New York, NY —

New technology in taxis may help you pay your fare by credit card or check out the latest news on small TV screens. It may also bring advertisers from the rooftop INTO the taxi. But WNYC’s Lisa Chow reports sometimes the best advertising is in the front seat.

REPORTER: If you ask most nighttime cabbies where to go for good, cheap food, this is what you’ll hear.

MONTAGE OF CAB DRIVERS: 53rd and 6th. I would say that’s the halal cart on 53rd and 6th. The one at 53rd and 6th avenue. You know it’s quick. It’s like 5 dollars for a whole plate of rice and chicken. They have the best white sauce

REPORTER: It’s a New York phenomenon. There’s a line in front of this pushcart forms every night from 7 in the evening when it opens … to 5 in the morning when it closes on weekends.

ULLAH: Let me get one lamb, with extra salad (fade under)

REPORTER: Muhammed Ullah and Anthony Henriquez drive up from New Jersey three times a week. They pay the tolls just to eat this food.

ULLAH: Describe it? Heaven.

HENRIQUEZ: Better than sex?

REPORTER: Then there’s Elmer Ortiz. He’s a student at Baruch College.

ORTIZ: Me and my friend we came after church, after we had a service and we just like came because we wanted it so bad.

REPORTER: Most of the customers are young people, students and late night partiers. But they weren’t the first.

ELGOHARY: Cabbies, they are the people who made us.

REPORTER: Mohamed Elgohary runs the pushcart. The business started, nearly 20 years ago, as a hot dog stand. But cabbies wanted something different, so it moved on to sell zhir-ōs, then chicken, then chicken and rice.

ELGOHARY: and they tell a lot of people about us.

CHAUDHRY: A friend of mine he drives a cab here told us about it maybe 6 years ago.

REPORTER: Sunny Chaudhry drives 70 miles all the way from southern New Jersey. He brings his family twice a month. He comes, first, because it’s Halal, meaning the food’s prepared according to Islamic law.

CHAUDHRY: Second thing. I don’t know what they mix in it, but it’s awesome. There’s nothing which can beat this. We take a lot back so we’ll be eating for the next 2 days.

REPORTER: The pushcart employs 15 people. Eight men are at the cart. They take orders. They re-cook the food. They clean up. The others work off-site, in a kitchen in Astoria, where the meat is cooked and stored. Deliveries of more food come every 15 minutes.

ELGOHARY: Our days start at like 6 o’clock in the morning. I am the one who’s almost like 24 hours. I have to prepare the food // I make sure that everything is good.

REPORTER: Elgohary says he’s one of the cart’s four managers. He rotates in for 3 to 4 months a year, and spends the rest of his time in Egypt. He’s vague about how much business the cart does every day.

ELGOHARY: I can’t give you any numbers but we’re doing ok. We’re doing good, we serve a lot of people.

REPORTER: how many people do you think come?

ELGOHARY: It’s a lot.

REPORTER: Like in the hundreds, thousands?

ELGOHARY: I can’t tell you (fade under)

REPORTER: On a recent frigid Saturday night, the cart sold about 100 plates in a half an hour. Now this is winter, but it’s a peak time. If the cart sold at that rate for all the hours it’s open, it would bring in more than 3 million dollars a year. So what’s the secret?

ELGOHARY: The white sauce is delicious.

REPORTER: What is the white sauce?

ELGOHARY: It’s the white sauce.

REPORTER: What is white sauce?

ELGOHARY: White sauce is our secret. You can’t love the food without the sauce.

REPORTER: One thing’s for sure. A cart half a block away, it can’t really compete. Eric Brown is a transit worker. He’s the only customer ordering food.

BROWN: I don’t know everybody goes over there, I don’t know why. I thought maybe because due to the prices or something, or maybe they were giving them extra meat or something. That’s not what it is.

REPORTER: Brown says he prefers THIS cart. Then he takes a second look at his order being prepared.

BROWN: The meat seems kind of dry. Usually it’s nice and tender and you can see the juice flowing out of it. I don’t see any juice today. It’s like something has been left over from yesterday.

REPORTER: Back at the busier cart, Dwight Tucker shares a different experience.

TUCKER: It don’t get no better than this. It’s something about the lamb, the lamb and rice, the mixture: Once you taste it, you’ll be interviewing yourself

REPORTER: So I did try, and I can see where they’re coming from. For WNYC, I’m Lisa Chow.