Mangiari di Strada

I had already made my mind that there wasn’t real street food in Milan until we took the longest tramway ride of our lives on a late Saturday morning to Mangiari di Strada.
This place can be defined the Italian street food temple and it’s in the southern outskirts of Milan (nothing to see in the area and it looks safe during the day… it just takes a while to get there with the tram). When you enter you’ll see the options written down in papers everywhere around the counters: from tripe, to sicilian sandwiches, tongue, cold cuts… all kinds of street food from all Italian regions.
The system is simple: you order at the counters, pay and wait for your food to be ready to be picked up.
The place has lots of seating space, both inside and in the backyard (there’s even a grill there) in the summer months. Food keeps coming out and staff is nice enough to explain the dishes and suggest wine pairings or specials.
We were very hungry and wanted to taste everything so we had the trippa di pecora con catalogna ed erbette (sheep tripe with chicory and herbs), coratella d’agnello con uova e scarola (lamb interiors with egg and escarole), the lampredotto sandwich (cow tripe, typical Florentine) and the meatballs with mashed potatoes, all delicious, especially the tripe and the lamb — the meatballs were a bit meh, but still good. And portions were just fine.
Adding 2 glasses of wine and 2 Chartreuse Verts digestifs, our total was of about 50 euro (5 euro each Chatreuse Vert, ouch). A bit expensive considering it is after all street food but the quality is excellent and it’s great to find all these varieties in just one place…
This was going to be a 4-​star review because of the slightly high prices and because it’s too far away from home and they are only open for lunch, but considering the quality of the ingredients and since I’m a tripe enthusiast and this is one of the few places in town where I can eat a decent one, 5 stars it is!
We’ll definitely be back, that burger looks great!