The four-hour adventure was a rare opportunity to feel like an excited tourist in our birthplace, and also a chance to appreciate the breadth and depth of what we call street food in San Francisco. And, as we were ferried around in various Chevy models (all with that great new car smell), the pressures of driving and parking in visitor hot spots melted away.
Meeting at Justin Herman Plaza, we energized with big cups of Blue Bottle Coffee from the nearby kiosk in the Ferry Building, a success story in street food ― well, garage food? ― if there ever was one. We jumped into a Malibu with Zigas and rolled up to Alioto's Crab Stand in Fisherman's Wharf, which Zigas picked to represent the O.G. part of San Francisco street food, the tradition that started before we were born. We greedily hunted and pecked at Dungeness legs as Alioto's retired floor manager John, who still comes to work every day to "keep from smoking two packs of cigarettes a day," showed us the secret to cracking open the heart (squeeze, crack, twist). From there, it was to another spot we rarely go to as a native: Crissy Field. Not only did haute hot dog cart Let's Be Frank (which parks there only on weekends) await, so did the twin views of the Golden Gate Bridge and the rest of the metropolis. We slathered our turkey dog with spicy Devil sauce, enjoying its snap and heat, though it wasn't brutal enough to be truly Satanic.In a scene straight out of the Streets of San Francisco (okay, not really), we took to the hills to cross town for another veteran street food institution, the Alemany Farmers' Market, where El Huarache Loco had laid out a cart of Mexico City specialties including cactus-salad topped huaraches, which Zigas explained means "sandal" and might cause laughter were you to say you're eating one outside of the capital.
From there, we traipsed through the narrow roads and strollers of Bernal Heights to get to La Cocina in the Mission, where Crème Brûlée Cart was firing up our desserts, a choice of lavender, vanilla, Ritual coffee, or s'mores. We chose the latter, topped with Golden Grahams and torched mini-marshmallows, because we hadn't had enough food (lie).
