The Saturday busyness I’ve mentioned in my previous post continues.  This weekend , the “culprit” was the San Francisco Street Food Festival.

I found out about the existence of this event completely randomly after reading, just as randomly, several posts on Jun Belen’s blog, including one about his experience at the 2009 edition of the festival. I then immediately searched for the date on which the festival would take place this year, noting it down about two months in advance on our family calendar.

And there we were this past Saturday: my husband, a colleague of his by the name of Nik, and of course – my highness.

We got there around 1 p.m., and was it crowded!

We entered through Folsom and 24^th Street. (Refer to this PDF map for visual “geographic” details.) Hungry, we decided to first take a look around. On the one hand, to get an idea of the options offered, and on the other – to find food stands with shorter waiting lines.

Our degustation thus began on the opposite end: on Folsom and 26^th (or rather 25^th). We started with a tasty Scotch egg while waiting for a baby ramen bowl and enjoying the music played by the DJ nearby.

Of course, my husband who is a hardcore eater of hot and spicy food (think: capable of pouring half a jar of hot spices over his dish and topping it with a habanero chili) had to spice up his ramen bowl.

Yes, that thing on the top left corner is part of my finger. Try taking pictures while holding a ramen bowl together with a scotch egg and while also having people waiting behind you.

He was initially unimpressed by the available chili oil, disappointed by the negligible heat of the red mini pepper. Then, he bit into the green one. That’s when he broke a sweat.

Fortunately, we were already in line for something which would tame the heat: piroshki!

We got some sweet ones (the salty ones being already gone) with cranberries, apples, almonds, and topped with a spoonful of sour cream.

We finished our visit at the festival by venturing into 25^th Street and its intersection with “Treat” Ave. There were some more impressive lines of people waiting to be fed.

We got into what we believed was the one for the Indian street food and after about fifteen minutes in it, we discovered that we were actually in the rotisserie queue.
Being halfway to the meat and seeing that the actual line for the Indian food had grown even larger, we stayed where we were. In the meantime, Nick had gone to take his own look around and had come back with some falafels.

Oh my. That falafel was the best one I’ve ever had. It had a crunchy outside covered with some sesame seeds and a fresh inside with a sweet, nonintrusive taste of lemon. Obviously, I was too busy savoring that falafel to take any pictures. Besides, ten more minutes having passed, we had finally reached our turn in the rotisserie line. The specialty here was grilled pork with very crunchy skin, sandwiched in a “bun” of fresh and crusty bread, together with glazed onions and fresh parsley.

Our stomachs full and satisfied, we washed down all the food with a fresh strawberry-something smoothie-like drink. We were now ready to get back home and take a good nap.

For more pictures and comments on this year’s festival, check out Jun’s new post on the subject right here.