New York a la Cart

April 8, 2013
Co-bloggers Penfold and Wallace have developed a loyal following due to their passionate reporting on New York's food scene, and they've summed up some of the city's best mobile dining vendors in this dense valentine to street food. Organized by neighborhood, the pair nicely showcases the city's diversity, preferring to single out one or two vendors of, say, ice cream or tacos, rather than attempting to offer a definitive list. Locals may balk at such discrimination (though they'll likely get the most out of each vendor's information, which includes Twitter handles), but readers interested in expanding their culinary tour of NYC and its environs will appreciate the book's breadth, highlighting stars like the Big Gay Ice Cream Truck as well as many others, less well-known. Each profile is accompanied by recipes from the vendor in question (a total of 100 recipes are included), but readers will reap the greatest benefit from the book's text, which covers street vending from all angles, such as the black market for permitsâwhich can go for as high as $20,000âto how to buy the best lobster to the evolution of street food in NYC.