If you want to know what “casual dining” in east London was like before the street-food boom, take a stroll from Upton Park tube station to West Ham’s stadium on match day. Not much has changed. The smoky line of stalls and takeaways offer the same rubbery burgers, wan hotdogs and greasy chips it has for years. For the more exotically inclined, the local fusion dish is a balti pie.
This might seem an unlikely setting in which to find Twitter’s most talked-about British street-food vendor – mentioned 20,000 times last year. But here he is: 48-year-old Mark Gevaux, better known as the Rib Man for his succulent baby-back pork-rib meat stuffed into floury buns and topped with a lava-like splodge of his own hot sauce – it’s called Holy Fuck, and for good reason. At £7, the rolls are pricier than your average football fare, but they are infinitely tastier.
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