From Monday through Friday, between 11:00 am and 2:30 pm, a caravan of food carts and trucks sets up shop in the Ingalls Rink parking lot, rivaling both in numbers and in variety the carts on Cedar Street that have long catered to medical center employees.
This marketplace may be old news to Science Hill students, faculty, and employees—but for this English major, forcing herself on the thrice-weekly march to Sachem Street to capture that last science credit (E&EB 272: Ornithology), it’s a revelation. Even during what I’m told is the slow end of the afternoon, around 1:30 pm, there are still no fewer than nine food carts: two Mexican places, a halal cart, three Thai options. They seem to offer every kind of finger food imaginable (kati rolls, sushi, burritos). Everything messier gets carried away in white Styrofoam containers.
Yesterday, it was a practically tropical 54 degrees outside, so I believed Pravooth “Paul” Suntonivi, who runs one of the Thai carts, when he claimed to enjoy the fresh air. Recalling the days when carts would line up on the street, he said he prefers this new arrangement, which is safer and easier to navigate. The lot offers the lunch crowd a central gathering place with a variety of choices, and it offers the owners a sense of community.
“We’re all friends,” says Suntonivi, “Competition is by the business, not by the person.”
Before I left, Suntonivi put a steaming sliver of chicken onto a paper towel and handed it to me. It burned my fingers a little. It was delicious. It might even be enough to get me up and off to class in the morning when those other birds just won't do the trick.
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