Hector Becerra – BH native and Roughrider alum, a legit Eastsider folks! – wrote an article about a day in the life of Amado Campos, a elote-raspado-cheetos/takis pushcart moving salesman.
Who’s/where’s your favorite street vendor?
http://www.latimes.com/news/local/la-me-street-vendor17-2009jun17,0,307170,full.story
Eeeee, maybe everyone’s afraid to out their favorite ambulante lest they get busted by the health department.
Anyways, I hope my favorite vendor will be okay…I buy my esquites from a guy that stands in front of Forever 21 on North Figueroa in Highland Park. They are super excellent! Oh, and he’s only there on the weekends.
What’s up LA Eastside? Well I think picking one vendor is pretty hard because I tend to favor them based on category. For overall winner it would have to be Caridad, the lady that sells pozole on Breed and Cesar Chavez, she gets pretty down and she’s organizing the vendors. In the fruit category tendria que ser, the lady on Fickett and Cesar Chavez that sells in front of her pad, only frutera that doesn’t overprice the bolsitas. The other day when I asked some foo’ “cuanto es?” he was like “7 dolares”. I was like chale. Get to the car and was more pissed-he cheated me on limon AND chile!
chimatli, they did bust him back in March. But he was back in just a couple weeks.
Ambulantes never die, they only multiply!
great article but Hector neglected to ask what ive always been wondering where does he do #1 or even #2 when hes out working?
I mean on the way into downtown LA coming from Montebello I always see a few frutera carts stationed at corners or near gas stations.
I mean can you still get food poisoning from fruit, donde se lavan las manos, i remember at a bus stop seeing a frutera cutting some watermelon, pero no mames she doesnt have a sink on the cart?
Since getting a stomach ache from eating a hot dog down in the fashion district back in 2002, i dont buy any food from street vendors.
Like Whitney Houston says…”hell to the no, no!”
Y luego not paying taxes on his earnings its like hes virtually invisible.
So all that hard work for none of the benefits 🙁
Anyways just when sometimes i think i have it bad and my life sucks..some people have it worse.
I’ve gotten food poisoning from fancy expensive restaurants and all sorts of other places like people’s homes etc. For the most part, I feel pretty comfortable eating from ambulantes. I do mobile catering too and I’m really careful about cleanliness and hygiene. It’s possible to sell street food and have it be safe.
My favorite vendor is my self, I sell everything under the sun at the swapmeet. Here is a small list: Tamales, churros, elotes, mole, poloze, menudo, nopales, chicharonnes, raspados, fruta, avena, carnitas, patas de puerko, patas de pollo, bunelos, pastel, jelatina, colchones, aparatos usados, cacahuates,dulces, chicles, camisetas, pantalones, calsones, chanklas, masapan, tamarindo, igado, tacos de peirna, caldo de res, sofas, caros, bicicletas, calcetines, flan, pepinos, chamoy, cajeta, mole, birria, jabon, y mucho mas~!
when i worked on first street, near indiana, we’d have all kinds of vendors stoping by throughout the day. the gordita lady was the best. all about the chicharron or pollo gorditas. then the guy selling dvd movies would make an appearance. later in the day you’d hear “churroooooos… low calorie, no cholesterol. churrooooos!” i miss working on first. the company has since moved to santa fe springs. a palatero started making the rounds recently. took us back to the 1st st days. and for the record i’ve never gotten sick from street food.
I urge people to stop taking antibiotics like if they were Flyntstone vitamin pills. Antibiotics make our immune system weaker and in turn allow the viruses to mutate into stronger strains making them more diffucult to fight. Also, chances are that if you get sick eating out is because the consumer did not wash their hands before eating.
Imagine you are all day shopping, handling money, getting off/on the bus. On the way home you decide to buy a hot dog with bacon. Your hand reaches in the pant pocket blindly trying to find and pull 2 dollars out. They hand you your hotdog and you start eating. (Did you wash your hands?)
Be safe,
My favorite street vendor is the lady who sells tamales and champurrado on 1st and Boyle. Very few people know how to make good champurrado and she is one them.