NY Post Says That New Street Food Sucks
The New York Post weighs in on the new fancy street food trend, and does what they do best: attack for the sake of attacking. The article laughably attacks Le Gamin, Schnitzel & Things, and the newly launched Bistro Truck, despite admitting that the food is pretty delicious. But my favorite part is where the author blames food trucks for her own slovenliness…
“Who wants to wait 20 minutes for fancy restaurant fare from a cart when half of it is going to wind up stuck in your computer keyboard?”
Uh… and that’s different from eating a plate of old school halal street meat or take out from a brick and mortar restaurant- how? (Teachable moment: Don’t eat your food over your keyboard, no matter where it comes from!)
Oooh- and it wouldn’t be a proper anti-trend piece without a twitter insult or two…
“And then there are the frustrating hours and annoying Twitter feeds. One second, a truck is headed to Carroll Gardens, 20 minutes later, it’s got better things to do. Would the Kwik Meal Cart guy flake out like this? We think not!”
I follow a lot of trucks on twitter, and you all know I have my issues with the way some of the new vendors use (and rely on) their Twitter accounts. But I’ve never heard of a truck changing directions because “it’s got better things to do.”
The article does attempt to make a few good points, if you can manage to extract them from the snark. Yes, the point of street food is to be cheap, fast, and good. And there are some new vendors that have lost sight of that a bit, and could learn a bit from the old school vendors (like Kwik Meal). But, in the end the author could have easily written an article praising all the food (clearly she liked it), or just made her points in a less sensational douchey way. But that wouldn’t have been very New-York-Post-like would it? (Although in April they did publish an article celebrating the same thing that this article criticizes.)
Want to read some thoughtful analysis of the street food issue? Put down the newspaper, and check out Grub Street or Serious Eats: New York. Or you can skip all that and go straight to the anger (on Twitter, of course.)
Related:
How Twitter Actually Hurts Street Vendors
Prediction: New Carts & Trucks Are About to See Some Serious Backlash
Posted by Zach Brooks at 1:15 pm, August 5th, 2009 under New York Post, Street Vendor Issues.
17 Comments | RSS comments feed for this post
Eh, F**k the Post.