Street food is not the risk you think. Here is the actual rule.
The rule is turnover, not hygiene theatre.
A stall with a queue is cooking continuously, which means what you are handed came out of hot oil ninety seconds ago. A spotless-looking counter with nobody at it has food that has been sitting. The queue is the health inspection.
So: go where the crowd is, and go at the hour the locals go, which is usually earlier than you would think for snacks and later than you would think for dinner. Eat it cooked, eat it hot, eat it now rather than carrying it.
What to leave: anything raw that has been washed and not peeled, anything with ice, anything that has been cut and left in the air, and the fresh juice stand, which is the single most common culprit and the one that looks healthiest.
The travellers who get sick are usually not the ones eating at stalls. They are the ones who ate nothing all day because they were nervous, then arrived at dinner starving and ate an enormous amount of very rich food at nine at night.
A good guide will take you to three stalls in an hour and you will be fine. That is a large part of what a good guide is for.
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