Best street vendors

Every city seems to have it%26#39;s own unique blend of food vendors. What would be considered to be food that is uniquely sold on the streets of Paris? Where is the best place to locate these vedors? Has anyone any favourites? What should someone new to the city be cautious about concerning these vendors?

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Paris does not really have a tradition of food to go, so vendors of the NYC hot dog stand variety are not something I recall seeing here, with the exception of roasted chestnuts in the winter months.

What I consider %26quot;street food%26quot; that is sold from shop windows to be consumed on the go is about the closest I can think of to what you are talking about :

Crepes are the most common and you%26#39;ll find them throughout the city, usually attached to a cafe or creperie.

Many bakeries have little kiosks to sell their sandwiches more quickly during the lunch rush.

Falafel on the rue des Rosiers.

Rotisserie chicken that many butchers prepare in racks that sit on the sidewalk just outside their shops.

As for hygene, I really stay away from the restaurants along the rue de Huchette area. The food places there are dodgey at best.

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Phread ~%26gt; Thanks for you helpful advice. It%26#39;s good to know that wherever we are their will be a little something that we can pick up to eat.

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Onward....hubby and I also enjoyed gyro sandwiches (served with French fries on top--once with mayonaise!) and panninis...not necessarily native to France, but yummy, fast, and affordable, none-the-less. Also, as Phread said, many bakeries, etc. have quick, yummy things to go, including little quiches. And it%26#39;s easy to find creperies, also....some have only sweet fillings (which Myles and I can%26#39;t have)...others offer crepes filled with cheeses and/or ham.

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Remember that old thing. %26quot;Do real men eat quiche?%26quot;

Cool info Miss. Sounds like you could make daily meals out of all of this.

Do you recall what a crepe like that would cost you?

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Onward...yes, you can make meals out of it if you want (in a hurry or whatever) or at least a substantial snack--all that walking and the excitement of being in Paris does burn up energy!! (It%26#39;s the same with the %26quot;tasty pastys%26quot; in London...affordable, hearty, tasty, and fairly easy to find.)

We didn%26#39;t get any crepes--were looking for something a bit more substantial then--but I think the crepes were somewhere around 4E, give or take a euro and depending upon the location of the creperie and the filling. The sweet ones smelled intoxicatingly good, and since we couldn%26#39;t have any, we didn%26#39;t spend much time hanging around the creperies. :-)

And trust me, real men DO eat quiche!!

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LOL Miss ~%26gt; I%26#39;ll eat quiche proudly as a man.

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My favorite street food, by far which I haven%26#39;t seen anywhere else, are Nutella crepes.

I don%26#39;t know why Nutella isn%26#39;t marketed more aggressively here in the US. It can be found in some supermarkets, but isn%26#39;t all that well-known. I think it%26#39;s just about the greatest snack food ever invented!

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My favorite way to eat cheaply in Paris is the pseudo-to-go food, which I found a lot of.

I found a street vendor on St. Andre des Arts, selling pizza and other food. That%26#39;s a nice street to check out anyway for shops and pubs.

There are places in the 5th and near the Louvre and elsewhere that sell cheese dogs (very good -- they%26#39;re foot long hot dogs with melted white cheese, real cheese, not the processed kind you find at ball parks). I love them because you can%26#39;t find anything like it in the U.S.

Lots of places sell paninis -- a common one is ham and butter.

There is a charcuterie?? in front of the Maubert Metro in the 5th that has a kiosk with different kinds of quiche every day. I grabbed one for breakfast each morning. There is also a coffee shop nearby, on Blvd. St. Germain, that sells coffee to go (à emporter) -- which is very hard to find in Paris. But if you don%26#39;t have time to spend at a cafe in the morning, it%26#39;s a nice option.

I did read somewhere, though, that the French consider it rude to eat while walking around.

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Onward, I just realized that you posted the question. Haven%26#39;t you been to Paris like a million times? I thought it was a newbie asking. :)

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Media...it may be considered rude to eat in the streets, but I was not going to waste one more minute after we%26#39;d unloaded ourselves in our apartment--and I was starving! (and hypoglycemic...figured fainting on the street would be bad, also)...so I grabbed a delicious gyro and happily munched on it (and the fries, even dipping them in mayonaise!) while we explored the area immediately around our apartment (and went on our search for towels!) :-)