FOOD TRUCK QUICK BITE: BOBCHA SF
"It's just another Pleasant Valley Sunday," and in case you are too young, that is from a Monkee's song. Don't know them? Well, I highly recommend Googling them. If you are a pop music fan, you can thank me later. But back to Sunday and we are hitting up our favorite spot the SOMA StrEat Food Park for some food in the sun. There are a couple of places me and the SO haven't tried yet and we zero in on some Korean fare at theBobcha SF truck.
Perusing the menu, both our eyes alight upon an appetizer called calamari sticks, and well of course we are going to try that.
It's exactly what you think it is, calamari cut into strips then heavily battered and deep fried, served with a side of ranch for $7.75. In theory I could see this working out well. In reality though, not so much. The SO was kind of okay with them but I thought they were too chewy and the breading way too heavy to really enjoy them, even with the ranch. Maybe if the calamari was a little more tender (I know it can be, I've had good ones in this town) and a little less greasy breading they could have worked out. In the end, between that and the high price being charged for them, I'd ultimately pass next time.
For the main we got the Cup Bob, your choice of two meats over lettuce and steamed rice with their "magic sauce" drizzled over the top for $8.75. We chose the spicy chicken and the bulgogi beef. The "magic sauce" kind of reminded me of a really spicy honey mustard, it was nice though to give a little kick this otherwise just okay bowl of meat, lettuce and rice. The serving isn't as large as the picture makes it seem. The meat was cooked just fine, but I don't know, it just didn't really excite me or my tastebuds. Pleasant if unmemorable would be a good way to describe it. For an extra $1 you could get some kimchi added to it and for another $1 on top of that you could get a fried egg. I'm thinking we should have gone all in and paid the upcharge. The spice of kimchi and the creamy richness of an egg yolk might have made this more inspiring for me. They also had a bacon fried rice add-on for another $1, but even I think that may have been too much--shocking, I know!
I'll chalk this one up to another live and learn moment in food truck land. Whenever you can add an egg, you probably should. And if the spice is right, get the kimchi too. Just because I wasn't all in on Bobcha SF this time around doesn't mean I'm not willing to give them another shot. Next time I'll zone in on the kimchi fries and just suck it up and pay for a fried egg. It's only money when you are trying to satisfy your taste cravings.
