Mission Mission

Summer is officially here, and you know what that means, right?  Swimming pools and BBQs!  On the latter note, those talented ladies from RPS are celebrating the arrival of the heat with their first Vietnamese BBQ/grill fest/summer time awesomeness.  It’s going down at Mission Dispatch, the new street food spot on 18th and Bryant.

Check out all the details here, and full menu after the jump.

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Dear San Francisco. I demand Hong Kong street noodles. Immediately.

I don’t know even know what’s appropriate to leave outside anymore. I mean, I can understand furniture and pots and things like that, but leaving your secondhand pantry out on the sidewalk for adventurous souls to test their gastronomic fortitude?

YUM!!!

Sunde, who formerly made and sold pies at The Rite Spot has a new pie cart and you can catch her and it tonight!

Hi there!
Pies are done and ready for tonight.  Key Lime and Mango Raspberry Coconut Crumble.  Britt and I will be at the corner of 21st and Valencia with our red cart from 6pm to midnight . . . check us on twitter @piefridays.
See you there!
Sunde

Not to be to be outdone, Beretta is getting in on this whole street food thing starting tonight at Fabric8 for their weekly cart meetup from 6-8pm.

Good thing the PizzaHacker wont be there tonight, otherwise there might have been a throwdown likes of which would have put last night’s Mission Bay McDonalds rumble to shame. On the other hand, their dish of choice will be the non-pizza eggplant caponatina with burrata.

This was #56 in the 2009 7×7 100 things to eat before you die, which I was working on before I realized that it had a lot of stuff that was not in the Mission and therefore difficult to work up the motivation to get to. It’s amazing and has impressed at least 3 eggplant haters I’ve known.

The SF Street Food Festival organizers learned a lot from last year’s food mob and consequently increased the size and scope of the event almost four-fold this time around.  Nonetheless, a bunch of people still showed up and there were fifty-deep (albeit delicious) lines for all of the booths (at least at 2:30pm).

Burrito Justice has some great panoramas of the festivities (as well as a history lesson, naturally) and points out that although the lines were long, they moved quickly.  However, I still can’t get over the fact that there were 50 people waiting in line for BACON WRAPPED HOTDOGS??!?? Really, the same ones that you can get at any corner in the Mission?  And don’t tell me they were waiting for the virgin sangria or pina coladas!

For the past three Fridays from 5-9pm, Matt Cohen (SF Cart Project) has been organizing “Off The Grid” meetups in Fort Mason where all your favorite independent food trucks gather and vie for your attention with their adorable, pun-filled, flavor-enhancing names. The event also features an alcohol tent and local live music. In fact, tonight the Ferocious Few will be playing at the event, if you’re not up to anything.

Last Friday, I hopped on the 49 and checked it out. Vendor favorites like El Haurache Loco, Soul Cocina, Chairman Bao, and Kung Fu Tacos were all in attendance. It was fun, although I must say I was a bit overwhelmed with the selection. I wasn’t exactly hungry or wealthy enough to spend $7 at three different trucks to try stuff out. Still, it was nice to know that there was one place I could count on all these guys to be once a week as opposed to following 50 twitter feeds.

Matt has been pushing to hold similar events in the Haight, Civic Center, and the Mission. After last night’s Parks and Rec meeting, he got his approval. The Mission location will be Mission Playground.

No word on when the permitting process will wrap up, but after chatting with him a bit last week, Matt seems like a pretty motivated dude and I’m sure he’ll get the ball rolling right away.

(via SFWeekly, photo by Gary Soup)

Some shots from this Sunday.  (As usual, click to zoom.)

Watching the World Cup final in the Valencia Street garage of the Mission tricycle stereo guy — thanks! (Sorry, Orange.)

The Ferocious Few on Valencia:

The lead singer telekinetically tuning his guitar:

Another rockin’ band on 24th…

…so rocking, in fact, that their house was doing that Flight of the Conchords wiggle:

Hey, look, another bike band Fossil Fool!

And my personal favorite: French Tacos! The Croque Monsieur (Croque Señor?) was particularly l’awesome.

All and all, a good day (but we really need it to go until at least 4 or 5 PM).  We can do this once a month, no?

On the downside, there was a curious lack of food vendors.  And while I’m sure it’s a permitting nightmare, I’d like to see the city help our favorite food carts get in on this.

In the Introduce Yourself section, reader Greg Z Says:

Howdy-how. I do Russian pirogi. I’ve never done anything like food-cart action but could be totally game. Email me! greg (at) urbanesque.org.

Somebody hook this guy up. (Or Greg, just whip up some sample perogi, get on Twitter and show up on the street that shall not be named.)

Just don’t dress like this guy:

(Though to be honest if your pierogi are good enough you can wear whatever the hell you want…)

Behold! A taco truck on the streets of Japan.

(Via LA Taco, via streetfoodSF.)

Mexican food in Japan can be a surreal and bizarre experience. This will be either totally awesome or incredibly awkward. Either way I want to eat there badly.

Further googling in-depth research yields us a Japanese foodie web site called ｢Food Event Hunt｣ (translated page here) that covered the ｢フィエスタ メヒカーナ｣, aka  ｢Fiesta Mexican｣ where our new favorite taco truck made an appearance.

Best line: このブリー ト、かなりボリュームありました。 (“This burrito had considerable volume.”).

And through some judicious internet translating and stalking, we have discovered the home base of our now world-famous Aguacate Taco Truck. On your next visit to Tokyo, approach slowly and make no sudden movements.