Halal Guys - New York, NY

Back to my old stumbling grounds, Halal Guys on 52nd and 6th after many a drunk night. A surefire way to get sober, guaranteed to have enough left over for the hangover, this used to be the best and cheapest meal in New York. 

I...I don't know what this is. Mass-produced, lukewarm bits of beef, nothing like the freshly seared slabs of lamb-based gyro meat of my memories. He didn't even bother to sear it for me, just grabbed it out of a bin. I thought it was just the chain locations that were bad, but I don't even know what to do with this. Slather on the white sauce and suck it up, I guess. It still tastes pretty good, but it's like finding Burger King replaced your favorite In n' Out.

I know there are better carts out there now, and I know that Halal Guys has gone progressively downhill, but I couldn't leave New York without a taste of nostalgia. I regret nothing, not even the heartburn, but wow, what a terrible way to end. 

Smorgasburg LA - Los Angeles

A Brooklyn delight spreads to LA, a transcontinental delight! A bunch of food vendors, a plethora of people selling their crafts. A feast for the eyes and a feast for the mouth, and I'm so eager to go that I stalk every local article and blog looking for which booths to hit up. 

We start at Ugly Drum, the pit-smoked pastrami of our wildest ruben dreams. We split a Quarter-Pound Pastrami, a polite way to say half-sandwich because we don't want to fill up too fast. The photo doesn't look like much, but my cell phone camera sucks. Because nothing that comes out of Ugly Drum is remotely ugly. The pastrami glows deep, velvety red, like the smoldering coals from which it came. The fat is so finely marbled, that it all falls apart in your mouth. 

Nothing ugly at Ugly Drum because all the ugly lives a couple stalls down. Enter Brothecary. Hot on the heels of the bone-broth-fixes-everything trend, they gouge you for ten dollars for a single Bone broth XLB. The broth is mediocre, especially when served watered-down and lukewarm. 

But here's where it gets really ugly. Take a close look at this dumpling. It is RAW. They literally didn't even cook the thing, and they have the nerve for charge ten dollars for a neat little package of food poisoning.

Friends always make me feel better when frauds like Brothecary have me seething. Donut Friend bring some joy; Joy Lavender, to be exact. The dense-yet-fluffy ring of glaze is impeccably balanced, and the lavender adds its fragrance. 

The underrated Apple Fritter is fresh, a fried n' fruity piece of perfection.

Disappointment strikes once again, when we find that the iconic Banh Oui is a big banh NON. The Pork Belly Banh Mi is served on a mediocre not-quite baguette, and the slabs of pork have zero flavor. Their travel grill sucks the savor out of the pork, and it drowns in a full cup of aioli...which tastes like orange-colored mayo.

The donuts were so good, and I wanted to give the desserts a second chance. The desserts don't deserve a second chance if they're served by Paloma's Paletas. Pineapple Mint Mojito is a pop-shaped frozen water with no more than ten drops of pineapple juice inside. The single mint leaf in the middle is the highlight of this paleta, and it overpowers the pineapple-ish water. I like my popsicles to be lighter and not so sweet, but this is straight-up sucking on an ice cube...an extremely expensive ice cube. 

No way something like this would happen in Brooklyn! A street fair of this caliber should have died in an hour and yet Smorgasburg has persisted for seven years. I cannot believe this is what I drove all the way up here for, and I hope it won't be around much longer!

The Halal Guys – NYC

After two years of living in NYC, I never got around to the Halal Guys. For reasons unknown, I deprived myself of one of New York’s greatest culinary treasures, a prize of such international fame and universal acclaim it’s even earned its way to the ear of the common street vendor…in Israel.

Being a New Yorker and never having Halal is wrong, and part of growing up is righting your wrongs. So I grew up in line one sunny day and grabbed a white sauce-doused platter of Lamb over Rice from the yellow-shirt clad vendors of New York’s Best. I usually hate things drowned in sauce, but that white sauce was clearly a flood from heaven. A single drop of that fiery hot sauce was enough to jumpstart my waterworks, but anything that made me eat more white sauce was fine by me.

The lamb over rice was awesome and the Falafel was phenomenal…Until I realized that I’d been duped. New York’s Best isn’t the Halal Guys, it’s the imposter. Same shirts, same corner but about as authentic as a Coach clutch from Chinatown.

Shamed by my newly discovered deception, I went back for the Halal Guys. The white sauce was awesome, the hot sauce hot as ever, but I couldn’t detect a difference in the lamb. The rice was harder and drier compared to the plump orange grains of the imposter, and somehow that whole plate of bootleg had tasted that much better. Maybe it was the sunlit day, maybe it was the radioactive rice, maybe it really is about the size lamb loaf.

I'd be happy with either or both in my stocking this year, but I hope Santa is forgiving otherwise I’m getting coal. I’ve been naughty, and chef Santa may disown me when I divulge my dastardly deed: I tried the Halal imposter and I liked it...better.