The Halal Guys: Have It Halal

The Halal Guys operate food carts and it is a business model unlike anything I've ever seen. Instead of having multiple food carts spread across the city or one cart operated by a couple individuals, The Halal Guys have multiple food carts in one concentrated area. As we were walking around Rockefeller Plaza in Manhattan, I noticed four different The Halal Guys food carts. And the craziest thing about it to me was that each one of the carts had a long line of people!Because my wife had done her research and knew the inside scoop, we quickly joined one of the lines when we saw it was one of The Halal Guys carts. As part of our plan to experience a large variety of restaurants over the course of the weekend, we committed to ordering one thing from The Halal Guys and sharing it. It was a chance to sample something without spending much money or getting too full. The long line moved rather quickly and I became more excited as I could smell the food being prepared.Once we made it to the cart, my wife placed our order while I played the role of "idiot food tourist who takes pictures of all the food he sees." We ordered a wrap that was stuffed with lamb, chicken, lettuce, tomato, white sauce, and red sauce. We took our wrap and joined the masses of people who find spots to sit on the sidewalk and eat their street food. It's so unhygienic and an essential part of the experience.The meat in the wrap was delicious. The lamb was incredibly tender and juicy and the chicken had great seasoning. I wish I knew the spices they used to marinate the meat because it had excellent flavor and was something you'd never expect was prepared on a small flat top grill on the side of the street. The pita was also very good and reminded me of fluffy pieces of garlic naan from my favorite Indian restaurants. The red sauce offered entirely too much heat, and we probably should have left that off. However, the white sauce reminded me of a tzatziki topping that was creamy and helped alleviate some of the heat. The wrap a huge step up from any Great Wraps or Gyro Wraps people are used to seeing in shopping mall food courts. And for around $6.00, it was a great way to sample one of New York's most popular street carts.