One of the things that I have noticed about San Francisco is that when we hit on a trend, we hit it hard. Sometimes it is a particular food (mac 'n cheese X 1,000 different ways), food style (comfort/Southern food, Vietnamese sandwiches), or a way of eating. Kitchenette introduced the back-of-a-warehouse no-frills experience, and restaurants like Farmer Brown are offering walk up windows like Little Skillet to appeal to people who want a freshly cooked meal, but don't necessarily want to commit to a sit-down restaurant.
One of the biggest trends to emerge, seemingly overnight, is the gourmet food truck. Food trucks have long been a familiar sight in neighborhoods like the Mission, mostly in the form of taco trucks. El Tonayense Taco truck is probably the most well known, and it is a great place to get a tasty, cheap meal. Also in the Mission are the Tamale Lady, and the Bacon Dog Cart, enjoyed by many a late-night reveler looking for some sustenance.
Well, somehow someone came up with the bright idea to take high level food and sell it on the street, and thus was born the Creme Brulee cart, the Magic Curry cart, the Chai cart, the Sexy Soup cart, the Gumbo cart, the Lumpia cart, the Evil Jerk cart, the Bahn Mi cart, the Salumi cart, and Spencer-on-the-Go (pictured above), the take-away version of the lovely Chez Spencer restaurant. Word has it that there is a Ramen cart in the works.
Does it work? Sometimes, yes. It is debatable about whether you can really take highbrow food and make it something that the man-on-the-street is going to feel comfortable about in the long term - after all, there is a huge difference between a $2 taco and a $10 sandwich. Does the $2 want to make the $8 to pay for all of those high-quality ingredients? And if you spend $10 on a sandwich, do you really feel that smug standing there leaning over the sidewalk while you try not to spill on your work clothes? I mean, for that much money, you could be sitting at a table with a real napkin in your lap.
Cart culture is pretty new to San Francisco, so we run the risk of sounding like Bubba in Forest Gump with our plethora of cartness: Coconut Shrimp, Fried Shrimp, Grilled Shrimp. We're a little cart-crazy now, but our selection is kind of strange and disjointed - a creme brulee cart? really? Other cultures have fully embraced the cart culture, but they keep it strictly to street food, not 5 star dining food. Even in our own country, New York has us beat with its wonderful soup carts, Falafel carts (oh how I miss you at Broadway and 39th!), bagel carts, and the ever-present, iconic hot dog carts.
So, we'll see. I am not totally sold on the elitist cart idea, but I do have a curiosity (did someone say Pie Truck?), and Lord knows, I will never turn down the idea of a cheap lunch.
