Yams, red beans, creamed corn, white fungus, grass jelly, black glutinous rice. Perhaps these ingredients don’t immediately conjure up images of tempting sweet treats, but in steamy Singapore—with the addition of shaved ice, fresh fruit, palm sugar, colorful syrups, coconut milk and other goodies—they morph into a medley of exotic desserts.

I’m in Singapore for a week, tagging along with my husband, who is presenting at a conference. I couldn’t miss a trip to this unabashedly food-obsessed city, where you really can’t walk two steps without bumping into tantalizing aromas emanating from cafes, food stands and hawker centers (organized street food vendors). In this modern multi-cultural society, where impossibly high angular skyscrapers tower over warrens of ethnic neighborhood shops, Chinese, Indian, Malay residents and foreign visitors all join in a tireless search for the best grub the city has to offer—in local parlance: “die-die-must-try.”

Singaporean specialties abound, like chili-crab, fish-head curry, oyster omelet, chicken rice and a multitude of variations on spicy noodles. But for my few days here, I need a quest with a smaller focus, so why not a sweet one, sampling as many desserts as I can? (Actually “desserts” is somewhat of a misnomer, as these sweet treats are more often consumed as afternoon or late night snacks.)

Straddling the equator, with temperatures often in the 90s and the air thick with tropical humidity, icy treats offer natural refreshment in Singapore’s year-round heat wave. Although many have roots in neighboring cultures, the fantastical shapes and colors of these cooling combinations make them Singaporean classics.

Ice Kachang provides a refreshing pyramid of pleasure

Ice Kachang -- the quintessential Singaporean dessert takes a mountain of shaved ice, douses it with a rainbow of syrups and sprinkles on toppings such as soft red beans and creamed corn. I order mine with a dusting of chopped peanuts for an extra dimension of crunch.

creamy, chewy, icy Chendol

Chendol -- the key ingredient in this icy treat is the jelly-like green noodles flavored with pandan leaf, layered with cooked red beans, chewy palm seeds, coconut milk and a sweet brown syrup.

Every Singapore resident I ask offers encouragement and advice on my sweet-seeking journey. They also caution me not to eat too many treats with creamy, coconut milk. (“Not good for the tummy.”) Luckily, there is a profusion of more delicate sweet dishes to choose from.

Slippery sweet Ice Jelly

Ice Jelly -- utterly light and refreshing: shaved ice with cold translucent jelly globules. I have mine topped with mango.

Double steamed papaya in syrup

Steamed Papaya with Snow Fungus and Almond -- served in light syrup. The snow fungus adds the texture of a dainty, frilly sponge. I enjoy it cold, but it also comes hot, as do several other desserts with a hot/cold option.

When the sky turns black and hurls lighting bolts, thunderclaps and pounding rain, it’s an invitation to duck into a cheerful neon-bordered café for a warm bowl of comfort, such as sweet black glutinous rice cooked into a velvety pudding, drizzled with a swirl of coconut milk.

Other warming choices:

comforting and chewy Bubor Cha Cha

Bubor Cha Cha -- chunks of cooked yam and sweet potato with colored bits of chewy coconut jelly swimming in warm coconut milk.

Peanut soup or Black sesame soup – topped with almond cream.

Chinese culture often cites the health benefits of certain foods to balance one’s yin/yang, for specific ailments or populations (e.g. pregnant women). A sign in Food Republic’s Ice Shop proclaims Red Beans with Lotus seeds “great for getting rid of dark circles under the eyes,” so there is no way I can pass that up.

The places where I sample these treats vary as much as the flavors and forms they take. From fancy food courts in high-rise shopping meccas, like Wisma Atria’s Food Republic to beloved, old-fashioned, open-air Hawker Centres (Maxwell Road in Chinatown, Tekka Center in Little India and Lau Pa Sat in the financial district).

A visit to the National Museum of Singapore’s vibrant Living Gallery of Food provides the back-story to the city’s obsession with street food. Itinerant street vendors have always played an important role in this multi-cultural city. Since the 19th century, they traveled door-to-door preparing and peddling their wares or setting up carts and stands on the riverside. In the 1980s, as part of a project to clean up the river, Prime Minister Lee mandated that hawkers leave the riverside and take their places in designated hawker centers.

Scores of hawker centers, which are wildly popular with locals, are scattered around the city, each features vendors from various cultures, side by side, selling freshly made dishes at rock-bottom prices. You can have some Indian roti with your Malaysian beef rendang and finish off with sweet Chinese ah bolin (glutinous rice balls filled with yam, bean or sesame seed paste).

After spending an hour immersed in the museum’s videos, oral histories and food artifacts, I gain an appreciation for the context of Singapore’s food focus. As one hawker interviewed in a museum video explains, “Food makes us all equal, rich and poor, people of all races.”

Even though, I've tasted a dozen of Singapore’s sweet treats, there are many more to sample on my next visit…

Flashback to Summer '09; that was when I first heard rumblings about a new generation of creative street food entrepreneurs that were causing a stir in the local SF culinary scene. Some of the original individuals included Curtis Kimball, the Crème Brûlée Man, who could make you a delicious crème brûlée right on the spot; and his brother Brian, the Magic Curry Man, who whipped up a tasty Thai concoction from his humble portable kitchen.

These were lo-fi dining affairs with a twist. They elevated street food beyond the usual greasy fare of hot dogs, pretzels and other fast food and provided an upscale alternative. And part of the fun was cyber-stalking them via Twitter; these nomadic vendors rotated their locations on a regular basis, so hungry customers tracked them down once they revealed their daily location.

Another early pioneer of the nouvelle cuisine of the streets was Steven Gdula of Gobba Gobba Hey, whose name pays homage to the punk rock band The Ramones and their classic catchphrase Gabba Gabba Hey.

Author of "The Warmest Room in the House: How the Kitchen Became the Heart of the Twentieth-Century American Home," Steven moved to San Francisco from the East Coast in 2008 to seek new opportunities. But, according to his blog,

"Shortly after unloading the last box and settling into our new home here this past fall, like so many other people, I started to lose my sources of income. As a freelance writer there just wasn’t that much work to be had. Magazines and newspapers were getting smaller. Some folded entirely. Also, I was new to a city where there were many established writers already ahead of me at the various outlets I approached. But writers have to write just as painters have to paint and musicians have to make music, so I did what so many others have done. I returned to my blog to keep my fingers moving and my thoughts flowing. And then I started baking regularly just to, well, just to see what would happen."

Steven started to bake "gobs," or as he describes it in his upcoming collection of recipes, Gobba Gobba Hey: A Gob Cookbook, "two domes of moist, dense cake with filling in the middle...kind of like a cupcake sandwich." These were "one of my favorite confections as a kid. Growing up in Pennsylvania they were everywhere. You could find them at church bake sales, school bake sales, birthday parties, stores and even in some gas stations on the counter right next to the cash register. I haven’t seen anything like them since moving here to San Francisco so I set out to fill the void."

And fill he did. "Wanting to bring some excitement to his game" in the "new food capital of the world," he went beyond the classic chocolate-and-vanilla standard of his youth and created more exotic flavors made with organic ingredients such as Orange, Cardamom Ginger with Saffron Filling and Black Cherry and Chocolate with Lime Butter Cream. (Full disclosure: I became an early groupie of Steven's and these were two of the three flavors that I served at my wedding in lieu of the traditional cake in the fall of 2010.)

Flash forward to the present-day, and street food is more popular than ever with big festivals, the advent of high-profile food trucks, and crowded weekly events. Steven's grown his business as well, with an online storefront at Foodzie and plans for a truck to help promote his upcoming book that will be available in late August. Start warming your ovens now for 52 recipes including Irish Coffee Gobs with Bushmills & Bailey Irish Cream, Kabocha Garam Masala Gobs with Orange Honey filling and Zucchini Gobs with Lemon-Ginger filling.

Recipe: Original Chocolate & Vanilla Gobs

Yield: 3 dozen complete gobs

For The Batter:

Ingredients:
4 cups all-purpose flour
3/4 cup cocoa flour
1/2 teaspoon baking powder
2 teaspoons baking soda
1 teaspoon salt
1/2 cup vegetable shortening, such as Crisco
2 cups sugar, sifted
2 eggs, at room temperature
1 teaspoon vanilla
1 cup buttermilk, at room temperature
1/2 cup 1 cup water, or as needed

Instructions:

1. Preheat the oven to 350F. Line three 8-by-13 inch cookie sheets with parchment paper.

2. In a large bowl, sift together the flour, cocoa powder, baking powder, baking soda and salt. Whisk the dry ingredients thoroughly.

3 In another large bowl, cream together the sugar and vegetable shortening with a mixer on medium speed. Add the eggs and vanilla to the creamed ingredients, and blend on medium-high until the mixture looks like dense pudding.

4. Alternate adding the dry ingredients and the buttermilk to the egg mixture, mixing on medium speed after each addition. Then add the sour cream, and mix well. Add water if needed to thin the batter. ("Go lightly" was my mom's original instruction.)

5. Using a tablespoon or a pastry bag, drop 1 1/2 inch rounds of batter on the prepared cookie sheets, leaving 1 inch between each round. Bake them approximately 8 minutes, or until the gob domes have risen. Remove the gobs to a wire rack to cool.

For The Filling

Ingredients:
1 cup milk
4 tablespoons all-purpose flour
1/2 cup vegetable shortening, such as Crisco
1/2 cup margarine
1 teaspoon vanilla extract
1 cup granulated sugar, or 2 cups confectioners' sugar, sifted

Instructions:

1. Heat the milk in a saucepan over low heat. Bring to a simmer, immediately add the flour. Whisk. Continue mixing over low heat til mixture thickens, approximately 3 to 5 minutes.

2. With a mixer on medium speed, cream together the vegetable shortening and margarine. Add the vanilla and sugar, and mix on medium-high.

3. Add the cooled milk-flour mixture to the creamed ingredients, and beat until the mixture is fluffy; scrape the bowl with a spatula to reincorporate the ingredients if necessary.

4. To frost the gobs, flip the baked gob domes over on a cookie sheet and match up pairs of similarly shaped domes. Add 1 tablespoon of filling to the flat side of an overturned dome, then place another dome on top, sandwich-style. Allow the gobs to fully set by refrigerating them on a baking sheet for at least 1 hour. Wrap the gobs in cellophane to prevent them from drying out.

Street food fans in the East Bay have looked longingly across the bridge (and sometimes even crossed it) at the thriving food truck scene now serving six San Francisco locations, thanks to Off the Grid, the weekly mobile food meet ups conceived by Matt Cohen. (See this previous BAB story on the evolution of Off the Grid.)

Now comes news that starting in June, Berkeley and Oakland residents hungry for their own pavement cuisine parties will have similar events tailored to the flavor of their respective communities.

In Berkeley, Off the Grid is partnering with the North Shattuck Association, a merchants group, to launch its first franchise outside SF. The event is slated to start June 1, permit approval pending, in Berkeley's Gourmet Ghetto, which has a long history as the epicenter of a delicious revolution but could use some fresh culinary blood to draw a younger crowd. Eight mobile food folks will sell their street eats at the intersection of Shattuck and Rose; core vendors dishing up chow each week include Liba (falafel with a twist), Hapa SF (mod Filipino grub), The Taco Guys (self explanatory), and Cupkates (ditto). In the mix the first night as part of a regularly rotating trio: Skylight Snowballs (sweet, slushy treats), 510 Burger, and Fins on the Hoof (surf and turf).

When word first got out on the local site Berkeleyside revealing which street vendors were planning to set up shop in this town, more than a thousand (presumably) local residents responded with a thumbs up on Facebook and the news generated the most cohesive comment thread in, perhaps, that site's short life. (Berkeley residents are known for their strong, frequently differing, opinions. This writer knows because -- full disclosure -- she pens a Friday food post on Berkeleyside.)

No prize for guessing that Berkeley's Off the Grid will feature local, sustainable, and, as much as possible, organic food, in keeping with this city's prevailing food philosophy. No high fructose corn syrup, genetically modified corn, or factory-farmed meat from these roaming restaurants, which use recyclable and compostable materials to deliver their dishes. In addition, one truck (courtesy of Cohen) will serve as a venue to showcase the culinary creations of chefs from the immediate area. First up: Peter Levitt, co-owner of Saul's deli.

The event, slated to be held on Wednesdays in a space already reserved for farmers' market vendors on Thursdays, marks something of a turnaround in this town, which in the past has not been particularly food truck-friendly. Heather Hensley, executive director of the North Shattuck Association, who submitted a proposal to the city in conjunction with Off the Grid, emphasized the controlled event environment (and local merchant approval) as key to getting the city on board, a sentiment echoed by Dave Fogerty from Berkeley's Office of Economic Development.

Hensley sees cross-promotional opportunities for local venues -- including music at nearby Cheese Board Pizzeria and Mint Leaf and drink specials (no alcohol is allowed at Berkeley's Off the Grid event) at participating restaurants. Cohen, who says he's exploring expanding into other East Bay locations, stresses that Off the Grid strives to preserve and build community, while offering affordable, creative, and ethnically-diverse street eats.

Most brick-and-mortar businesses are on board. "Why wouldn't I want a thousand or so people walking past Saul's?" asks co-owner Levitt, whose restrooms will be available for public use during the event, as they are during farmers' market hours (the restaurant is paid for providing such services). "Some of those people may stop in for a beer or come in for some food, either that night or in the future. It's a win-win for me. Unless, of course, Off the Grid starts selling matzo balls." Levitt knows that's not going to happen, since he's involved in helping shape the event so it complements food options already on offer in the area.

Even Pat Powell, who runs the cupcake shop Love at First Bite, doesn't see the weekly presence of CupKates as competition, although her business is open until 6p.m., an hour after Off the Grid starts. "Any event that brings people into the neighborhood is a positive thing in my mind," she says.

But Gregoire Jacquet, who runs Gregoire, named one of the top takeout spots in the Bay Area by San Francisco magazine, is more wary of the new event. "It will bring people into the neighborhood, but they're coming to eat the street food," Jacquet says. Still, he thinks it's worth giving it a go, though he would have preferred a monthly, not weekly, model. "If it works out well for everyone then it should keep going but if it negatively impacts existing food businesses then we should shut it down," adds Jacquet, who notes that it goes against the Buy Local Berkeley campaign, since most of the trucks hail from outside the area.

For their part, street truck purveyors such as Gail Lillian of Liba are delighted to have another venue (in her case close to home and her commercial kitchen) to provide the public gourmet meals on wheels.

Over in Oakland, Bites on Broadway kicks off on Friday, June 10 on the plaza in front of Oakland Technical High School. The food pod party is the brainchild of longtime East Bay events organizer Karen Hester (Temescal and Rockridge street fairs) and food truck owner and advocate Elizabeth August of Guerrilla Grub, which cooks up healthy comfort food. August is a member of Oakland Food Policy Council's mobile food vendors task force and recently formed the Oakland Food Truck Collective.

Most of the vendors at this new location, held on private property, thus bypassing city rules that prohibit mobile food carts from gathering in public places other than the Fruitvale, (though the city is currently reviewing its mobile food codes), are Oakland based. The menu includes a rotating band of pavement cuisine peddlers, including Fist of Flour (wood-fired pizza), Vesta Flatbread (Mediterranean-inspired sandwiches), Boffo Cart (panini, calzones, and such), Guerrilla Grub, Go Streatery (urban peasant food like crispy fava bean crepe) and the peddle-powered El Taco Bike. August, who organizes a mobile food contingent for Oakland's monthly Art Murmur, sees the event as an opportunity to showcase homegrown street food talent.

The family-friendly night, which includes live music and lawn games, has been embraced by the school's PTA, which hopes that down the road food trucks might offer students at Oakland Tech, an open campus, an affordable, healthy alternative to the nearby fast food joints currently frequented by students, says Hester. "We purposefully picked this stretch of Broadway, which is pretty bleak and doesn't have any brick-and-mortar restaurants in the vicinity," she adds. "It's a blighted neighborhood and we'd like to help revitalize this boulevard, which is the gateway to downtown Oakland."

Off The Grid's Cohen is considering sites in other Berkeley and Oakland locations where local stakeholders want to partner with his organization. While Hester thinks there's room for more food hub happenings, she'd prefer to see them powered by people from the immediate community.

"Bites on Broadway grew organically, out of something that is already happening in Oakland, so it's authentic. There's a lot of Oakland pride here. I'd like to see similar community-driven pods pop up in other neighborhoods."

Time will tell if there's a big enough appetite in the East Bay to sustain these recurring street food events. But if the number of new mobile food trucks buzzing around the Bay Area is any indication, residents are ravenous for mobile food fare.

Details:

Off The Grid
Address: Map
Corner Shattuck and Rose in North Berkeley
Wednesdays, 5 p.m-9 p.m.
Starts June 1

Bites on Broadway
Address: Map
Oakland Tech
45th and Broadway
Fridays, 5:30 p.m. to 8:30 p.m.
Runs June 10-October 21

Food, glorious, food. It's that time of year people: Bay Area Bites brings you the best in food news for 2010.

In this two-part package, we look at the national trends and topics that sizzled over the past 12 months and serve up some local flavor on the side.

Feel free to weigh in with your own edible highlights from the year that was. In no particular order:

1. Food Safety

From previous years we've learned that what we eat can make us sick (tainted peanut butter, beef gone bad, and salmonella-laced spinach ring any bells?).

This year's food alerts: A massive egg recall and lingering questions about health risks associated with Gulf seafood.

Thankfully, late in the year Congress passed the Food Safety Modernization Act to protect consumers from food products hiding harmful poisons or pathogens like E. coli and salmonella, a food policy coup that greatly strengthens the Food and Drug Administration's ability to keep unsafe food off supermarket shelves and restaurant plates by expanding the agency's recall abilities and access to records.

Local angle: Bay Area-based media consultant Naomi Starkman kept the spotlight on potentially dangerous foods for sale in reports on Civil Eats and Huffington Post, including a story about a Consumers' Report study that found packaged salad laden with fecal bacteria.

2. D.I.Y. Food

Age-old practices such as canning, jamming, foraging, fermenting, growing and gleaning are suddenly new (and cool) again. Chickens are the au courant backyard animal of choice. And classes in the Domestic Arts all the rage.

The New York Times Magazine traveled west to take pretty pictures of urban homesteaders from the Bay Area, The Washington Post chronicled the canning trend long strong here, and Vogue got down and dirty with city farmer Novella Carpenter, who donned a pink cardigan in a concession to fashion for a photo shoot with the stylish mag's scribe Hamish Bowles. (Carpenter seemed to pop up everywhere last year, including on KQED.)

Local angle: In addition to Novella Carpenter's Ghost Town Farm in Oakland, the Bay Area D.I.Y. brigade created a kind of cottage industry, hawking their homemade wares at venues like SF Underground Market (Underground Market on BAB) and East Bay Underground Market, as well as the Pop-Up General Store.

And they wrote about it too; notable D.I.Y. books this year included Rachel Saunders' tome The Blue Chair Jam Cookbook, Napa forager Connie Green's The Wild Table (featured on The California Report), and D.I.Y. Delicious by Vanessa Barrington. Online, San Francisco's Sean Timberlake launched Punk Domestics, a curated space for D.I.Y.-driven cyber self-publishers.

Classes in baking, brewing, beekeeping, bottling, animal husbandry and more were in high demand at venues like 18 Reasons, Urban Kitchen SF, the Institute of Urban Homesteading, and BioFuel Oasis, a worker-owned cooperative begun by Carpenter and friends.

3. Food Politics

In an era of identity politics and culture wars, food fights join the fray. What you eat (and what you choose not to consume) speaks volumes about your political persuasions. First Lady Michelle Obama, dubbed America's foodie-in-chief by The Atlantic, talked about ending obesity and increasing activity with her Let's Move initiative. She also championed growing food and farmers' markets -- and brought to her kitchen top chefs like Sam Kass. On the other hand, Rush Limbaugh mounted a modern-day Twinkie defense (this time citing the fact that a man lost weight on a diet consisting mostly of the infamous junk food as evidence that all nutrition science is bogus). Sarah Palin showed up at a Pennsylvania school bearing cookies and dished up s'mores at a diner in a calculated countermove to a Michelle Obama dessert comment. Professional rager Glenn Beck even weighed in. Sigh...

The task of putting the food wars in context fell to ex-Washington Post writer Jane Black, who has moved to Huntington, West Virginia with new husband editor Brent Cunningham to see what happens to the community's eating habits now that celebrity chef Jamie Oliver has skipped town.

Local angle: Taking the happy out of Happy Meals: Outgoing SF Mayor Gavin Newsom vetoed a Board of Supervisors ban on plastic toys in fast-food meals. But the supes struck back, ensuring that no child in the city will be tempted to eat junk food simply to get their hands on a cheap trinket that will likely break before you can say Big Mac.

4. School Food

For the majority of schoolchildren around the country school lunch sucks. Big time.

But change is coming. This year, Jamie Oliver brought his Food Revolution to the States, an anonymous teacher chronicled what she ate every day in her school cafeteria in her blog Fed Up With Lunch, and President Obama signed into law the much-anticipated Healthy, Hunger-Free Kids Act of 2010. The legislation bans some junk food, and gives a small, though historically significant, six-cent increase per child per lunch (the first such boost in the reimbursement rate in 30 years), and there may be more lunch money tucked inside the bill to boot.

Local angle: Veteran school food reformer Alice Waters claimed victory for her Edible Schoolyard model following the results of a study on Berkeley's School Lunch Initiative from University of California at Berkeley researchers.

5. Street Food

Fueled by Twitter feeds, gourmet grub on the go continued to attract a growing following around the country as food trucks hit the streets in increasingly more legitimate ways, boasting inspired names and bright colors, to wit The Best Wurst in Austin, Big Gay Ice Cream Truck in New York City, and Chairman Bao in San Francisco.

Food trucks went a step further in size, too, with the introduction of bustaurants, stripped former public transit buses reconfigured as a mobile kitchen, and, in some cases, even offering eat-in seating. In L.A. the double decker Worldfare dished up ethnic eats, while closer to home Le Truc in San Francisco served up gastro-pub fare, and Diamond Lil debuted to a small crowd and a camera crew.

Los Angeles officials announced it may regulate mobile carts, a move that could see other cities follow suit.

Local angle: With mild-mannered accountant Matt Cohen at the helm, the mobile food fest Off the Grid launched in Fort Mason and sprouted several neighborhood locations, including Golden Gate Park, McCoppin Hub, Civic Center, and UN Plaza. Officials in San Francisco passed reforms making it easier and cheaper for mobile vendors to serve street eats, while in the East Bay the city of Emeryville saw pushback from local brick-and-mortar businesses and Berkeley residents bemoaned missing out on most of the mobile food fun (for now).

Check BAB tomorrow for the rest of the best of 2010 food news.

Like any conference or convention, there were highs and lows at the International Food Bloggers Conference (IFBC). For me, one of the highs was getting to sample food from Seattle's best food trucks--they parked outside of the conference location one day and we had free reign to sample, chat with the vendors and chefs, and learn more about mobile food in Seattle. From ice cream to crepes, tacos to schwarma--here were my favorites:

Anita's Crepes

Anita's Crepes actually has a brick and mortar location in Ballard, but they were at IFBC representing their Lemon Sugar Crepe. Working quickly and quietly, they churned out crepe after crepe to hungry conference participants. For me, this was a welcome change from some of the heavier fare and the beer we'd all been guzzling. The crepe was incredibly light and had a subtle crust of lemon sugar, served with a dollop of fresh whipped cream and a lemon slice. Perfection.

Molly Moons

I've been to Molly Moons a few times before while visiting my sister in Seattle. They have a truck, but they also have a few free-standing locations in Capital Hill and Wallingford. If you're a Salted Caramel fan, this is the place for you. I've never tasted a richer, more intensely caramel flavor then what they're doing at Molly Moons. From a girl who can eat her weight in ice cream, I generally have to stop after a few bites. At the conference, I also had the chance to try the special Olive Oil flavor and the Scout Mint (as in, Girl Scout Mint Cookie). The Scout Mint was pleasant enough, but the Olive Oil ice cream was very special--the sort of thing you try with friends and do a lot of nodding but no one's quite sure how to talk about it. It was an uber-rich vanilla ice cream spiked with the earthy, floral notes of a very fine olive oil. I hope they decide to carry this one over at the shop. If so, it'll be my first stop-off next time I'm in town.

Dante's Inferno Dogs

Up until IFBC, I had never tried a hot dog with cream cheese before. And I have to say, I'll never look at hot dogs the same. While I was too stuffed to have an entire Dante's Inferno Dog, I had many bites from friends and we all compared notes. Dante's story is a great one--after moving to the Pacific Northwest in 1995 and suffering a few failed business ventures, he decided on dogs. The rest is history. He's infamous with the late night bar crowd, but is also well-loved around town for his classic (and not-so-classic) dogs and quiet, friendly demeanor. If I lived in Seattle, I'd hunt him down frequently. And in the meantime, I'm going to start using cream cheese much more liberally when it comes to dogs and sausages. Who knew?

El Camion

El Camion has three locations in Seattle and folks like Tom Douglas and publications including the Seattle Weekly and The Seattle Times have raved about the tacos. I had the chance to try the chicken mole taco -- I'm a huge fan of mole, especially when it's done right. And El Camion nailed it. The mole was warmly spiced with hints of cinnamon and pepper. Fabulous spicy salsas, too. And an extremely friendly, exuberant staff. Folks were talking about these tacos well into the afternoon.

Hallava Falafel

The schwarma that I had at Hallava Falafel may just possibly have been the best schwarma I've ever tasted. I've previously reserved that honor for this dumpy spot off of University Ave. in Denver that I loved as a college student, but Hallava has pushed them to second place. The folks behind the truck decided to open in 2006 in the Georgetown neighborhood after realizing how difficult it was to get a quality lunch for under $10. The schwarma itself was flavorful and spicy--slow roasted lamb and beef accompanied by Russian red relish, spinach and cabbage mix, tzatziki a wild Armenian pickle, and their "super secret spice mix". They make all of their sauces, salads, and falafel from scratch and keep their menu relatively simple to keep costs down and keep customers coming back.

Skillet

If you tied me down and asked me to name my favorite food truck that day, Skillet is it. The mini burger of grass-fed beef, arugula, bacon jam, and cambozola cheese on a little soft bun kind of blew my mind. Apparently they do poutine as well, and there's nothing like a good poutine to start the day off right. If you're local (or just visiting), check their rotating menu and calendar for specials. On his website, owner and executive chef, Joshua Henderson, notes: "we hope to create a business that sustains itself through impeccably executed food, simply done, and regionally relevant." From one small burger, I can attest to the fact that they are--without a doubt--achieving their goal.

Emeryville may have its charms--the world's grooviest office, an Apple store with parking, Rudy's Can't Fail Cafe--but streetside barbecue was not among them.

Now, though, with the opening of Primo's Parrilla, Argentine asado has come to the neighborhood, as authentic as it can get some six thousand miles from the pampas.

Growing up in Argentina, Primo's Parrilla owner and asador Javier Sandes learned early on that food was what brought the family together. His father grilled; his mother cooked, and everyone, friends and extended family alike, would gather around the table to talk and laugh and eat. Good meat, like good chimichurri sauce, was always there, rubbed simply with salt and cooked slowly over the coals so the fat melted into the meat, basting it from within.

When Sandes moved to the Bay Area, he brought with him his father's grilling skills and his mother's love of feeding a crowd. Soon he was making Argentine-style barbecue in the backyards of friends all around Oakland. One of those friends was Walker Bass, who told Sandes that he really should go into the barbecuing business full-time. Bass, along with Sere Peterson and Hammad Atassi, became an investor and part of the team, and soon Primo's Parrilla was born: a truck-and-grill operation bringing lunchtime asado to the people of Emeryville five days a week. (The truck, the crew and the meat are also available for private parties and events.)

The first day, a guy who lived in the neighborhood showed up, having followed his nose--and the wafting allure of meat and smoke--from six blocks away. "The smoke is our best advertisement," laughed Sandes as he spread glowing hardwood coals (a mixture of almond wood and mesquite) under a grill laden with butterflied chicken, whole tri-tips, and fat Italian sausages from Molinari's. Grilled, split and grilled again, the sausage is tucked into a chimichurri-smeared roll to make choripan ($9)--a frequent daily special that always sells out.

Besides the choripan, there are hand-made, flaky-crusted empanadas ($3.50 each, 2 for $6), filled either with chopped chicken or a mixture of beef, onions, olives, and red peppers, redolent of cumin and similar to Cuban picadillo. Grilled chicken ($10), juicy and moist, is finished with splash of lemon juice, paired with a generous scoop of mashed sweet potatoes flecked with spinach, a lively green salad dotted with red pear tomatoes, bread and a plastic cup of vibrant chimichurri, without which no meat could be served in Argentina. Similar to Italian salsa verde, it's a chunky slurry of minced parsley, garlic, olive oil, and hot pepper. "This batch has aged for about 3 weeks," Sandes points out. "It just gets better the longer it ages."

The real piece de resistance, though, is the tri-tip ($12), with a well-muscled chewiness and a deeply beefy flavor. It's grass fed, pasture-raised meat from Tallgrass Beef, the closest Sandes can get to Argentine beef in this country. And for dessert? Alfajores ($2), flaky cookies oozing dulce de leche, made by local bakers Dolce Vita.

Twitter: @VamosPrimos
Facebook: Primo's Parrilla

Last week, I was not surprised when I read John Birdsall's S.F. Weekly post about Whole Foods' planned development of a "street eats" line. While the Onion headline-ready notion of packed station wagons zipping over to America's fastest-growing supermarket chain (on weekends, after the kids' soccer games, before trips to the pool, perhaps) to savor authentic street-cart fare made me chuckle, the movement has boomed so rapidly and robustly -- resonating from gastronomic hot-spots such as Portland and New York to smaller markets, leaping from local blogs to spreads in food magazines -- it's almost shocking it didn't break sooner.

Definitions of street-food vary. To some, street-food is literally simply food you buy on the street to eat as you venture walk from one place to another, on foot or by bike. It is sold via cart, van, or basket. You find it steaming from wheeled cases under lamp-posts outside a favorite Mission District bar, wafting from a row of tents at Alemany Farmers' Market, and hawked from busy Financial District corners. Convenience is at the heart of it. Whether you're tucking into a pizza crisped in a customized Weber, scooping holes in a crème brûlée with a compostable spoon, or enjoying a bao in the park, you feel as if your food is coming to you. More accurately, it happens to be where you end up going. While the form has evolved to include dishes normally eaten on proper tables, street-food is usually portable, easy to hold, ideally with one hand, while in motion. You eat it the moment after you buy it, ideally immediately. Street-food is also a genre. Just as cart-pushers relish coming up with unlikely delicacies to squeeze into the street food idiom, expanding the realm of known possibilities, street food traditions from all over the world suddenly have a hold on the food-obsessed public's heightened attention, and chefs are increasingly comfortable crediting, say, Burmese lettuce wraps, Indian puri, or salt-studded pretzels with influencing dishes served at their relatively expensive, artfully designed restaurants boasting public relations teams and Flash-heavy websites. When fancy food hits the streets, and quick bites head uptown, the translations swirl in both directions, potentially to the point of causing cacophony -- over-priced white tablecloth tacos that don't taste as good as they should, and gimmicky riffs on haute cuisine you'd just as soon feed to the bold, foraging pigeon sharing your bench. Still, there's the one-year-old Street in Los Angeles, a stylish, hip restaurant celebrated for chef-owner (and long-time street-food advocate) Susan Feniger's inspired riffs on global fast food traditions. The potential for gimmickry makes me cringe, but if the food is actually really good to eat, it'd be tough to judge it by any other criteria. In mining such traditions, restaurants are, in a sense, making a logical leap from cross-cultural comfort foods -- menus inspired by what families eat together -- to meals tired, drunk people eat alone, as fast as they can, before they pass out, dabs of hot sauce still smeared across their faces.

In taking stock of the street-food trend and seeking to integrate it into their 800-pound gorilla of a business model, Whole Foods is following the same logic, trying to reflect the culture it sees bubbling up with tasty, convenient products people will buy. Harvindar Singh, Whole Foods' Northern California local foods "forager," told Birdsall he was hoping to sell locally sourced street food from grab-and-go perishable fridge cases or as shelf-stable products in up to 30 stores across the region. Thus far, he's reportedly met with Crème Brûlée Cart's Curtis Kimball, his brother, Magic Curry Kart's Brian Kimball, and Jon Kosorek of East Bay cart Jon's Street Eats on the subject of a bottled salad dressing. As Birdsall notes, the vendors participating will need to make some adjustments to their wares:

"...[S]elling to Whole Foods means more than dropping off a few trays of crème brûlée at the loading dock. It means tweaking ― or substantially re-engineering ― products to meet the company's guidelines for sourcing and packaging. 'They have to feel ready and capable of doing this,' Singh said of the vendors. 'This is a whole new business for them. I'd want to make sure they have the volume and know how to do business at this level. It's a partnership.'"

A Minyanville article published last Friday delves into some of the gritty details that partnership will entail, with Leslie Skarra, founder of a Minnesota-based product development and research firm, weighing to drop knowledge faster than a hand-scalding hot empanada:

"The first thing necessary to go from [a street cart] to the Whole Foods level is to convert the recipe to a formula...If you've been measuring ingredients by the cup, the large-scale producer will need the weights. Then, you need to define the process. Usually, there are things specific to a street vendor's equipment, their environment, that make their products what they are. After that, there needs to be a process of investigation to make sure the original product can be reproduced accurately...[S]cientists will convert the ingredients in the formula into one that would be acceptable to Whole Foods from a sourcing standpoint, a quality standpoint, and work out the necessary scale of operations...What are the risks? Sometimes going from handmade to large scale changes things. This is where many people involved in this sort of translation can underestimate the problems in going from small and slow to bigger and faster. This is known in the industry as 'scale up', which is very important to get right, to maintain the integrity of the street food and the things that make it excellent to eat, a pleasurable experience, every time it’s consumed, to drive repeat consumption."

I have included this whole beast of a quote because it sums up a lot of the issues at play better and no less succinctly than would my paraphrasing. The vendors and their loyal customers will have one major concern for sure -- that the efforts required to Whole Foods-ify the products will strip away flavor and authenticity. Crafted on a larger scale, sold from case, not cart, might some of the City's better-known traveling eateries end up, in Whole Foods' hands, becoming the edible equivalent of elevator music -- familiar, well-loved melodies with their songs' souls sucked out?

The idea of Whole Foods being some weird suburban bazaar-o full of exotic corporate-approved pseudo-street-food is probably hard for some devotees of the culture to stomach, but the truth is, for most Whole Foods customers, grazing through the grocery's expansive self-service steam-table offerings is already part of the shopping routine. An influx of street-food products in any part of the store would just mean a few more options. I'm not sure that the products would be seen as anything more than things to buy and eat, probably not valuable cultural artifacts at risk of dilution. Vendors -- especially those with families who have been selling food on the streets to make a living, not entertain a hobby -- might see Whole Foods as an opportunity to make their food work for them, and conceive of "selling out" as a dream, not a disappointment. It's a path some might want to go down and others might not. I just hope people who've been pushing tamales at Bart stations for 20 years get a shot -- that is, if they want one -- along with Silicon Valley refugees with over-active Twitter accounts.

Whole Foods has been stocking locally sourced prepared foods for a while. About a year ago, I did a brief interview with Singh for an Oakland Tribune story about East and West Gourmet Food, the Afghan-owned Dublin outfit nearly unavoidable farmer's markets throughout the region. Familiar with the company's products from his days running farmer's markets, he started stocking the company's vegan bolani breads and savory dips. They sold very well, at one point, he told me -- if memory serves me correctly -- so well that a few items were turning over as fast as grocery list staples. According to a Wall Street Journal article, also published last week, Singh has had a hand in the draft kombucha that has been flowing at a few area stores. He's also helped some of the small operations he's tapped fund their expansions -- all facilitated by the company's 2006 $10 million dollar low-interest loan program for local farmers and producers. When Singh approached her, East and West Gourmet Food's Nazie Sidiq didn't worry about getting too big. Her company -- really an extended family -- grew, and when I turned in the piece, was preparing to grow much bigger. Sidiq told me very plainly that she wanted to be on Oprah, to have the whole world eating Afghan street food, learning about it, embracing it. If Whole Foods can make lesser-known culinary traditions accessible on a broad scale without sacrificing quality, the company is doing a service -- to consumers, producers, and, of course, itself. There's a lot about Whole Foods that gives a thoughtful consumer pause -- not least of which is the behemoth store's propensity for snatching business from small neighborhood groceries and markets. At the same time, unless you think street-food has to be a hardscrabble existence, or that a noble small business is a scarcely sustainable one, the trend is encouraging.

The Waffle Mania Truck

I'll admit it. I rarely drive downtown. Now I'm probably going to sound about twice my age when I tell you why, but I'm OK with that. I like to stick to the neighborhoods in San Francisco where friends live, where you can occasionally find parking, where your quarter gets you more than five minutes in the meter. In the short time that I've lived in the city, I've quickly discovered the frustrations of MUNI and have concluded that, apparently, after crossing Market Street I lose all sense of direction I may have once had.

That being said, I wanted to check out Waffle Mania this week, and I'd heard that the truck was spending more time in the city on a little side street in SOMA. I knew what this meant. That's right, folks: I was going downtown. And I'm here to report that I'd do it again in a heartbeat.

Tehama Street in SOMA: where you can find hot waffles on Tuesday and Friday mornings.

So what's the draw? For me, waffles are the ultimate comfort food. While some people would vote for macaroni and cheese or chicken potpie, waffles are it for me. They're warm and fluffy and a little bit sweet-- great with coffee and a good excuse to eat a little whipped cream in the morning. What more do you need?

The classic powdered sugar waffle at Waffle Mania

The "waffle man" that many people seek out is, more often than not, Alain Dupont (while there are a few other business partners, Dupont is frequently working the waffle irons). While he's a familiar face at many of the local markets, the Tehama Street routine is new. I asked Dupont why he decided to spend more time in San Francisco and how he chose the quiet, unassuming street. After doing a very successful catering event in mid-November at BarrelHouse (@barrelhousesf), friend and marketing guru Marcus Colombano encouraged Alain to come down to BarrelHouse on a more permanent basis, and the CBS folks across the street have welcomed him with open arms. The rest seems to be history.

If I had the clout the CBS employees do, I'd request something similar in my neighborhood. The waffles are pretty remarkable. They're different than the light, airy Belgian waffles I've had in the past. As I was watching Dupont make them inside the truck, I noticed the dough's actually a sturdy little ball rather than the batter that most of us are used to making at home.

Alain Dupont lining up a fresh round of waffles

According to the So Good website where Dupont orders the imported Belgian dough, these are Liege waffles with 300 years of culinary tradition behind them. I did a little research and the liege waffle is a type of Belgian waffle that's made with a dense dough and is baked with little bits of sugar inside which, when cooked, give the waffles an almost caramelized, buttery, slightly crispy top.

Keeping it simple: the menu choices at Waffle Mania

While I was tempted by the Nutella Waffle, I ultimately wanted to taste the real, unadulterated waffle I'd been hearing so much about. The meter was ticking. My quarters were about to run out. I had powdered sugar all over my camera bag and, sure enough, I got lost trying to get back to my 'hood. But it was all worth it in the end. In fact, you may find me right back there on Tuesday.

GET SOME!
Tues. and Fri.: Tehama St., between First and Second St, San Francisco. 8am-12pm (or until they run out which often happens around 10:30).

Wed. Civic Center Farmers Market: 1182 Market St. between Eighth and Grove St., San Francisco. 8am-12pm.

Thurs. and Sun. Marin Farmer's Market: 76 San Pablo Ave., San Rafael. 8am-1pm

Sat. Grand Lake Farmer's Market: Intersection of Grand Lake and Park Ave., Oakland. 9am-2 pm

Follow on Twitter: @wafflemaniaSF

Six o'clock on Friday night, and the line outside the door at 17th and Capp was snaking down past the motorcycle repair shop and around the corner. Clutching brown paper bags of Sam Adams and Tecate, the crowd was a typical Mission mix: young guys in goatees with bike locks slung through their messenger bags, cool dads with baby strapped to their chests in slings, women staying warm in hand-knitted scarves and stripey fingerless gloves, even a few used-bookstore-looking folks with wild gray hair and heavy glasses.

What was the scene? An iPad giveaway? Lifetime free coffee at Four Barrel? A Radiohead jam session?

No, no, and no...instead, it was the second Underground Farmers' Market, organized by ForageSF's Iso Rabins. Essentially, an extra-groovy bake sale, held for no reason except to showcase the fun stuff being made by your friends and neighbors. What was on the table? All kinds of delights: kombucha by the jug, bags of peanut brittle and beef jerky, bergamot marmalade, white-grapefruit vanilla jelly, onion-bacon relish, lemonade, butternut-squash lasagna, little bowls of rice and mung-bean stew scooped out of Mason jars, acorn fudge, made-while-you-wait Indian chaat, corned-beef sandwiches, pumpkin pie by the slice, raw chocolate truffles, cupcakes, cucumber marmalade, kale, fresh chanterelles, granola, chipotle popcorn.

Photos by Wendy Goodfriend

Well, awesome, you may say. But this is San Francisco, hardly a place starving for access to raw-chocolate truffles and artisanal chicharrones. Between our dozens of farmers' markets, our thousands of restaurants, and our many, many gourmet stores, why would anyone need to stand in line on Capp Street to score good food?

Because walking into a store and handing over money is easy. Anyone can do it. To get to the Underground Farmers Market, you had to know about it—through Rabins' own 1000+ person email list, through a re-tweet from a street-food cart, or from one of the many blog or media mentions that had been buzzing around the concept since the first market, held last December. Just like at a show by a new band, though, a lot of the attendees seemed to have gotten there the old-fashioned way: they had a friend selling stuff, or knew somebody who knew somebody who told them to check out this cool scene.

So there was the buzz factor, and the undeniable urban urge to be in at the beginning of the next new thing. And, like a warehouse show, there was a little of the Permits? We don't need no stinkin' permits feeling, too. After all, this was outlaw food, made by artisans canning on the far side of the law—in other words, brewing the 'buch or popping the corn in their home kitchens, uninspected by the health department.

Few of the vendors make their product professionally in commercial kitchens; for most, it's a fun side gig, something they were doing anyway for friends and family, a way to make a little extra money from a particular passion for chocolate or kimchee. (Of course, the continued stream of layoffs have made more and more people seek profit in their passion; at a recent SPUR panel discussion on the economics of street food, Imelda Reyes from the Department of Public Health said she gets 12 to 16 calls a day now from would-be street-food entrepreneurs curious about the permitting process, up from 2 or 3 a week a year ago.)

Is this how twentysomethings are rebelling now? As outlaw onion-bacon relish-makers, flaunting the law with their organic flax-seed crackers or park-foraged miners' lettuce? Whatever the reasoning, the scene was amazingly cheerful. This was a church social of a different stripe, bringing together like-minded urbanites eager not just to shop and nibble (although shop they did) but to to put a face on their food, talking pickling, swapping project ideas, sharing chicken coop innovations and enthusing about the excellence of Fatted Calf's butchery classes. That bunch of mustard greens? Grown and bunched by Patricia on an eighth-of-an-acre vacant lot in Berkeley, thanks to a friendly landlord happy to see vegetables sprouting instead of weeds and trash. That lemonade? Made by Robin from lemons picked in her friend's backyard, and served up with peanut brittle "made from stuff I just had in my kitchen."

Selling my own hot-from-the-oven homemade bread, apricot jam and vanilla pear butter from a card table in the corner, it was easy to feel like instant friends with everyone to whom I handed a warm loaf. After all, I'd kneaded and shaped each bread just a few hours before, peeled every single pear after it was picked at an orchard I knew.

The recession may be fueling a renewed interest in home cooking and small-scale entrepreneurship, but money was definitely being spent. By 10pm, Becky of Urban Preserves estimated that she'd sold over half of the 150 jars she'd brought; Kitty of Kitty's Creations, who makes her products in her church's kitchen in the Sunset, had maybe 5 dozen left of the 14 dozen jars of jam, chutney, and relish she'd walked in with. Slow Jams, on the verge of going pro, charged $10 and up for their sleek jars of sweet and savory jams and relishes; by 9pm, they were sold out and packed up.

By 10:30pm, organizer Iso Rabins looked equally exhausted and thrilled, if a little stunned by the turnout. A lot of advance press and a savvy use of social media, combined with a particular young-urbanite quest for authenticity, had made the night's market popular beyond anything he'd imagined. For the next one, a bigger venue will clearly be necessary. How big can it go and still feel underground? How many of the novelty seekers will come back? How much jam and jerky does the city need? For the moment, it seems, that if you make it, they will come.

Watch This Week in Northern California tonight, Friday January 29 at 8pm to see Leslie Sbrocco, host of Check, Please! Bay Area in a new segment on local food and wine trends. This week, a conversation about restaurants and the recession and underground food markets with Bay Area Bites bloggers, Michael Procopio and Stephanie Rosenbaum.

KQED Radio's Forum: The Decade in Food
In the past decade, the Bay Area's hippest food has changed from teetering geometric towers of raw tuna to a simple slab of pork with a side of potatoes. The dainty Apple-tini ordered in the early part of the decade has given way to the masculine Manhattan. Forum talks about the food and cocktail trends of the decade.

Host: Scott Shafer
Guest: Lessley Anderson, senior editor of Chow.com