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Street Food Home Introduction Louisville, KY Cedar Rapids Chicago Denmark Plano/Dallas/Fort Worth Richmond, VA Singapore Trenton, NJ San Antonio, TX India New York City Nashville, TN Olympia, WA	Chicago About ten years spent in Schaumburg, and various neighborhoods on the North Side, including Loyola and Uptown. Where we lived was not so much into the street food scene, but you could get some excellent elotes. Cabbie Digs were the big discovery for me there. One of the Rules, at the time at least, was to look for taxicabs. The cabbie digs were 24-hour places that had cheap, good food in large portions, and a whole convenience store behind the counter with everything that someone who lived in the driver’s seat could possibly need. Shan was just up the street from us when we lived on Margate, and we could walk up there at 3 in the morning and get fresh samosas. Oh yeah, you needed to be familiar with Indian food, or any of several African cuisines, or just be willing to order the #3 and eat what you got. The breakfast special at Shan was a legume or pulse dish, like chana masala, a veg dish, and two poori served still puffed up with steam. For three bucks, you got that and a mug of sweet masala tea. Chicago was also where I encountered my first chaat house, Sukhadia’s on Devon. We generally did not get anything there, but bought a lot of kaju katri, kaju anjir rolls, and spicy masala cashews. I’ve since ordered from Sukhadia’s for Diwali a few times, when we lived in other places and could not get ladoos locally. And then there was Patel Brothers, which has been a part of my family’s life ever since, along with the Swad and Patak’s brands. Chicken biryani is easy and cheap to make by the stewpot, and when you have three children to feed, you look for recipes that make lots. To this day, they all three consider it one of their comfort foods. There was always half a pot or so left over even after feeding five people, and it would get eaten in the next day or so. Leftover biryani never lasted long enough to be thrown out. None of which is street food, but it establishes where a lot of my tastes were developed, and what sort of expectations I had later on.

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Introduction
Louisville, KY
Cedar Rapids
Chicago
Denmark
Plano/Dallas/Fort Worth
Richmond, VA
Singapore
Trenton, NJ
San Antonio, TX
India
New York City
Nashville, TN
Olympia, WA

Chicago

About ten years spent in Schaumburg, and various neighborhoods on the North Side, including Loyola and Uptown. Where we lived was not so much into the street food scene, but you could get some excellent elotes.

Cabbie Digs were the big discovery for me there. One of the Rules, at the time at least, was to look for taxicabs. The cabbie digs were 24-hour places that had cheap, good food in large portions, and a whole convenience store behind the counter with everything that someone who lived in the driver’s seat could possibly need. Shan was just up the street from us when we lived on Margate, and we could walk up there at 3 in the morning and get fresh samosas. Oh yeah, you needed to be familiar with Indian food, or any of several African cuisines, or just be willing to order the #3 and eat what you got. The breakfast special at Shan was a legume or pulse dish, like chana masala, a veg dish, and two poori served still puffed up with steam. For three bucks, you got that and a mug of sweet masala tea.

Chicago was also where I encountered my first chaat house, Sukhadia’s on Devon. We generally did not get anything there, but bought a lot of kaju katri, kaju anjir rolls, and spicy masala cashews. I’ve since ordered from Sukhadia’s for Diwali a few times, when we lived in other places and could not get ladoos locally.

And then there was Patel Brothers, which has been a part of my family’s life ever since, along with the Swad and Patak’s brands. Chicken biryani is easy and cheap to make by the stewpot, and when you have three children to feed, you look for recipes that make lots. To this day, they all three consider it one of their comfort foods. There was always half a pot or so left over even after feeding five people, and it would get eaten in the next day or so. Leftover biryani never lasted long enough to be thrown out.

None of which is street food, but it establishes where a lot of my tastes were developed, and what sort of expectations I had later on.