Two main trends of modern American street food are ethnic food and food trucks. Ethnic cuisine was found previously only in the corresponding Vietnamese, Indian and other enclaves, but now it is easily found on the central streets. At lunch breaks, Americans line up for Indian samosa or meat, prepared in Korean style. Mobile mini buses today could be found near your office, tomorrow – on a parking near the ocean, and on the weekend – on the farm market. Their menu consists of fast food, the assortment of which knows no bounds. The cost of running such a business is not comparable with the opening of the restaurant. It helps people to embody the most unbelievable culinary fantasies: a hot dog could be covered with truffle sauce, and mango jam could be added to beef. There is a relatively small selection of dishes in each food truck, but in New York or Los Angeles, it is completely compensated by their variety and quantity. In some food trucks, everything will be connected with milk – milkshakes, hot sandwiches with cheese and just a glass of hot milk. In others, you will see only burgers. If you find yourself in New York State, look around. Perhaps the food truck with the most tasty fast food is parked somewhere near. Use car rental in Buffalo Airport and travel down the state of New York with comfort.
Here is the list of the classic street food, which could be found at the USA.
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Hot dog
You cannot imagine American street food without a hot dog. Hot dogs are sold at small food trucks on the streets of any of the city’s districts. 1-2 minutes for cooking, a few dollars, and you get a hot dog in a paper package and a few napkins. It should be noted that a hot dog in the US consists only of a bun, sausage, ketchup and mustard. Here, salad, cheese, fried mushrooms, carrots and French fries are not put at the hot dog.
You need to try this simple, classic hot dog and you will understand why an average American eats at least 60 hot dogs a year!
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Pizza
Despite the fact that the birthplace of pizza is Italy, its homeland is definitely New York. In no other city in the world, do not prepare as much pizza, as New York pizzerias do. You can buy pizza everywhere: in a restaurant, pizzeria, on the street in food trucks, in a store and even in a pharmacy (at the fridges). Pizza in New York has become so popular that it even got its own variety – a New York pizza that is characterized by large, thin and flexible slices. You can buy not a whole pizza, but only its slice. Moreover, since the size of the slices is impressive, you can easily eat up by ordering only two of them.
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Falafel
These fried balls of chopped chickpeas are one of the favorite street food dishes in the USA. Many Americans adhere to the vegetarian food system, and many of them want to try it as well, so this dish is more than relevant and popular. You can buy falafel in food trucks or in small eateries, which specialize in this it. There are plenty of dishes with falafel: ordinary falafel balls, falafel with rice, falafel in the egg role, falafel with salad or falafel in pita bread. The cost depends on the dish – from three to 5 dollars.
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Burgers
You can find numerous different types of burgers in the state of New York. There are several popular chains of eateries with burgers, such as ‘Five Napkin Burger’, ‘Burger King’, ‘Shake Shack’ and others. You can see food trucks with burgers on the street, mini burgers in restaurants and in small food shops. The size of burgers in the USA is huge so it could be hard to eat it at once.
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Bagel
It cannot be said that bagels are as popular as burgers, but still there are dozens of food trucks with this dish on the streets! This kind of bun became one of the symbols of American modern cuisine. Bagels are preferred mainly for breakfast. The basis of the bagel filling is cream cheese, and then you can add everything that you like. The invariable classics are a bagel with cream cheese and salmon or a bagel with pepperoni sausages and a salad.
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Coffee
The last item in our list is this fragrant drink. Can you imagine a person in the USA without a cardboard cup with the Starbucks logo in the hand? In New York, people drink a lot of coffee, especially in the morning, to wake up after a sleepless night. It is difficult to guess how many thousands of coffee houses and coffee-points can be found on the New York City map. Even if you are not a coffee fan, it is still worth trying. Just to make up your mind about it.
In conclusion, it should be said that portions of street food here are huge. During the first few days in the USA, you will always be pleasantly surprised by them. If you ask the seller of a food truck to put you more meat, salad, cheese, sauce, whatever – he or she will do it without taking an extra charge. Be prepared that eating the whole portion straight away can be difficult, which means that you will need to carry with you a package/box with food.