Sunday, January 10, 2010

San Francisco Food Carts




The Carts gathered at Precita Park today.
 
I became acutely aware of street cart dining in San Francisco about 4 years ago. It started with The Churro Dude, then The Tamale Lady. You may notice my logo is borrowed from The Cotton Candy Guy.

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.







@lumpiacart
"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.




@goodfoodscaters
"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!



Friday, January 8, 2010

Golden Star Vietnamese - Best Pho in SF?



Okay, so it's really hard to make Pho look that appealing, especially with a low-qual camera. But here is the five-spice chicken Pho  noodle soup from Golden Star Vietnamese. I had been craving a hot pho soup for days and turned to Yelp.com for inspiration. Nestled between C-Town, and FiDi, was this 4-star rated, single dollar-sign ($) gem of a find!

It wasn't even noon and the place was swarming. There was a sign-up sheet to get in 9 names deep. At lunch! We waited about 20 minutes and ultimately settled on splitting a round 4-top table with some business dudes which was a little awkward, but ultimately worth it.

The broth: lightly salty, sweet and just a tad spicy. The chili chicken came on the side and fell right off the bones into my soup. The sprouts were fresh and crunchy, the noodles softened to perfection...
YES, THE PERFECT BOWL OF PHO. Here it is. Come find it.

 
You'll want to be on foot, and you'll need your Google Maps App handy. Cash-Only. Duh.

Monday, January 4, 2010

Park Chow

Man, I have had a heck of a time getting around to this blog lately. For those of you who actually read this, I apologize. I've been traveling, I've been crippled, I've been uninspired. I have a thousand excuses, really.

But here we go, folks. A tried and true neighborhood restaurant prime for a loose review, Park Chow.




What: American Bistro meets Asian Fusion
Where: 1240 9th Avenue between Lincoln and Irving
Why: Ambiance, ambiance, ambiance!

Park Chow is one restaurant in a family of Chow's. They're all over the place, all warm and fuzzy inside and all brimming with smiley, happy people.

The aptly named Park Chow is situated half a block from Golden Gate Park. It boasts a split-level dining room with fire places, a patio, and a bar. This place is huge, yet feels cozy and intimate no matter where you sit.

The menu encompasses just about anything picky eaters will munch on, but keeps the dishes simple and unchanging. Personally I prefer eating brunch there more than I do lunch or dinner, but all menu items are quite tasty.

Random Sampling of my faves:

Strawberry Rhubarb Pie Photo: Diana M.


Brussel Spouts & Bacon Photo: Cynthia C.



WonTon Soup  Photo: Cynthia C.


Okay, whew. My non-blogging guilt has subsided for now. I hope you appreciate this post, and hopefully go try this great restaurant. Go there on a nice date actually. Tell them Rachel The Informer sent you. Let me know what they said/whether or not they sat you after that. Thanks.


 

Wednesday, December 16, 2009

Hale



I feel pretty fortunate to know about Hale's new etsy store while things are still reasonably priced. All pieces are handmade locally by a super hot chick who is also a Warriors girl.

Santa, I want these: