A hungry appetite and halal food brings people together.
It's all about that sauce, right? Well, that's one of my go-to reasons for patronizing the same halal cart twice. Crowded corners on the streets of New York offer a vast choice of vendors, but you never know how a truck's white sauce might taste. You could love it, think it's okay, or wonder how something that usually brings so much joy could taste so unrelatable.
At my former job near 6th Ave and the 20's in Manhattan, I used to go to this one certain halal food cart a lot. I'm an avid fan of getting the most bang for my buck during lunch breaks, and a $6 order of a densely packed chicken/lamb combo over rice always just seemed worth it. To know that I'd be filling up whatever I felt lacking in that day with tasty halal food was an instant mood elevator. I just loved the food from this guy's cart, especially his white sauce. I'd always order extra of course, and its taste was a perfect match that transported me to a happy place.
I recently started a new job at a temporary space on Wall Street. It's my first time working this south of Manhattan, and it's been interesting commuting to a different area. The walk from the subway station to my office goes though a lot of halal food carts. All this made me start thinking that I need to try some of these places out to find a new favorite spot. I knew it would be a trial and error thing because a lot of the vendors don't have signs differentiating their cooking styles. I singled out this one truck that was the closest to my office as my first attempt, and approached the cart to get me the hearty lunch I was aching for.
When I glanced up and ordered, the guy in the cart looked directly back at me and we both laughed.
The two of us instantly recognized each other from his cart near my old job and couldn't believe it... I was smiling from ear-to-ear the entire time he was explaining the situation in a foreign language to the elderly gentleman next to him he had hired to run the cart. The guy told me that this cart on Wall Street was the second one he owned after the one on 6th Ave. He usually went back and forth between working the two spots. When I asked him how long he'd been in the business, he told me nine years. I was happy for his success, and even more elated about getting to eat his food all the time again. It's like, wow. I had actually thought about this guy's food and white sauce and wondered how I'd ever be able to eat it at a regular basis again. But problem solved, especially since I can see it from my office window.
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