Take A Midnight Tour Of Roosevelt Ave Street Eats
Photo courtesy Veronica Chan
While street vendors have had a rough go of things lately in Manhattan, over in Queens they're doing just fine, as evidenced by the throngs of carts and trucks lining Roosevelt Avenue in Jackson Heights, Elmhurst and Corona. There are hundreds of carts, serving up everything from tacos to ceviche to paan. Don't know where to start? That's where "Queens Qustodian" Jeff Orlick comes in.
Orlick has been organizing popular midnight street crawls of Roosevelt Avenue for a few years now, and he recently began offering private tours of Queens for smaller groups. "It's become apparent that somehow I'm the foremost expert on the food here —how this happened, I don't know!" he says. "Well, I guess it's because of my everlasting quest to learn more about where I live, combined with my strange schedule which keeps me up at 1 a.m."
His previous tours have uncovered little-known delights like the gut-busting Dominican Yaroa and Ecuadorian fish soup, but he promises that each private tour will be catered specifically to the ticket-holder's tastes. "The places I go to are well beyond the Arepa Lady. I start out at 90th Street and move east deep into Corona, but every one is different based on eating preferences of the group," he says. Sign up for your very own customized street food tour, at midnight or a more decent hour, right this way.
