(y)our food choices™

Sustainable, Local and Really Delicious!

Fresh Ceviche Tostadas

What could be better than good food, good drink, and lots of sleep? Doing it with the one you love—ah, life is good! Or so our favorite t-shirts say. Last week’s Street Food Festival in San Francisco was a bust. Fast forward to this weekend’s follow-on event, Eat Real, in Oakland where we found more food, more space and more sunshine than we could handle. Oh, we tried to eat everything in sight, but pulled back from the edge in time to save our stomachs from over stuffing – barely.

Korean Spicy Pork "Taco" from Seoul on Wheels

When you’re as food obsessed as we are, it’s hard to walk away from the lobster rolls or the ramen or the pulled pork sliders or the spicy sweet Mexican ice pops or the … you get the idea. The bits we did eat were delicious (OK, we didn’t love the vegan “donut”) and perfectly priced. While the lines grew and drifted, they moved quickly enough. With two of us standing in separate lines, we were able to cover more ground in less time which meant more food and a greater mix of impromptu conversations with other die-hards. It also helped that we arrived at Jack London Square before noon and before the crush of weekend warriors.

We got started with a refreshing “virgin” pomegranate Mojito. The price was right at $1 and the icy drink took the edge off the rising temperature. With our drink in hand, we stopped at Pizza Politana’s stand for a piece of their perfect thin crust pie with greens and other things, for $4. We wandered through the crowd and made our way to an out-of-the-way Latin American stand where the good cooks were grilling papusas and serving up delicious fresh ceviche. We bought the $5 ceviche tostada plate and the two of us gorged on a very generous portion of this amazing fish. The ceviche was still cold and tasted great. We don’t think it would be one of those things you would want to eat later on such a hot day, but it was so early in the festival we felt safe in eating the chemically cooked seafood.

A ceviche tostada in each belly, we set off to explore the rest of the booths and the large indoor expo of vendors that included picklers, raw milk evangelists, endive champions, our favorite Capay Valley farm and more interesting and unusual foods than you’re likely to find in many other places. We poked around, took some pictures and headed back outside to get in line for the next round – Korean “tacos” and fresh pulled mozzarella cheese and heirloom tomatoes.

Fresh Pulled Mozzarella and Heirloom Tomatoes

Let me just say that the mozzeralla and tomato salad from Jon’s Street Eats was the best thing we had at the festival. The freshly pulled mozzarella was being made on-site and the plates were prepped a la minute. The cheese was still warm and formless when it hit the plate. This was so much better than any mozzeralla I’ve purchased from cheese shops and grocery stores. It was heaven on earth! The plate was finished with large white crystals of sea salt, pepper, and olive oil, but really it didn’t need it. The warm cheese and the fresh tomatoes were perfect. It put our tomato mozzaralla salads to shame. I’ve put Steve on a quest to make home-made mozzarella (we update you when that happens).

The Seoul on Wheels Korean taco was good. It consisted of thinly-sliced spicy pork and kim che (fermented cabbage, similar to saurekaut). Worth the wait and just enough for each of us to get a good taste.

Warm "Ajwan" Cashews

We found Oren’s Kitchen, a tiny stand serving deliciously roasted and flavored nuts by the cone. We opted for the fragrant Ajwan Cashews, but we were tempted by the Rosemary Almonds, Smoked Paprika Pecans and Coconut Chili Cashews too. Thank goodness for modest restraint. The adorable little girl serving them up undoubtedly made the nut meats just a little sweeter and we’re sure that if she’d been a little less shy she could have talked us into buying more. Thank you for a memorable treat!

Lavender Creme Brulee

It would seem that no real street food event would be complete today without the elusive Creme Brulee Guy. Finally, our first encounter with a man who has become synonymous with the gentrification (improvement?) of street food. We took our places in a well meaning line that tried to keep its composure, but we all wanted to watch the man torch those cool creamy custards. While we waited, Steve ran over to the popchips tent to grab a free bag of the potato chips taking San Francisco by storm. They were a sort of salty preparation for the contrast of creamy sweetness soon to come. We’d read the rave reviews of the lavender creme brullee and placed our order. Yes, the creme brulee was exceptional and the lavender flavor was so subtle and fine, it was hard to believe the cows that produced the cream hadn’t been grazing on it. Perfect! And Curtis, the man behind the cart, served everyone graciously. It seemed he thanked everyone who stopped by.

Brisket and Potato Salad

We weren’t done after that perfect dessert. No, we needed to make a couple more stops to prove a point to our bellies. We’d been better off just hitting the road, but when presented with so many delicious options, we just couldn’t leave. Our thought was to end with one of the several pulled meat slider/sandwich options and headed back to the mojito van for a brisket sandwich and some potato salad. The salad wasn’t half bad, but the sandwich was dry and uninspired. Too bad. It has such promise.

Sadly, we didn’t escape our gluttony in time to avoid the vegan “donut” from Wholesome Bakery. We ordered a chocolate donut from a very friendly person and headed off into the heat and toward the exit. We each took a bite and felt the same disappointment upon realizing we’d been given a cinnamon one instead. It was meant to be a cake donut, but the texture was too dense and the cake wasn’t sweet or fragrant. They seem to be getting great press. We’ll have to give one of their other products a try … some time.

The organizers are to be commended for pulling off such a well intended, well attended event. Oakland is better for it and so are those of us who soaked it up. Here’s hoping for many more real food festivals. Great food is always worth celebrating.

One last word of thanks to Food & Water Watch for supplying free drinking water to those who brought their own containers. It sent a great message to thousands of people. We all need to give up our mass bottled warehouse water. We’ll have it from the tap, thank you!

Is it really worth the wait?

Lines, lines, and more lines. Saturday afternoon in San Francisco and we were just trying to get a little street food, just like everyone else. It was about 2:00 in the afternoon when we decided to get our asses out the door and head to the Mission. A Slow Food/Street Food Festival was taking place on Folsom Street in the Mission, and we were hungry. We drove through the Castro into the Mission via 18th Street when we saw the first of several major lines – at Bi-Rite ice cream. The line was around the corner of Dolores and it wasn’t even a hot summer day! In fact, it was a chilly 65 throughout the city. Who wants ice cream when it’s cold outside? Who else? San Franciscans.

When we finally arrived in the Mission and neared Folsom, we drove around for what seemed like half an hour and we were just about to give up when we found parking. It was a miracle we found the spot and we saw it as a sign that we were meant to join everyone else for some grub.

When we got to the Street Food Festival the place was packed. There were more people in that two-block stretch of a little street festival than I’ve seen at any other street festival in the city. So, when I say the place was packed, it was packed like a tin of sardines (a cliché, yes, but seems appropriate). We wanted to participate and enjoy the afternoon with a little food and beer, but it just was not possible. We couldn’t tell where the lines started for the food vendors, thought it looked like they ran all the way up onto people’s doorsteps. Even the beer garden seemed to be one big mass of people with no way to get up to the front where some invisible vendor was pouring. We ended up returning our beer tickets for a refund and leaving.

Was the festival successful? Yes, too successful. The idea was great and the food, what I could see, looked amazing. The location was all wrong, or it just wasn’t big enough, or a combination of the two. San Francisco is full of foodies. We like to cook, eat, drink, share the food we make, and write about it. Expecting that two city blocks can hold the most die-hard foodies in the city, and Bay Area, is just not planning correctly. I suggest that the Street Food Festival be held at Civic Center next year. It’s large enough to hold everyone and easy to get to on public transportation.

Good Cheap Tacos

In our quest to find Street food we walked around the Mission talking about our next bite. Whiz Burger was an option, but that’s not even street food or slow food for that matter and we’re trying to avoid hamburger of unknown origin. Then we thought about El Tonayense, the taco truck outside of Best Buy and Office Max. That was street food and slow food, just what we were looking for. We ordered three tacos each, carnitas, pollo asado and carne asada (pork, chicken, and beef), and a bottle of water. All that plus tip came to $14. Bargain street food that tasted so good! The tacos are $1.75 each and while the carnitas was dry and tough, the other two tacos really hit the spot, especially with added pickled jalapeños.

After our tacos we tried to find the crème brulee guy, with no luck. We later found out he was one of the vendors at the Street Food Fair, but we were not going back. Then we thought of stopping at Bi-Rite for some ice cream, after all it was after 5:00 pm and surely the line there would have slowed down, since the fog was blowing and the temperature was dropping. Not even close. It was actually longer at 5:00 than it was at 2:30 when we first drove by. Our quest for ice cream reminded me that we had a half pint of cream at home and two very ripe peaches. We could make our own ice cream. And with that thought we went home to prepare the ice cream.

Peaches on the stove

We weren’t hungry, but as everyone who cooks knows even the simplest recipes can take time. So, it was into the kitchen for us. I prepared the custard for freezing while Steve prepared the fruit. The recipe is from Epicurious with a slight adjustment. Instead of two cups heavy cream we used one-cup cream and one cup of whole milk. Not for dietary purposes but because that’s what we had in our fridge. If we had two cups of cream we would have happily used both and enjoyed every fat gram.

Tomato, Mozzeralla, Bacon, and Purple Basil

Since we had a late lunch, and we were going to be eating delicious peach ice cream for desert, dinner was going to be light, or slightly light. BTM (Bacon, Tomato, Mozzarella) salad with farro. I just discovered farro at Rainbow in the bulk section. There was one of those recipe pads next to the display and I thought why not try it? The recipe was simple and we had everything at home. I added bacon to the recipe since bacon and tomato go together so well. To accompany the salad I threw together Baba Ghanouj from an eggplant we received from our vegetable box, served it with Ak-Mak crackers and some sliced cucumbers.

While Saturday’s excursion was not what we planned, we made do with what we had. We wanted some good street food and while the rest of the city was standing in lines waiting patiently, or not, we found the street food at a taco truck and some slow food in our own kitchen. Let’s hope next year we can join the rest of the foodies for a beer and tacos. After all, it’s fine to eat at home but every once in a while you just want to get out and be with the masses. We just need the masses to be a little less massive.