San Francisco Street Food

Tonight I'm sitting at home watching Liam while my wife goes out to a well deserved birthday dinner. Liam has enough "fussy potential" that we decided not to impose him on a babysitter. But he's being quiet enough for me to blog. I had hoped to have a Creme Brulee tonight but my plan was foiled - so instead I will only write about the Creme Brulee that I didn't get to eat - in fact have yet to try.

There have always been street vendors in San Francisco selling food in a non brick-and-mortar style, but there are some new entries that have taken the concept of street food to the Web 2.0 world, deserving a blog entry.

The most ubiquitous street food in San Francisco is the Taco Truck. Been blogged to death, my favorite is El Tonayense at 14th/Harrison, good pork tacos and on my way home from Caltrain.

Old School street food - The Tamale Lady. Usually found in Mission area bars (she was kicked out of Noe's bar when Cybelle's Pizza was taken over by the owner's son - asshole) and typically a staple at Dolores Park Movie Night.

The Yelp report on the Tamale Lady from "Mickey S" refers to meeting her at 22nd St Caltrain. This is not in fact "The" Tamale Lady - it's just "A" Tamale Lady.



I visited her tonight and got some great tamales and a crappy photo. She's been meeting Caltrain commuters coming home at night to 22nd Street for 4 years or so. I had started to wonder where she was as she had been MIA for a while, but she was there tonight to get me some Liam-sitting dinner. I scored 2 cheese tamales (with a jalepeno in it) for $1.50 each. Nice.

This does point out a shortcoming in street food 1.0 - I can't plan on my way home if I want a tamale or not, nor do I know if the Tamale Lady will be showing up at Lone Palm. Enter Creme Brulee Man , Amuse Bouche guy , and the Magic Curry Cart!

These three gunslingers have used the power of twitter for good, not evil. Wait for the tweet, and go get the food! Sadly Mr. Creme Brulee showed up at his home base of 19th and Linda 15 minutes after my Liam shift began.

More on the Amuse Bouch guy at Eye on Blogs

Creme Brulee man from Broke Ass Stuart

Magic Curry Man at Mission Mission

Amuse Bouche's can be found mostly at 24th St BART in the AM with breakfast treats and Chai. The Magic Curry and Creme Brulee (the guys are brothers) are usually at 19th/Linda or at Dolores Park.

I don't know how easy it is to transport the Creme Brulee Cart but I'm volunteering to tow it to Justin Herman Plaza for Critical Mass. Well, maybe not this month - Liam hasn't converted to Creme Brulee yet.

Update: Bounty from Curtis the Creme Brulee guy from his visit to Noe Valley.