The Carts gathered at Precita Park today.
At first I thought, wow, is this legal? Is this sanitary? Then one night out in The Mission I saw a line half a block long for a tiny little street cart selling some kind of Mexican sandwich. The patrons were young, hip, mostly sober and buying these sandwiches 2 by 2. This was something! They were not afraid of this crispy-fried curbside meat. They probably grubbed here every weekend, and obviously have all survived and brought friends.
Street carts. How genius. How economical. What a wonderful resource to bring together community and feast on interesting dishes from other cultures, right? But it took me a while to finally become convinced enough of the community aspect of these food carts. For years, street carts operated mainly by word-of-mouth solicitation and conveniently located set-ups near after hours bars and hipster hang-outs. There has been a cult like following almost, where you either knew where the carts were... or you didn't. I don't like cult-like things. And it was this type of notoriety that actually kept me at bay from seeking out the carts sooner. Did I have the right sneakers to wait in line? Was my purse organic enough?
Enter Twitter. Street cart vendors all joined Twitter recently. Excellent. This is my language! I've been following them for some time, watching them all band together to publicize their whereabouts and implore you to come join them! Finally, an open invite to hipsters and Internet nerds alike.The San Francisco Cart Project even helps out cart-tweeps by aggregating their announcements and generating a monthly calendar. Needless to say, I follow those guys too. Kudos.
So now, without further hesitation, part 2 of this blog entry is my account of the Street Cart Meet-up this Afternoon at Precita Park in The Mission. What I ate, what I spent, and what I thought. As you can imagine, I'm laying around with a food coma now, writing this. Enjoy it, punks!
@gumbocart"Satiating the Bay Area, one bowl at a time."
Offerings: just gumbo, by the bowl-full. Sausage & chicken with okra and all the fixins, atop fluffy white rice.
Cost: $5
Review: Very hearty. Could stand to be a bit spicier, but overall, quite good.
@IndiliciousCart
"Spreading the tikka taco love."
Offerings: Indian-inspired tacos in whole wheat tortilla/roti type wraps. Various chutneys and sauces accompany your choice of diced chicken or cauliflower mixture.
Cost: $4 for one taco, or $7 for two.
Review: Divine! With so many different flavors wrapped up inside it was hard to decipher which was the greatest. Very fresh, zesty and filling. The chicken could have been warmer, but I guess that's street food for ya.
"America's First Lumpia Cart"
Offerings: Pork, carrot, and "Mom's secret spices" lumpia. Comes with sweet pepper sauce.
Cost: $4 for 6
Review: Crispy, crunchy and warm! Exactly what I expected. I wish they were just a little bit bigger. I am a virgin lumpia-eater, so maybe they're all bite-size? Next time I'll get 2 orders.
"Food is my life"
Offerings: Pulled meat sandwiches. Chicken, pork, beef. We got "The Eliminator" which was a combo of pork and beef. Served on a whole wheat bun with sweet sauce and cabbage mix.
Cost: $6
Review: Most bang for buck, by far. Huge, cheap and tasty! Bonus points for Dontaye Ball being such a friendly guy!
"Bringin Healthy, Organic, Vegan Bakery Goodies To You and Believe it or not...They are GOOOD!"
Offerings: Seems like it may be different each day, but today they had a vegan black bean chili served in a bread bowl (you can imagine by this point we were too full for something that hearty), and vegan donuts.
Cost: $2 for the donut
Review: Hallelujah! What a great way to end our food cart smorgasbord. This little donut was more cake than donut and was perrfect. It was soft, moist, spongy and gingery. It was like eating a tiny vegan donut with the satisfaction of woofing down an entire gingerbread house.
It was very hard not to try all of the vendors. Next time I'd like to visit @adobohobo, @eviljerkcart and @toastymelts (who sold out quick!). Another day, another stomach. I'll definitely bring more people to feed. This crew says they try to get together once a week but typically spread out all over the city. I hope this inspires at least one of you to join what I am now calling "The Street Cart Revolution." Your community deserves it, and so do you!
