BootsnAll Travel Community

I love to explore new cuisines, but the truth is on my budget I can usually afford a small handful of nice meals on any given trip. Usually I'm eating at food stalls, markets, and tiny shops with all of seven seats.

I'm fine with that, now! I love street food and soul food, and these tend to be the grinds that I miss the most back home. So here's my question: what country or place has the best street food?

My first round call:
Mie Goreng in Indonesia. Fresh noodles and herbs, chile, fried garlic chips, and fresh squeezed lime - I ate it almost every lunch for months on end, and never got tired.

Tacos de Lengua in Mexico City. Soft corn tortillas, meat that melts in your mouth, and a touch of salsa verde - and you have the perfect midnight snack.

Torta Ahogado in Guadalajara. Crunchy French bread full of fatty roast pork, and all of it drowned in a spicy tomato sauce. La Vida ain't all rice and beans.

Ham and Cheese Crepes in Paris. They were all I could afford. Lucky for me they tasted so good.

Mercimek Corba in Turkey. I used to associate lentils with people sporting dirty dreads and unwashed Dead shirts. My bad. I can now tell you my favorite spots for Red Lentil Soup for five major Turkish cities! Runners up: Pide, or Turkish 'pizza.'

Thai Curry. I don't even know what kinds I had, and I rarely knew what was in them. I'd just point to one of the pots boiling away on the fire and smile.

Meat Pasties in da UP (Michigan). Chunks of meat, potato, and rutabaga baked in a thick dough. Eat `em up with a good load of ketchup.

Mmmm, food. My favorite topic. I run 30 miles a week so I can eat whenever I want. I'm handicapped by a powerful aversion to dairy products, especially cheese, but still love to eat.

Anyhoo, Felix's best street food:

-Chiang Mai night market
-the curry chicken sandwiches sold across from the train station in Nice, France
-empanadas argentinas around the corner from the Supreme Court in San Jose, Costa Rica
-anything from a food court in Singapore
-night market in Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia
-tacos anywhere in Mexico
-surimi and wine from that little place just off Calle Beltran in Puerto Iguazu, Argentina
-odeng in Jisan-dong, Daegu, South Korea (or any street food in Korea other than bbeondegi)

Vietnamese "breakfast burritos": rice crepes with meat mix inside, covered with a scoop of dried galangal, roasted peanuts, garlic chips, fresh basil leaves, and dipped in nuoc nam sauce. Only 70 cents or so for a plate.

A bag of sugared plantain chips from the Philippines: mmmmm. 20 cents of golden deliciousness.

Pupusas in El Salvador.

Oh, and how could I forget the best breakfast ever: açaí with granola in Rio de Janeiro.

Ah, where to begin. so much food, and I find that while being in a far away land, this is the thing that I miss, or think about most, not family, friends of other comforts, food. so let's begin.

Cheese Quesadillas at 2am in puerto vallarta, with lots of salsa verde and pickled jalapinos.

Pho at the 24 hours place in the backpacker area of saigon, it's always cooking, and I think it's been the same broth for years, mmm.

Bacon and egg pies on the coast in taranaki, new zealand. the best I've ever had.

The sandwiches on the the street in vietnam, wow.

Bocadilla tortilla in spain.

Borritos from the carts in portland, especially loco loco.

just about anything in thailand.

Shashlik in Ukraine. meat, meat meat. BBQ to the next level. amazing meat over hot embers.

that's as much as I can do, I;m getting too hungery.

Egg Byriani in India. Most likely the best thing I've eaten in my life. And cheap as anything.

Hm...talking about it, have to see if I have all spices left at home....neeed Egg Byriani. Need....

A street stall thali in Mumbai.

Just about anything in Istanbul ... esp. fish sandwiches, and stuffed mussels.

I think Turkey wins. I really enjoyed the gozleme and turkish ice cream that's widely available there.

Bocadillos in Spain are wonderful, especially "bocadillos calientes" (hot bocadillos). These are nothing more than baguette sandwiches (closer to what we in Minnesota would call "subs") with very simple fillings - typically just meat, cheese, or "tortilla". Unlike American "restaurant" sandwiches, vegetables and mayonnaise are NOT necessary. Bocadillos are usually quite filling and typically run between 2 and 4 euros.

Those with "lomo y queso" (pork loin and cheese) and "tortilla y queso" (Spanish potato and egg omelet with cheese) are the best. Most bars have very similar bocadillo menus, but some are beginning to innovate...I had a "Moroccan bocadillo" in Granada.

In Morocco, you can find cheap food everywhere. I wish I would have had more time (and a stronger stomach) so I could have tried more of it - my experience is limited. I loved the sandwiches I got from this "snak" stand. That sauce picant is so good. A bottle of coke, sandwich, and tea at an apparently (if I understood the owner right) nameless snak near the Meknes souqs came to 20 Dh (under $3), and the bottle of coke probably accounted for a big part of that.

In the U.S., small ethnic restaurants serving an primarily immigrant clientele are an excellent way to eat on the cheap. You can find a wide variety of these in most mid-sized and large cities. One place I really liked in St. Paul called "La Hacienda" served a scary combination of "Mexican, Peruvian, Salvadoran, Mediterranean, and American" food and had even scarier "FAST FOOD" and "GYROS $3.99" stickers on the strip mall storefront window, but the "carne deshilada" (shredded beef) combo was delicious, as was the delectable bean and cheese pupusa I got.

I'll throw in my somewhat prejudiced vote for anticuchos in Peru. They are grilled beef heart kabobs with a spicy rocoto sauce. Delicious anytime, but best when eaten in the wee hours of the morning after a night of drunkenness and debauchery.

I lived off of Saltena's in Bolivia...mmmmm....i miss those dough pockets of meat and vegetable goodness...

Last two posts,
Empanadas in Argentina, salteñas in Bolivia also my favourite street food in South Am.
Also anticuchos in Peru.
All washed down with fresh orange juice or chicha from a not so hygenic looking street vendor.
I'd also add ceviche (raw white fish, mariscos, red onions, lime juice) in Peru.

Veg thali in Chennai and anywhere in Kerala.

Melitzanes Papoutsakia - "little shoes," eggplant stuffed with ground lamb and topped with bechamel on Amorgos Island, Greece.

Egg roast with lacha paratha at a Trivandrum, India bus stop (hopefully the picture here comes through)...

Can't believe no-ones mentionedsticky rice and mango in Bangkok and Chiang Mai - you can have caviar I'll take this anyday.

Anything Indian in Penang

I vote Thai. Thstrreet food is amazing, and the curries outstanding and there are so many flavours and yummy things to explore... (I wiil take a plate of sticky rice and mango any day!)
Altough Malaysia comes a close second, LOVE laksa and chicken rice and practically everything else...