The Triangle

Issue date: 10/7/05 Section: Entertainment

1 George's Breakfast Truck

This truck is usually parked closest to Main Building with the rest of the 32nd Street trucks. It's one of the larger trucks, and it serves just about everything. However, If you're going to make a special trip down there, go for the hash browns.

There is no better breakfast than hash browns from this cart. They are cheap, always a perfect crispy golden-brown and taste like pure, distilled bliss. Many times, these hash browns have saved students who are angry and bitter at being up so early. Get the hash browns heavily salted and smothered in ketchup.

2 Ulysses'

This truck serves both lunch and breakfast. The Triangle staffers disagree as to exactly what this cart looks like, but we know it's on 32nd Street next to Main Building.

Former staffers claim that this place has the best cheesesteaks. Apparently, the secret involves the roll. We suggest trying red sauce on your steak instead of cheese and throwing some bacon in there, but to each his own. One man's red steak with bacon is another man's lunch. Er, it's both men's lunch. Just eat one: you'll see what we mean.

3 TV Truck

The largest and probably most recognizable truck on Lunch Truck Row is the Greek Cart, also known as the TV Cart. Both are common names among its patrons and for good reason. The cart has a miniature television on a fixture from its canopy, and the folks who run it are Greek. The Greek Cart's claim to fame is its breakfast sandwich.

The sausage, egg and cheese sandwich is probably the best along the row, as you can tell by the crowd that settles around the cart at approximately 10 a.m. The only problem I have with their sandwiches is that if you want your eggs fried rather than scrambled, you have to go at off-peak hours.

Their other selections are passable-to-good as well. They make good hoagies and cheesesteaks; however, none of their sandwiches are complete unless you have fries on the side. If you're in a rush, there is an array of candy and muffins, and for the news savvy, the Greek Cart is the only one to sell the Philadelphia Inquirer and Daily News.

The staff, which occasionally includes mechanical engineering and mechanics computer lab head Stephanos Karas, is friendly, and they aren't hesitant to greet you with a smile.

Overall, the Greek Cart stands above average, and they deserve a stop or two during the week.

4 Sue's

Sue's sits along with all the other 32nd Street lunch trucks on Ludlow Street. They serve up great breakfast and lunch foods, and we especially suggest the bagels. It's hard to extol the virtues of one bagel over another, so just trust us. They make bagels the way The Triangle makes papers - very well and all the time. They also put out every Friday.

Don't think you're getting away with reading a solely bagel talk-up: they make killer hamburgers. Not killer the way that PETA wants you to think, because those guys are a bunch of jerks, but killer as in really good. If we had to describe Sue's hamburgers with one word, that word would be "juicetabulous."

Throw some cheese, onions, bacon and catsup on there, and you've got a feast fit for you or me.Yes, catsup.

5 Kim's Chinese Dragon

Kim's Chinese Dragon, parked between Main Building and the Center for Automation Technology, is one of the best Chinese carts I've ever been to. They do many things right, and most of The Triangle's staff swear by their Sesame Chicken.

The sauce is both sweet and tangy, and the chicken is always perfectly deep-fried. They also serve a number of side orders that are perfect for between classes or a quick snack. When I was taking tDEC courses my freshman year, it wasn't abnormal to see me run quickly outside for a spring roll or steamed dumplings between lectures.

These things are fast, cheap and tasty - perfect for an overstressed student on the go. At random, I decided to try the scallop fried rice. There's a running joke that my father tells that in the back of every Chinese restaurant there are three huge cauldrons, and everything on the menu is just some different combination of the contents of these vats. I mention this because the sauce in the scallop fried rice resembles the sauce of their sesame chicken, which resembles the sauce of their General Tsao's chicken, and so on.

Regardless, the scallop fried rice was as tasty as could be. Big, fat, juicy scallops along with that brown sauce and scallions made for a thoroughly enjoyable repast. Furthermore, check out the homemade iced tea. It is roughly 100 times sweeter than an tea you've ever sipped.

6 Mai's

Mai's has some of the best tasting food on campus, period. By and large, it beats the different Chinese outlets that have 20 times the working space, and it's conveniently located right in the middle of all the engineering buildings. If you're an engineering student, you couldn't ask for a better place to get a great Chinese dish at a closer proximity. If you're some other major that requires you to spend most of your time in some other hall, then the walk across campus is well worth it to partake in Mai's stir-fried goodness.

The menu is varied, and it has vegetarian options in addition to the items with meat. There are plenty of dishes that you can get with chicken, roast pork, seafood or shrimp, but the real all-star in this cart is the beef. I take that back. The real all-star on this cart is the beef along with the brown sauce that smothers nearly every dish, such as Beef with Snow Peas, Beef Broccoli, or Tofu Beef with Vegetables. This brown sauce may very well be the most addictive substance known to man. I would order a quart of it and drink it every day if they'd sell it to me. If good Chinese at reasonable prices is what you're looking for, Mai's is definitely for you.

7 Michael's

There are sandwiches, and then there are sandwiches. Most carts serve the former, but Michael's, the lunch truck at the end of Lunch Truck Row on that once construction-laden street between the Main Building and the Center for Automation Technology serves the latter. If you've ever been there, you know what I'm talking about.

The Big Fat Jimmy

Verily, if there has ever been a more magnificent creation known to a hungry college student with a taste for greasy food, I haven't seen it yet. This monstrosity of metabolism contains chicken fingers, mozzarella sticks, french fries and tomato sauce all piled on a hoagie roll. It will take a few weeks off the end of your life, but that's a small price to pay, seeing that you've never truly lived until you've had one.

Big Fat Jimmy, apparently has a wife and a sister. Big Fat Jimmy's Wife contains the same mozzarella sticks and fries, but instead of chicken fingers and tomato sauce, it has chipped steak and Cheese Whiz on it. Big Fat Jimmy's Sister combines both sandwiches into an artery-clogging godsend.

If that wasn't enough, Michael's provides hoagies and hot dogs of comparable stature, as well as the best chicken parmigiana sandwich you'll find on campus. They also serve breakfast all day and not just breakfast sandwiches either. They have home fries and omelets as well.

The three guys who run the cart are also very friendly, and your wait will be enjoyable while you joke around with them. The personality is gravy, as the food at Michael's is as top-notch as you will find at any lunch truck.

But whatever you do, you must try a Big Fat Jimmy or one of his relatives. You won't be disappointed.

8 The Library Truck

I'd been told that this truck, parked on 34th St. just below Market, makes the best cheesesteaks on campus. That remains an unsubstantiated rumor, however, because I opted to try the Kielbasa sandwich. For once, my instincts didn't fail me: I've had Kielbasa all over campus, and this one was by far the best.

They didn't just take the Kielbasa, a type of Polish sausage for those of you not in the know, and fry it up; they took it, cut it into thin slices that looked like fat pepperonis, and then fried it. This ensured that all of the flavor came surging forth, as well as the fabulous texture of the crisp, blackened skin.

I normally eat my Kielbasa with bacon, onions, and mustard, but at this truck it would be a shame to add anything. The flavor of the Kielbasa is so strong, due to the way they prepare it, that I would suggest you eat it sans toppings. I always compare every Kielbasa I eat to those prepared by my Aunt Helen, an old Polish woman from Scranton, so you know that if I say it's good, it must be fantastic.

9 The Pretzel Cart

Across from Ecco Qui, at the corner of 32nd and Chesnut streets, there's a little unnamed cart that sits back under the trees. It's usually called either the Pretzel Cart or the Armenian's Cart, though no one seems to know if the man who runs it is an Armenian or if that's just an urban legend.

What isn't an urban legend is that his chicken cheesesteaks, which some of you, incorrectly and despicably, call white steaks, are the best around. Every cart on campus has a faction that swears that cart XYZ's cheesesteaks are the best, but there is no question that this is the place to go for a chicken cheesesteak. We're not saying the rest are bad, just that these are fantastic. Not only that, but the prices here are consistently lower than elsewhere, especially for drinks.

Rumor has it that pretzels come free with many of the orders, but you might need to know a secret handshake or something, because we couldn't get one. Regardless, we got a chicken cheesesteak so scrumptious that the smell of it made passing vegetarians renounce their lifestyle and order one for themselves.

10 Khan's

Khan's is one of the smallest lunch trucks, parked on the corner of 33rd and Market, across from that goofy triangular island with all of the flags. One of the best things about this cart is its location. It's about as close to dead-center of campus as one can get. For a smaller cart it has a pretty good number of customers out front most of the time, but they keep the line moving.

They also make many mean breakfast sandwiches. We haven't tried them all, but if they're all similar, you can't go wrong by starting your day with a something-egg-and-cheese.

The staff is split between whether that 'something' should be bacon, scrapple, ham, sausage, or the various turkey substitutes, but we're in agreement that it's all tasty.

Just remember not to put ketchup on your eggs, Philistine. Something's are a matter of taste, and some a matter of morality, and putting ketchup on your eggs is just plain wrong.

11 Pete's Lunchbox

Pete's Little Lunchbox is the modern, almost futuristic looking lunch truck parked at 33rd a little above Market. It's got the best spot on the entire campus, and is an easy walk from the armory, the gym and Nesbitt Hall.

We especially recommend the breakfast sandwiches but if you're going to go, go during some sort of off-hour. We're not sure what the off hours would be, exactly, but we know that standing at the crossroads of the campus means that they're always swamped. Even though they usually have a line several hundred people long, they get things out in an orderly fashion. There must be some sort of assembly line or mass production or interchangeable parts or something being used. You probably heard about it in economics, but don't remember.

Regardless, if you're walking by and are hungry, give it a shot. You won't be disappointed.

12 The Happy Star

The Happy Star is on 32nd Street, across from University Crossings. They're open mainly for lunch, and they serve up some mean hoagies. In fact, their hoagies might be magical, since they seem to never get soggy. Is this the dark profit from a tainted pact made with otherworldy forces? To be blunt: no. It isn't. It is, however, tasty.

13 Bank Carts

The Bank Carts are located on Market Street between 35th and 36th streets, near the PNC bank. There's a couple of them, and we only mention them because we know that one of them has the best chicken pita sandwiches on the face of the earth.

It has been said that these pitas are so good that eating one is similar to eating pure unadulterated awesomeness slathered in a sauce of creamy distilled deliciousness. For instance, I just said that, just now.

The number of carts parked there varies from time to time, and staffers are at odds as to which one has the aforementioned sandwiches. Maybe they all do. Or, maybe they pass it like a tasty football amongst themselves. We're doing you a favor by not being specific, really.

14 The Post Office Trucks

The lunch trucks outside of the 30th St. post office are one of only two other mass groupings of lunch trucks we know about. The other is somewhere on Penn's campus, and no two people can agree on where. Perhaps, like the Eye of the World, it never appears in the same place twice and can only be found in one's hour of greatest need, but that's neither here nor there.

The post office trucks certainly smell good. In fact, if there were a deodorant that smelled like the post office lunch trucks, all of us would wear it all the time. That having been said, most of the post office lunch trucks have one other thing in common: they're expensive. Even if you're a commuter who hangs out at the train station all the time, we recommend the extra two-block walk to the 32nd Street carts. They may smell less strongly of frying fish, but they're just as good and substantially cheaper.

If you're enticed by the exotic foods they advertise, don't be. The few times we've gone down there our hearts were almost broken when we were told that they didn't have many of the strange foods they advertise on the sides of the trucks. Stick to the 32nd Street carts.

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