Adel's Famous Halal Food

Six blocks south of the famous carts, an Egyptian-American cook who spent years in the trade runs his own cart at 49th and Sixth, and in the evenings his line can be longer than the one everyone has heard of. People wait patiently, phones out, watching the griddle work the chicken in batches.

The order is chicken over rice, generously sauced, and it arrives hotter and more freshly cut than most of what Midtown sells after dark. Portions are large enough to split. It is the cart that New Yorkers send their visiting friends to once they have already done the obvious one.