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. 

The Halal Guys - Long Beach

I can't even pretend to be anything less than 100% miserable right now. There is nothing okay about being stuck in board prep, having the entire field of internal medicine hammered rapid-fire into my brain by a conceited, tangential man with an barely-intelligible accent. And if I can't get a decent meal during this intellectual assault, I would probably lose my will to live.

I guess I owe the Halal Guys for saving my life. A now-global franchise born from a humble street cart on 56th and 8th, they've landed in Long Beach, and they take my palate by storm every time. The Beef Gyro is juicily chopped, a waterfall of white sauce cascades over a riverbed of yellow rice. The hot sauce tap-dances on the tongue and settles in for a slow-kill burn so deep.

I'm usually too carnivorous to deviate, but when I do, the Falafel is incredible. I often find the fried chickpea concoction bland, but Halal Guys keeps it fragrant and moist.

When I left the northeast, I thought I'd lost them forever, but here they are. As I toil through six unbearable 12-hour days, Halal Guys gives me hope; food for the brain and fuel for the soul.

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.