Nov 11, 2005 11:31 am US/Eastern
Street Vendors Compete To Be Top Dog
Ultimate Food Fight Finds Sausage Vendor The Best
NEW YORK (AP) ―
It was the ultimate food fight, the street-food showdown. South Indian vegetarian dosas vs. German sausages; grilled chicken marinated in "secret" ingredients going up against poultry with a spicy kick.
But when the smoke cleared and grills were turned off, there could be only one winner of the first Vendy Award, recognizing the top street-food vendor in a city where grabbing a bite on any corner is a way of life.
And on Thursday night, Rolf "Halle Berlin" Babiel, serving up sausages from his cart for more than two decades, was the man holding up the big silver cup.
"I want to thank New York," Babiel said. "New York is the greatest city on this earth."
The event was a fund-raiser for the Street Vendor Project, an initiative run by the Urban Justice Center. The project advocates for the estimated 10,000 people selling everything from food to art to jewelry on the streets of New York.
The four finalists were the top vote getters in an online nomination process. They included Babiel, who has expanded his cart to include two German restaurants as well; Thiru "Dosa Man" Kumar, who specializes in the thin crepe-like items made out of rice and lentils; Tony "The Dragon" Dragonas, who uses his Greek mother's secret recipe to marinate his chicken; and Mohamed Abouelenien and his team from the "Best Halal" cart, serving up chicken and gyros with meat that passes Muslim religious dietary laws.
A few hundred people showed up at the event, held in -- where else? -- a storage garage that houses food carts. They stood in lines inside the garage to order from three of the carts, and even waited outside to get a taste of food from Dragonas, who decided he would rather compete from the street.
"I'm a food vendor, that's where I belong, right?" the 20-year veteran said.
A panel of five judges, all of them foodies, evaluated the contestants.
Streetcart food is often underestimated as being simple, said judge Laren Spirer, who writes about food for Gothamist.com.
"People can find amazing food on the street...the variety and the depth of flavor, it's ridiculous," she said.
While the event was about food and fun, organizers hoped it would get people to become concerned about the lives and livelihoods of street vendors.
Among the big issues facing vendors, Street Vendor Project director Sean Basinski said, are difficulties in getting licenses, lack of available street space since many streets have closed themselves off to vending, and high ticket fines.
Basinski said he hoped the Thursday night event would benefit from the good feeling many New Yorkers have about the vendors they deal with.
"They love their local coffee man or whatever it is. People just start gushing about their fruit guy on the corner," he said. "We're trying to tap into that. If we could harness the 8 million people in New York who love vendors, we'd be strong."
The nomination process for the Vendy Awards started in August. More than 200 nominations flooded into the project's Web site. Many of the nominations didn't even know the vendors by name, just where they were located and what people liked about them.
"People would write whole paragraphs about what's best, about what they order, Basinski said. "It was fun to read them."
(© 2005 The Associated Press. All Rights Reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten, or redistributed.)
Black Thursday? Many Retailers To Open On T-Giving 15 mins ago
CBS 2 Preview: Back From The Dead 1 hr 35 mins ago 
Stumble It!
Comments