Day 185

To kick-off the labor day weekend, we went to Off the Grid at Fort Mason. Every Friday night from 5-9pm the food trucks of the bay area converge at the Fort Mason parking lot to offer their food. I’ve been wanting to go since I heard about it last month so finally found time to check it out. Check their Facebook page for the participating vendors as it changes each week.

As usual, the warm weather did not last long so it was really foggy and cold at Fort Mason. There was a huge crowd of people and long lines for certain vendors so this made it a little bit less cold, all those bodies were blocking the wind. We opted this time to try the vendors with shorter lines and maybe will go back someday to try the more in demand vendors when the weather is nicer (some of the lines were ridiculously long).

We started at the Onigilly cart. They serve onigiri which are Japanese rice balls with meats of veggies and wrapped in seaweed or I think in this case, rice paper. They are $2.75 each or 2 for $5 and they also have a Bento box. We decided to try their tuna and eggplant onigiri. Since it was a cold evening, they weren’t very satisfying and I felt like the rice was a bit mushy. The eggplant topping was my favorite part. I might try them again but maybe when it’s not so cold as I think I was craving something warm.

We tried a beef brisket slider from City Smoke Barbeque. I think it was $4. The brisket was delicious and you could taste the smoke in the meat. The slaw and sweet bun made it extra yummy.

Next was Hapa Ramen and their slow cooked pork ramen with an added egg. $9 for the ramen, extra $1 for the egg. The pork was tender, the broth a bit light but delicious when you add the Japanese spice. There was sweet corn kernels and green onions which just added to the broth. But I didn’t really like the noodles, a bit thin and too soft. My favorite thing though was the pickled cucumbers that the have on the side, crunchy and tangy.

Lastly, we tried the chicken and pork tacos from Takorea. This place almost ruined our night. The wait for our tacos was really way too long, for 2 tacos, it took 20-25 minutes. The tacos are $3 each and the menu tonight was chicken, pork and vegetarian, limit 4 tacos per person. They were out of the beef. After ordering, there were a lot of people standing around waiting…. some person said they waited over 30 minutes. I’m not sure what took so long but it seemed like they were grilling each order individually and they had to stop to clean their grill inside a few times. Eventually though, I thought they were really good. The meats were marinated well and grilled well. The red cabbage and pickles were delicious and the reddish mayo sauce was really tasty too. I liked them also because they use only one soft taco shell and lined it with sliced turnip (or some other crunchy root vegetable) so that the taco shell didn’t get soggy, less carbohydrates is always better for me.

After that, we left for home. I missed getting Cupkates but I’m sure we’ll be back and try some other vendors as well.

Simon was well behaved the entire time we were at Off the Grid but I’m sure he was glad to get home to change into some warm pajamas since it was cold out there. He’s biting his lower lip as he is started to teethe.

He’s choosing to chew on harder objects now too. It must be soothing. Plus he likes this rattle since it makes a clicking sound and has a mirror on one side of it.

I was shocked when I looked into his mouth and saw a little white spot on his lower gum line. His first tooth!

My, how time flies! He had been gnawing on my finger and it did hurt but I didn’t realize his tooth was actually pushing its way out already. Our baby is growing up!