Street Food Revolution

Food trucks have been around in the U.S. for a while, but they're usually cheap, convenient lunch eats, offering burritos, hoagie sandwiches, and the like. 7-11 type food on wheels and that's already heated. Something you eat because you have no time or money, and you're tired of the vending machine. Nothing exciting.

For the last few years, a new breed of food trucks, food carts, and pop-up food places have been springing up around town in San Francisco. Fusian foodie stuff that creatively mixes all kinds of International flavors—French tacos with seared foie gras, Filipino Sisig wrapped in seaweed like a handroll, handmade organic ramen, creme brulees, pies, chai tea, etc. One of Aaron and my favorites is Chairman Bao, especially their melt-in-your-mouth pork belly in a Chinese bun. They also have the most creative-looking truck! And, well, our good friend Claire worked on it too ;-)

This new breed of digitally-savvy food vendors often use Twitter to let you know where they are. So when you're out and about town, tipsy after happy hour and hungry, you can check out who's nearby from your Twitter feed.

Also, these trucks sometimes gather in one location, to attract more customers with their collective variety. One of these gatherings, Off the Grid, is now happening regularly on Friday nights at Fort Mason. Last Friday was one of those super-wintry San Francisco summer nights, but it didn't stop us or the other people in the crowd from going to check it out!

I miss the late night "dai pai dong" hawkers in Asia, but this is quite a nice substitution.