Opening Day at Fort Mason

Food trucks are all over San Francisco and, thanks to Off the Grid, we now have plenty of opportunities to visit multiple trucks in one, convenient location, rather than track down each truck individually.

Although there have been many food truck gatherings in San Francisco over the last several months, one of the biggest and most visited of these venues—Friday nights at Fort Mason (a former United States Army post located in the northern Marina District, alongside San Francisco Bay)—just reopened for the season.

It was a great event. Five hours (5:00-10:00 PM) with more than 30 food trucks, carts and tents offering street food from Korea to Morocco, India to Peru and Malaysia to Hawaii. And for those looking for something a bit different, how about deep-fried wax moth larvae tacos?

All of this plus fun live music, artisan beers and a full bar.

Being boomers, we went early (about 5:45 PM ) to avoid some of the huge lines that would build later in the evening and to get home before the threat of rain materialized. And since we wanted a chance to try as many possible foods, from as many vendors as possible, we went with another couple.

The four of us made a heroic effort—14 dishes from 12 different vendors: Everything from soup to popsicles and sushi to tacos. Among our favorites were:

• 3 Sum Eats’ miso glazed pork loin with avocado and ginger tomatillo jam;
• Kung Fu Taco’s duck taco with mango salsa;
• Fogcutter’s pork belly torta with picked daikon, jalapeno and lime aioli.

Although all dishes had their unique attractions, we did not fully appreciate all of them. One of the pork dishes was a bit tough and grizzly. The Malaysian Umami soup with coconut and lemongrass didn’t quite deliver on its promise. As for the moth larvae tacos, we will stick with the cricket tacos we recently discovered at a New York Mexican restaurant.

While a couple of disappointments come with the territory, all four of us fully enjoyed most of the food and we loved the atmosphere. We even got a chance to experience some of the younger crowd by staying a bit past our normal 8:30 bedtimes 🙂 !

In sum, we absolutely will return to the regular Fort Mason shindigs and make it a point to attend a number of other Off the Grid events.

You too can find all of the food truck gatherings. Just sign up for Off the Grid’s email newsletter.