S.F.'s Newest Street-Food Vendors Get the Jonathan Kauffman Treatment

John Birdsall

Steamed buns from Chairman Bao: lion's head meatball (left) and crispy tofu.

​We've been told there are more than 50 tweeting food vendors in the Bay Area. Unless you've been airlifted into SFoodie for the first time ― on the wings of Google's search bots, perhaps ― you know that mobile food is a growth industry in San Francisco, rivaling only froyo shops and Neapolitan pizzerias for sheer proliferation.

In today's SF Weekly "Eat" column, food critic Jonathan Kauffman grazes seven of the newest vendors ― Chairman Bao, Hapa SF, Primo's Parrilla, SF Crispy Tacos, IZ-IT Fresh Grill, 51st State, and Curry Up Now ― in a multi-napkin tour of instant gratification. Kauffman:

Because it's summer, and because the street-food movement has all the momentum of Twilight movie mania, the public has been logging sightings of a new food truck every week. In contrast with San Francisco's traditional taco truck fleet, which continues to grow slowly ― and is still below the radar ― this summer's new food trucks have investors, graphic designers, and Facebook fan pages. Their ambition isn't (just) to make a living, it seems, but to realize big ambitions. To some trucks, that means scaling down the bistro experience to something that fits in a compostable box; other trucks concoct handheld snacks that meld a half-dozen cuisines. The multiculti taco, needless to say, is everywhere.

Take the total Kauffman truck tour at SFWeekly.com. Then Twitter-follow accordingly.