Street Burritos

At 12:15 today, I realized I had somewhere around $40, give or take, to last me until my next paycheck. At 12:45 today, I realized I was starving. My unfortunate financial situation kept me from going to one of my usual filling-lunch destinations, and inspired me to hit the food carts in the hope of finding a cheap and filling meal.

I have worked in this area for close to three years, and have never eaten from any of the food carts down here besides a couple of the fruit salad/juice carts. I have long been curious, but never knew where to begin. I did recall seeing a taco cart once off the Chase Manhattan Bank plaza, and I do love tacos, so this is where I began.

There was no one waiting, which I tend to think of as a bad sign at a food cart*, but Mexican sounded really good to me. And I was starving. I only saw hard taco shells, so decided to try a burrito rather than a taco. I briefly debated getting a vegetarian burrito, but quickly decided on chicken instead. The chicken was pulled and stewed in a red sauce, and topped with beans, lettuce, and sliced tomato. Unable to choose among my various options, I requested sour cream and cheese and guacamole (the last of which added $1.50 to the price, for a total of $4.50).

My burrito was not very tightly wrapped, making it messier than it had to be. The chicken was pretty tasty and the guacamole was fine, but all the other ingredients left much to be desired. The lettuce was soggy and the tomato was (as I mentioned) sliced, which is awkward in a burrito. The worst component was the cheese (which I recognized was a mistake to order as soon as I saw it) - it was the liquidy orange nacho cheese.

Overall, edible but disappointing and not very filling. I'll have to go to an old standby tomorrow to make up for it.

* I have a general theory that to recognize a good cart, one should look for the longest line.

I think there may be more than one taco cart in this general vicinity, but the one I went to today was the south-most cart in front of the Chase building on Broad Street, just north of Pine St.