Feasting the Streets of San Francisco’s Street Food Festival
By Lando • Aug 23rd, 2009 • Category: UpdatesThe crowds were in full effect on Saturday at San Francisco’s Street Food Festival. Street food vendors and restaurants gathered together on Folsom Street, in front of La Cocina, to celebrate the city’s growing affinity for street food culture. From Curry to Adobo, the number of food carts tweeting their locations to hungry city roamers is on the rise. Who can blame them? This city embraces great food and will go out of their way in search of it.
We arrived at noon to pickup our passports. From there, we had to make our way through the crowds (again) and finally said to ourselves that we would go back later in the day to see if the crowds would die down. Fast forward three hours later and the crowds were still there. That wasn’t the worst part. Some of the food that we wanted to try began to run out. No oysters from Poleng Lounge or hot dogs from Chef Jaime for us.
The time to hit all of the vendors was impossible, so you were left to carefully chose what you wanted to eat. Knowing you could be in line for more than 30 minutes added to how important that decision would be. Although their offerings sounded good, we ended up skipping booths like Delfina and Aziza because we had already had a taste of their food at their restaurants. All of us wanted something new to try.
Looking back, we knew the lines would be long, but with enough patience you were rewarded with good grub.
To start things off, a couple of sandwiches from Kasa. On the left is the Kati “Bun”, which was supposed to be charbroiled chicken, wrapped in roti, but Kasa ran out of roti and served it on a bun instead. On the right is a Pav Bhaji – a serving of spiced potatoes on a bun, which reminded me of a samosa. Both stayed true in being classic street food dishes from India.
We were in line sipping on Black Milk Tea from Slanted Door, while waiting for…
Slanted Door’s Lemongrass Pork Vermicelli Bowl. Tender barbecued pork was served on top a bed of vermicelli mixed with their sweet fish sauce. I haven’t ate at any of Charles Phan’s restaurants yet, but this small sample is making me want to.
We had a quick dessert before we left – A smore from Kika’s Treats. One fluffy marshmallow between dark chocolate and Kika’s famous caramelized graham crackers.
You could say that La Cocina accomplished what they set out to do – getting San Francisco together for the love of enjoying food. I would call it a crème brulee-baconwrappedhotdog-chickensandwich-slowroastedpork-vermicellibowl-oyster-smores-n-tacos feasting extravaganza. If you haven’t found out by now, this city loves to eat.
Lando is finding new food spots.
Email this author | All posts by Lando
[...] Saturday while driving around Mission Street looking for parking for the San Francisco’s Street Food Festival, I spotted a very familiar looking liquor store while we were at a red [...]