We left the house early and got to the Mission district in record time. We found decent parking a few blocks away but it was metered and the time limit was only 1 hour so we had to make several trips back to reload the meter. It actually ended up being a good thing cuz the walking helped us digest all the food we were eating :).
Most of the vendors weren't quite ready yet even though the festival officially started at 10:30am but the crowds had not shown up yet so it gave us a chance to leisurely peruse the lay of the land and figure out what we wanted to try.
This year, they had these cool tables made out of milk crates and planks (don't worry, the plank was atached to the milk crates with these plastic-tie thingies).
The only stall that was serving customers when we got there was Anda Piroshki so we decided to give them a try.
It was a rather humorous experience because they were really disorganized. I had a hard time figuring out which line was the ordering line vs the pick up line and they didn't have a ticket system so some people would get their piroshki's handed to them right after they placed their order, but other people who ordered the same exact thing wouldn't. Anyways - we ordered a spinach and feta piroshki (aka the "Russian Gem") which was pretty tasty (Hubby thought it was too salty though). The big white dollop you see in the picture below is sour cream (YUM). For $3, it was a reasonable amount of food. They were also offering "Babushka's Secret" (beef, rice, cheese, veggies) and a sweet filling called "Mother Nature's Treat" (apples, cranberries, almonds). The dough is made from whole wheat flour and wheat bran so thank you Anda for my daily dose of fiber :).
As we were walking away, two of the staff had encircled the chef (Anda) and we overheard them saying to her "Things are going really well Anda and we have lots of customers, but we have some issues...". Yeah, like you need a better ordering system maybe? :).
I tried the Creme Brulee cart for the first time last year at Eat Real and was determined to hit up the cart before the mobs arrived, lest I be denied the experience. So naturally, that was our next stop!
Of course, we had to get both flavors (Vanilla Bean and Mexican Chocolate)! Some Asian dude with a big camera asked me if he could take pictures of our creme brulees right after they were served to us - I have to confess that at first I was like "Ok, you're a little weird (and cheap)" but then I felt bad and was like "Be nice, he's probably just lactose intolerant and can't enjoy them for himself". So I let him take some pics and then stole his idea of placing their business card in the picture.
Both flavors were nice, but the one I had last year (Lavender) was much yummier. I was a little disappointed in the texture (firmer and not as creamy) but I would still give this a B+/A-.
So to be honest, I've never really understand the craze behind this whole Korean/Asian taco thing. Mexican food has never really been my favorite, although I can appreciate a good carnitas taco with fresh cilantro, salsa and onions when I have the craving for it. Would replacing carnitas with Asian style grilled meats and toppings really make them that much yummier? I had to find out for myself....
Asian taco #1 : Kung Fu Tacos
We tried their Nun-chuck Chicken taco (their other offering was Mu Shu Veggie). The chicken was tender (thigh meat I believe?) and compared to some of the other tacos we tried they were the most generous with the meat. The orange sauce was very heavy on the ginger and overpowered the flavor of the meat. In fact, I can't even remember what the meat tasted like :P. I would give this a B-.
Asian taco #2 : Namu
Namu is actually a restaurant in SF run by three Korean brothers but they also have a stall at the Ferry building on Thursdays & Saturdays. At the Ferry building, their tacos normally sell 1 for $1.50 but at Street Food they were going for 1 for $3 or 2 for $5. Pretty expensive for what it is but it's the most interesting take on a "taco" that I've come across. They were also serving Okonomiyaki which is a Japanese seafood pancake that is a favorite of mine but for $9 it was a little much.
Here's the actual taco: Korean beef short-rib niblets on a bed of rice and nori topped with daikon & kimchee salsa, kimchee remoulade and kalbi demi glace. Translations:
Remoulade is a variation of mayo and demi glace is a reduction of stock (beef in this case).
The beef was really tender and tasty with that smokiness you would expect from Korean BBQ. The salsa was very tasty also. What I actually liked the most about it was that it was served on top of nori instead of the usual corn tortilla. The umami of the nori complemented the other components well and was much lighter than your traditional taco.
It was a little hard to eat, considering the flimsiness of the nori and that the ingredients made the nori soft as well. Flavor wise, I would give this an A. My only complaint is that it was pricey.
That was it for the Asian tacos...Next we sampled Nigerian cuisine at Purple Hibiscus or Chiefo's Kitchen. I read about this online before the festival and was excited to try their Scotch egg. A Scotch egg is basically a boiled egg wrapped in sausage and then deep-fried to golden deliciousness.
Observe:
I was a little disappointed that the yolk inside wasn't runny, but overall the dish was excellent. The sausage had just the right amount of spice kick and it was not as greasy as I expected. I would give this an A.
We noshed on our Scotch eggs as we waited in line for ramen at our next stop, Hapa Ramen.
We ordered the Baby Ramen Bowl for $6 which was composed of a pork broth, shredded pork, nori, green onions, fresh corn and noodles of course. We parked ourselves at a milk crate table and as we were about to dig into the ramen a friendly guy next to us was raving about how much he loves their ramen and was asking us what other foods we'd sampled so far. Obviously, he has not tried any of the South Bay ramen joints because I'm sorry to say that this was a very mediocre bowl of ramen. The broth was so-so - while it had the gelatinous mouth feel that you get in a proper stock, it lacked flavor. The noodles were the worst part - I don't know how anyone could call them ramen noodles. They reminded me of dried Chinese wheat noodles that I buy at the Chinese supermarket. Very disappointing. I will stick with Halu, thank you very much.
Last but not least on our list was Curry Up Now, a food truck that frequents the Sunnyvale Ford parking lot on El Camino Real. I was very excited to try this place as I've heard great things about it! They were offering their Chicken Tikka Masala burrito as well as their veggie samosas. We were getting very full at this point and could not handle a burrito so we got 2 samosas. They were so delicious, that we scarfed them down before taking a picture!!! But seriously - they were sooooo good. Sometimes, samosas can be extremely heavy and dense, but the potato filling inside these samosas were light and fluffy and just the right level of spice. I could have eaten like 5 of these.
Some other places that we would have tried had the lines not gotten so horrendous included:
- Roli Roti for their porchetta sandwich (this line was soooooooo long, this must be a truly awesome sandwich)
- El Porteno for their meat empananda
- Kitchenette SF for their beef slider on an english muffin
- Endless Summer Sweets for their funnel cake
Pepto Bismol also had a stall in case you overindulged and were in need of assistance :).
So 7 carts/stalls later, we surrendered to our bulging tummies and headed home for a catnap before driving up to Berkeley for a fantastic birthday dinner at Great China for our good friends M and P! So much good eating in one day :). Next post - Eat Real!
