Print'New York Post' Goes All Backlash on Us, Attacking Fancy-Pants Food Trucks
The Schnitzel & Things truck: too frou frou for NYP readers.
In the New York Post today, Carla Spartos gives voice to all the people who long for the good old days when food trucks and carts offered cheap, recognizable fare. The street vendors of today are prissy and "twee," she notes:
Sure, the $9 cod schnitzel platter from Schnitzel & Things (twitter.com/schnitzeltruck) features crunchy, perfectly browned fried fish, but it begs for an ice-cold beer—or at least a bench not occupied by a dozing homeless guy.
The elevation of food truck fare is easy to take swipes at—even I roll my eyes at some of the hype being perpetrated by rolling squads of hipsters—but it's interesting to note that Spartos really doesn't have much of an argument here. It's an insincere article that panders to the Post's perceived blue-collar "salt of the earth" demographic. The author undercuts her own critiques by admitting that the food from the various fancy-pants carts is actually good before negging it on price or setting.
The Kwik Meal cart on 45th Street and Sixth Avenue: a favorite of self-styled food snobs and average Joes and Janes alike.
And the counterexample she gives to the La Cense Beef Burger Truck, the Shake Shack, is hardly an example of egalitarian street grub—not when it comes from Danny Meyer and when most of the people in line are tourists or white-collar office workers who have time to wait in an hour-long line for La Frieda–blend burgers.
Moreover, it's not a zero-sum game out there on the meat streets. There's no shortage of the type of carts and trucks Spartos rallies for. As our friend Zach Brooks proves daily on Midtown Lunch, you can still find great (and not-so-great) meal deals from dozens of old-school vendors throughout Midtown and beyond. The new breed of vendors simply gives us more choice and brings out new customers who might not otherwise do lunch carts.
As the Bard of Long Island wisely stated so long ago, "The good ol' days weren't always good, and tomorrow ain't as bad as it seems."
Related
If you really want to read some interesting and thoughtful material on old- vs. new-school street vendors, Zach at MTL covers the beat like no one else. This essay on how Twitter actually hurts street vendors is particularly insightful, as are his wealth of posts detailing street-vendor-on-street-vendor skirmishes.
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6 Comments:
The Post piece has birthed a new rhetorical device: the homeless, supine straw man.
Michele Humes at 9:09AM on 08/05/09
It's The Post- what do you expect?
banyon at 10:22AM on 08/05/09
The NY Post: trolling way before the internet forum was invented. I think my blood pressure would be a dozen points lower if I never had to read or be reminded of the NY Post and their brand of "journalism"
Let's not forget that worldwide street food is diverse and plentiful. NYC is a haven for foodies but now that the trucks have upped the ante on streetfood it can only be a good thing. Why limit ourselves to hotdogs, ( and I do love a dirty water dog once in a while) and Halal? I say bring on the tamale carts, chinatown's fried anything carts and wide variety that the foodtrucks are bringing.
chef17 at 11:03AM on 08/05/09
@banyon: Yeah, I know. Knocking the post on sensationalizing something is so much tilting at windmills, but I know that Ms. Spartos does love food, so it was disappointing to see the attack come from her rather than from someone at the paper who appeared to believe what s/he was writing.
Adam Kuban at 11:15AM on 08/05/09
The only fancy cart I ever see near my office is the crappy rickshaw dumpling cart. Based on that one and the prices and menus I've seen online for others, I'm not a huge fan of the hipster carts. They just don't fill the niche that carts need to fill for me -- a tasty, quick meal I can bring back to my desk for less than $5 (often well under $5). I understand that my opinion might not mean much to some since it's based on my specific criteria..that's cool. That said, this is a really poorly executed column. There's a good backlash article to be written. This isn't it.
One comment re: the shake shack comparison in the article: I read it not as an example of egalitarian street food but as an example of a fancy place with a concrete location that STILL manages to be far cheaper than the new carts.
sloppy at 3:54PM on 08/05/09
@sloppy: You make a good point on the prices. If I want something cheap, I'll do the old-school carts and go to one of the better halal chicken-and-rice spots. There are some great ones. The hipster carts don't really do it for me since they usually set up in places far away from me. I only go to them on fact-finding missions or if I happen to be in the area—with a couple extra dollars to burn. I also just reread that passage, and I think you may be right. Apologies. Now (part of) my own rant above is misguided.
Adam Kuban at 4:00PM on 08/05/09