Taqueria Cancun's burrito mojado is a gigantic carne asado burrito drowning in sauces.

In San Francisco's Mission District, where the burrito as we know it was invented, the ultimate form is known as the burrito mojado ("wet burrito"). An overstuffed flour-tortilla burrito is smothered in all the sauces at hand, which may run to guacamole, red and green salsas, pico de gallo, and crema, rendering it richer and more assertively flavored, thereby flinging it deeper into gutbomb territory. This treatment also forces you to eat the thing with a knife and fork. Finally, the East Village has its own rendition, not quite so inundated as that found at Taqueria Cancun on Mission Street, but formidable nonetheless.

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Fiore Deli's Italian roast beef hero, including cross-sectional view

One of the stunning achievements of Italian-American cooking is the invention of the hero sandwich. Whether stuffed with cold cuts or cutlets, with cheese or without, served warm or at room temperature, dressed with tomato sauce or oil-and-vinegar, they stood for the opulence, abundance, and cheapness of food in the New World.

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Los Perros Locos' "Ultimas" Salchipapas. The quail egg is dead center.

Salchipapas are found in most South American cities. Consisting of french fries topped with sliced frankfurters, it's both street food and a meal aimed at children when their parents are eating more elaborate fare in a restaurant. You know, like a Happy Meal. Now Los Perros Locos ("The Crazy Wiener"), a new Lower East Side restaurant specializing in Colombian-style hot dogs, seeks to redefine the dish in contemporary foodist terms, perhaps inspired by poutine on one hand and Jersey disco fries on the other.

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Look closely, and you'll see the frank cautiously peeping out at the right end of the assemblage.

Those who like their dogs topped with kraut and mustard will be shocked at the South American take on hot dogs. Take the perro Colombiano at La Casa de la Antojitos, a combination bakery and diner in Jackson Heights.

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The overstuffed chili dog at Dickson's. If you look carefully, you can see the glint of mayo through the morass of chili.

Papaya King, watch your ass! Papaya Dog, too! There's a new chlli dog roaming the city's dog runs, from boutique meat source Dickson's Farmstand Meats.

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At Potbelly you'll be serenaded, as Andy Warhol looks on.

When Potbelly and the Earl of Sandwich debuted a few months ago, they were treated as co-equal combatants in the new sandwich-chain sweepstakes. The first came via an ancient Chicago sandwich shop; the second as a claimant to the actual pedigree of the guy who supposedly invented the sandwich.

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Papaya King, 86th Street and Third Avenue, 9:30 p.m.

Founded in 1932, Papaya King is the first of the Greek-owned hot-dog chains to serve papaya drink -- to aid in digestion, or so the claim goes. The pairing of hot dog and papaya drink was also thought to be especially healthy and nutritious when the place was founded. Now, hot dogs of this type are anathema to nutritionists, due to fat and salt content. And, truth be told, the beverage (and its various troupical-juice brethren also available) is not all that great. Spring for the fresh orange juice if you must moisturize.

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Mmmmm -- Ever tempted to eat something that's absolute garbage?

This quick meretricious gobble features a skin-on all-beef hot dog made in New Jersey, a lake of canned chili with beans (you know you love that canned taste), and "cheese" that was squirted via a hand pump out of a big can that rests on the griddle to keep it warm.

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Lauren Shockey

Mmmm, fried

What can we say, we're suckers for anything fried: fried pizza, fried green beans, fried bunny rabbit. Submerging food in vats of bubbling oil just adds to the deliciousness factor, hence the trend at county fairs of frying anything edible (even Kool-Aid balls and sticks of butter). So when Chipsy (99 MacDougal Street, 212-244-7799) opened over the weekend, we knew we had to pop in and sample the deep-fried Oreos.

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The meatball parm hero now being served at Faicco's is an Italian-American classic.

A holdout in one of Manhattan's last remaining Little Italys, Faicco's Pork Store has been an anchor of Greenwich Village's Bleecker Street since 1966. The fully stocked store is famous for its homemade soppressata (a large-bore Apulian salami, hot or sweet), made-to-order hero sandwiches, homemade mozzarella (the best in the city -- plain, lightly salted, or smoked), and, of course, raw pork products.

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