want to eat on the street is already here, except perhaps Felafel, and I can actually do with going to a sit-down shawarma and felafel joint to eat that.

My blog about food in Japan

Foodie Topography

www.foodietopography.com

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Yale New Haven Hospital has an awesome street food scene outside the medical school. Maggie at the Pekin Edo cart has this wonderful vegetarian sticky rice dumpling wrapped in lotus leaves. Honestly, anything she sells is great. She also knows most of her customers. I stopped by the first time in a few months and she recognized me and knew what I wanted. A sign of a great vendor!

While it is not sold from a street cart, there is an Indian grocer in West Hartford with a small food to go counter in the back. The bhelpuri and samosa chat they make there is simply amazing.

Dan

Edited by DanM (log)

"Salt is born of the purest of parents: the sun and the sea." --Pythagoras.

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Sweet Roti at a street market in Thailand. It was a soft lump of dough, slapped and tossed on the shiny cart top till it got very thin. Some sweetened condensed milk and a sliced banana. Folded and crisped up, just great. Kept us coming back. The hand motions were marvelous to watch.

Thanks CanPan for the long list....it gives such an insight into your world. It all sounds good.

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There are no street foods available where I live other than the hotdog cart that parks outside the bar when it gets close to closing time. I'm not really a big fan of the hotdog under the best of circumstances... the bar-rush hotdog cart is not the best of circumstances by any definition. So that leaves me sadly without a favorite street food.

It's kinda like wrestling a gorilla... you don't stop when you're tired, you stop when the gorilla is tired.

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There are no street foods available where I live other than the hotdog cart that parks outside the bar when it gets close to closing time. I'm not really a big fan of the hotdog under the best of circumstances... the bar-rush hotdog cart is not the best of circumstances by any definition. So that leaves me sadly without a favorite street food.

Tri2Cook and I both live in 'small town' Ontario and there just aren't street foods except for hot dogs and fries.

But I do have fond memories of churros being fried in an old cement mixer at the Bufadoro in Baja California and of Navajo Fry Bread at the fairgrounds in Shiprock, NM.

My street food life is very small.

Darienne

 

learn, learn, learn...

 

We live in hope. 

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We have tons of food carts in Portland, but there are none really close to my house, they're all about 15 miles away or so...most of them are worth the trip, though.

However, my favorite street food is the cones of fries they sell in varying carts around the city...with mayo please, no ketchup!

PanCan, if I'm ever in Ecuador, expect me at your doorstep, waiting eagerly for a street food tour! :laugh:

If you ate pasta and antipasto, would you still be hungry? ~Author Unknown

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But I do have fond memories of churros being fried in an old cement mixer at the Bufadoro in Baja California

I had forgotten about those- all the churros since then have been the greasy useless dough bombs. It was fascinating to watch them being extruded, fried, and then rolled in cinnamon sugar. In the same row of vendors the fish tacos were excellent, and along with the ones adjacent to the fish market in Ensenada, are my hallmark for fish tacos. Of course this was in the early 80's - who knows what the current status is....

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Are you planning to open a food truck or something?

One could say that :cool:

Not in Paris though - my hometown in Calgary, Alberta, Canada.

Aman Adatia

eat my LIFE

@amanadatia

Don't ask what the world needs. Ask what makes you come alive, and go do it. Because what the world needs is people who have come alive. -Howard Thurman

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fries...with mayo please, no ketchup!

PanCan, if I'm ever in Ecuador, expect me at your doorstep, waiting eagerly for a street food tour! :laugh:

My doors are open, Genkinaonna! I'll do you one better, actually - you'd fly in to Quito, not Ambato, so I'd give you the street food of Quito's Historical Center (they roast Cuy on Saturdays!) and then the full downtown Ambato Monday experience.

Elizabeth Campbell, baking 10,000 feet up at 1° South latitude.

My eG Food Blog (2011)My eG Foodblog (2012)

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The grilled lamb skewers (Yang Rou Chuan) that they serve across northern China. I still have dreams about them sometimes.

Those are yummy! When we're in San Francisco, we're lucky enough to have one of those stands (along with handmade dumplings and scallion cakes) at the farmer's market. There was always a line.

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The grilled lamb skewers (Yang Rou Chuan) that they serve across northern China. I still have dreams about them sometimes.

Those are yummy! When we're in San Francisco, we're lucky enough to have one of those stands (along with handmade dumplings and scallion cakes) at the farmer's market. There was always a line.

Which farmers market is this?

PS: I am a guy.

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Which farmers market is this?

The Stonestown one - on Sundays. You can also get great Belgium waffles, New Zealand pies, pretzel croissants and cupcakes (Teeny Cake) there. I so miss that market....and Alemany as well.

Edited by annachan (log)
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I'm from the Caribbean.

Favorite street foods:

1) Conch Salad

2) Conch Chowder

3) Jerk Chicken

4) Mojo roasted anything

all of the above with a side of fried plantains please....

Who cares how time advances? I am drinking ale today. -- Edgar Allan Poe

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What are your favourite "forms" of eating on the street? In a container, sandwich, wrap, burger, stick?

Aman Adatia

eat my LIFE

@amanadatia

Don't ask what the world needs. Ask what makes you come alive, and go do it. Because what the world needs is people who have come alive. -Howard Thurman

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