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Welcome to the Street

The quick, intensely flavorful and achingly authentic foods of international street vendors are inspiring cool new concepts stateside.

The United States may have its boardwalk hot dogs, its ice cream cones and funnel cake and walk-around Dungeness crab cocktails on Fisherman's Wharf. But we ain't got nothing on global street food—empanadas, gorditas, chaat, pupusas, falafel, satays, socca, ramen, samosas, steamed buns. The markets and public gathering spots of nations around the world are a riot of foods meant to be eaten on the fly.

Street foods are a vibrant fact of life in cultures as diverse as Mexico and the Mediterranean, India, Southeast Asia, Japan, China and Latin America. They've been making their way here in more familiar guises for several decades now—the tacos and kebabs, gelato and paper cones of pommes frites—but that's just the start.

Snacky foods are a near-perfect entrée into ethnic foods. They're small, shareable and worth a shot for both confirmed foodies and first-timers:

• Mexican antojitos: corn- or tortilla-based "little cravings" that include quesadillas, gorditas and tamales
• Chinese xiao chi: "little eats" such as fried noodles or rice balls and bing, pancakes
• Indian chaat: snacks including fritters, dumplings and breads

For chefs and entrepreneurs seeking the Next Big Thing, street food represents a bonanza of fun, flavor and ethnic thrill-seeking. Street foods were on the rise even before the current economic slide, and now the convenience and affordability of street food seem tailor-made for the times. The fact that global street food and other ethnic snacks are also sophisticated and shareable really seals the deal—a perfect fit with the small-plates trend, and taking over where Spanish tapas and Chinese dim sum leave off.

Excerpted from Restaurant Business, June 2009

Check out these ethnic inspired recipes:

• Turkey Soft Tacos
• Chicken Kung Po Noodles
• Thai Turkey Dumplings
• Chicken Tenders with Asian Noodle Salad