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Street Food – Conversation Lesson

Kristin: Y’know, just since I’ve moved here, about nine years ago, I’ve noticed more and more food trucks and just, y’know, street food in general, street food being the food trucks actually because we don’t really have people just out vending. Well, a little bit in the Mission, I guess, but in general it’s mostly the food trucks. Just noticed a lot more.

AJ: Yeah, there’s that little, I don’t know what it’s called, it’s this kind of like encampment, the little gravel lot in the city now where I guess the trucks change every day but there seem to be five, six, eight, I don’t know, food trucks, but different days there’re different trucks there. But it’s kind of cool because you can go there and there are, y’know, there are some that are selling Asian food, some selling Mexican food, and some of them are actually quite nice. Y’know, I kind of used to think of street food as just yucky diner food or something but now they’re getting more gourmet.

Kristin: Yeah, they are. What you’re talking about is the Soma StrEat Food Park. They spell it though S-T-R-E-A-T. But yeah, those food trucks change out and actually sometime last fall Joe and I went and all the food trucks were vegan. And I think that they do that every so often like once a month now or they were going to start doing it where all the food trucks would be vegan. So that was kind of nice. We had a good…the food was really good and it was great for us being able to go and we didn’t have to worry because a lot of times the food trucks aren’t vegan. It’s hard to find vegan options.

Joe: Well, I think the reason that they’re going to start doing more of those events is because the street vendors said that they sold three times the amount of food that day than they normally do, so… Kristin: Yeah, they had a really good turnout that day.

Joe: I think it’s spreading, too, because I just walked down Second Street downtown when I was out exercising and there’s another little street food park, or whatever you call it. It has fewer trucks than the one you guys are talking about in Soma, but it’s spreading a little bit more in San Francisco but it’s pretty much spreading, I think, in many parts of the United States.

Kristin: Yeah, Portland is supposed to have a good…a lot of food trucks, apparently.

Joe: Well, there was just an article in National Geographic where they’re talking about food trucks and they were showing food trucks from all over but a large number of them were like in places where the weather’s a little warmer, like LA and Miami had a lot of them. And I think there’s some in Las Vegas also. And they were showing how these food trucks are basically making a name for themselves by doing something that’s a little different and the other thing is by getting on social media. They actually said that the main way that they show where these trucks are, because many of them are moving around, is through social media. And people like follow them around.

AJ: Yeah, I think that’s what I was going to say, too, that I think that social media, Twitter and, especially Twitter I would think, really gives them the chance to market more and more effectively than in the past.

Because now they can get people who like their food to follow them on Twitter and then throughout the day they can just send a tweet saying where they are. We’re at this intersection now. Now we’re going over here. Now we’re going here. They can tweet out different food specials so they develop this almost cult following some of them, that just monitor Twitter and then just find them wherever they happen to be or when they come to their neighborhood they’ll know to send a tweet. Ah, this truck is in my neighborhood and they’ll run over to the intersection. It reminds me being a kid, the ice cream truck that used to come around and play the bell, ding-a-ding-ding. And then we’d all run to get our money and so we could get ice cream.

Kristin: It makes sense actually that more people would be doing this instead of having restaurants because it’s a lot cheaper. Y’know, you still have to have permits and they can probably only be in certain areas of the city like at the Streat Food Park in what did I say it was called… AJ: Soma.

Kristin: Soma, yeah, I think I said Sonoma earlier but anyway…

Joe: South of Market area…Soma.

Kristin: Yeah, south of Market area, and…or, y’know, I think that they can park in certain areas around the city with a permit. Like we’ve had food trucks actually right here around Dolores Park sometimes.

And actually some really…a couple of good ones, a couple of different vegan ones. I think they had meat options as well. But that’s something else I’ve noticed when I first moved here a lot of food trucks were “taco trucks” and now there’s a lot more of a variety like you can find Burmese food or vegan food or Korean food. There’s a whole range now.

Joe: Yeah, some of the trucks that they were showing in National Geographic were very specialized like they had barbecue and they only served barbecue. Or this one specialized in like sliders, y’know, little things like that. They try and specialize in something and…

Kristin: What are sliders?

Joe: Sliders are like little mini-burgers.

Kristin: Oh, oh.

Joe: Yeah, so they try and specialize in something and then, y’know, drum up interest. And then another thing that they do is they start like a tag on Twitter and then people will take pictures of the food they got with their phone and then they’ll tweet that so then more people can see, y’know, the pictures of the food and stuff just by going and looking for that specific tag.

Kristin: Like in that movie Chef…

AJ: Yeah.

Joe: Yeah.

Kristin: …that you recommended to us AJ.

Joe: Yeah, that was a great movie and that was really inspirational. I think it might have inspired Mark and Kelly, y’know, Kristin? Did you tell AJ about that?

Kristin: No, I don’t think so. We have two friends who own a resort on an island, y’know, off of Washington. And they just…they don’t have a restaurant at their resort so they just recently bought a food truck in Miami and drove it cross-country, painted it, and they’ve got it on their island. That’s their restaurant now.

Joe: Exactly like in the movie.

Kristin: Yeah.

AJ: And it reminds me…it’s nice to see it because one of my favorite things of living in Thailand, when I lived in Bangkok, when we lived in Bangkok, was the street food because it’s…it’s super affordable and tasty and Thailand has an amazing street food culture and it’s good to see it starting up here. Of course, in America we’re combining it with vehicles which seems appropriate, too. So we have trucks, food truck culture.

Kristin: Yeah, y’know, actually the street food in Thailand though is mostly Bangkok.

AJ: Hmmm.

Kristin: If you go like up to Chiang Mai you don’t see as much street food. It’s interesting. I mean you see some, but not as much as you do in Bangkok. But…

Joe: Yeah, because along the moat you see a lot of people selling stuff when you’re walking down the street but it usually doesn’t start until nighttime, I think.

Kristin: But you know what’s nice, too, in Bangkok, I’ve wondered if as the downtown area starts to become more and more modern, I’ve wondered if the street vendors would eventually, y’know, be booted out of their areas or…or just not able to compete with restaurants in that area. But you still see a lot of people vending food downtown, which is nice.

Joe: Y’know, Kristin, this reminds me of that episode of that Anthony Bourdain show, I forget the name of it. It’s his new one. But anyway, he had that episode he did on Shanghai and he went to this area where they had all those people vending street food, y’know, all those street food vendors. And he was saying that they were trying to eradicate them…

Kristin: Yep.

Joe: …in favor of these more modern…

Kristin: More expensive.

Joe: …and more expensive, yeah, like even chain restaurants. And he was saying how he was wondering, I should say, if those street food vendors 20 years from now might be a thing of the past.

Kristin: Well, yeah, because he commented that they’re getting harder and harder to find actually.