Is Street Food the New Bacon?
Where's the love for the truck selling Sponge Bob ice cream?
Street food has definitely entered a new era, maybe even reaching the faddish extremes of bacon. Last week the Wall Street Journal was yet another publication to notice that the new breed of street food "is aggressively gourmet, tech-savvy and politically correct."
While I'm all for crème brûlée from a kitchen next to a steering wheel, it's hard not to wonder how this new-agey mobile food culture will affect the old guard. What about the non-organic, questionably hygienic vendors without Blackberrys or Facebook accounts? Are they going to survive this moment?
In some cities it's not an issue. Chicago, for example, doesn't have a truck selling quiche Lorraine or hormone-free gelato. In fact, the city is still pretty limited to vendors selling elotes (roasted corn on the cob), hot dogs, ice cream, and sno-cones. According to Chuck Sudo of Chicagoist, "the city may never experience the same cutting-edge street food culture because the aldermen regulate and legislate anything they don't understand to excess." Compounding that, the vendors cannot afford wireless service or don't want to draw attention to their residency status.
But in other regions, especially Northern and Southern California, and New York City, the trend is on fire. In fact, tonight in Rockefeller Center, leading chefs will prepare "gourmet street food" for a Citymeals-on-Wheels fundraiser where tickets were $600 a pop. On the menu: funnel cake with orange blossom honey, Nova Scotia lobster rolls, and grilled lamb with black cardamom dressing in homemade pita.
While I like the fact that more entrepreneurs are doing innovative things with food on sidewalks, part of me is a little nervous that, some day, a sno-cone with bright blue syrup might not be good enough.
Related: A List of Street Food Vendors Using Twitter
Add a comment:
Previewing your comment:
HTML Hints
Some HTML is OK: <a href="URL">link</a>, <strong>strong</strong>, <em>em</em>
Comment Guidelines
Post whatever you want, just keep it seriously about eats, seriously. We reserve the right to delete off-topic or inflammatory comments. Learn more at our Comment Policy page.
If you see something not so nice, please, report an inappropriate comment.
7 Comments:
As Papa Hemingway said of Paris, could be said of NYC and SoCal. It's always "A Movable Feast" with the help of twitter.
hungry_traveler at 1:51AM on 06/09/09
The proliferation of gourmet sausages didn;t kill our appetite for a good old hot dog, so the Kogi trucks will probably never replace the good old taco. But a creme brulee does sound really good right now.
Kiki Maraschino at 6:41AM on 06/09/09
I think the old guard will be fine--no, they will not have the same cult (or trendy, depending on how you feel about it) followings on this scale, but their old loyal followers won't go anywhere, and the majority of their sales are the spontaneous, hungry-while-walking type. When I have fifteen minutes to grab lunch, I'm going to opt for the cart on the corner, not troll twitter seeing if anyone is around.
lg7788a at 8:26AM on 06/09/09
Gutter merchants are selling the best prepared food you can find in the San Francisco area and have been for several years, especially those operations run by Philippino and Mexican emigres. Their food almost always tastes good, does not cost a fortune and their service is a vast improvement over the usual run of restaurant you can find there.
It's called competition and it's a very good thing.
Grumpy Old Man at 10:49AM on 06/09/09
what lg7788a said. they serve two different markets. non cult members will still go to traditional carts for a cheap fast meal. people who are working for a living aren't always ecstatic about waiting in line for a half hour and paying $10 for a marginally filling lunch.
sloppy at 11:25AM on 06/09/09
it's like saying mcdonalds is going to go out of business because of the DB burger. different strokes for different folks. dirty water dogs will always be around. creme brulee trucks will come and go.
saltcrystal at 12:43PM on 06/09/09
What's exciting about the foodservice industry is that there's room for (almost) everyone. While I don't think that gourmet food trucks will push all of the Mr. Softees or the Hot Dog Stand Man's of the world out of business, we will likely soon see fewer of the latter and more of the former types of businesses. There are only so many street corners, vendor licenses and consumers to be had. The roving eateries that offer what consumers perceive as a good value--and successfully market themselves--will thrive, those that don't won't. That's true now more than ever. Right now, a growing number of consumers think gourmet foods like artisan ice cream, custom cupcakes and fresh steamed dumplings from an restaurant on wheels offer a better value than hot dogs, sno cones and ice cream from old school street trucks or carts.
fernglazer at 4:13PM on 06/09/09