Two Midtown Food Carts Could Be Crowned NYC's Best

MIDTOWN MANHATTAN, NY — Two carts who have long been established in the Midtown food scene will compete to be named the city's best food cart.

The husband and wife duo behind Royal Grill Halal Food and the Staten Island-native who founded Jiannetto's Pizza and Catering will compete on Saturday, Sept. 22 for the Vendy Awards' top prize — The Vendy Cup.

MD Alam and his wife Hira set up each day on the corner of West 44th Street and Sixth Avenue and serve up heaping portions of halal food to the masses who work in Midtown.

The Alam's are best known for specialties such as chicken tikka masala over rice and a variety of biryani dishes, according to the Vendy Awards' website. Hira opened the food cart in 2005 and MD quit his restaurant management job shortly after to focus on the cart full-time.

"Since I opened this business, every single day I get customer, every single day I get business," RD Alam said in a video. "Every single day they say 'my friend give me the food, same food.'"

"I want to build a business to make people roll in every single day, and I make all the food special for everyone."

The other Midtown food cart competing in this year's Vendy Cup has served up pizzas from its spot on East 47th Street between Park and Madison Avenues for a whopping 20 years. Joe Jiannetto, a Staten Island native, says his pizzas are the "best in Manhattan."

Jiannetto prepares his trademark square grandma slice by baking cheese onto the dough before topping the pie off with sauce and more cheese for a trip back into the oven. As a kid, Jiannetto was always working in pizzerias on his native Staten Island.

"Grandma's pizza is just the best pie that we've always made and when you have something that's not broken you don't try to fix it," Jiannetto said in a video.

The two Midtown carts will take on three businesses based in Queens. Challengers include Burmese Bites from the Queens Night Market, Franky's Souvlaki from Astoria and El Saboroso de Aracataca from Jackson Heights. The Vendy Awards will be held Sept. 22 on Governors Island and feature a number of different awards including the Vendy Cup, best breakfast cart and best dessert cart.

Check out promotional videos for both carts below:

Photo by Drew Angerer/Getty Images News/Getty Images