Food truck quick bite: Hula Truck.....because Hawaii in January is a thing

I noticed I had a lot of brownish in color type food on the blog in the last few months, an easy scroll through the pics on the front page can tell you that. I think it is just the time of year when I am just drawn to comfort foods which just so happen to be deep fried and stuff. We all have our things. This week isn't all that different, though if you notice, there is some color in there this week. It comes courtesy of my visit to Hula Truck at Spark Social SF.

See, lots of bright colors on the truck too! Enough to brighten up a winter day right? I found myself there on a random day at lunch time out of boredom. That's what happens when you are out of work. You just can't look at another listing and need to get outside and eat your feelings. Wait, was that my outside voice? Anyway, I wandered across the Fourth St. bridge and sauntered through Spark looking for something to appease my hunger.

Honestly, it wasn't the color of the truck that drew me to Hula, it was their offering of something called Da' Situation, which is loaded tater tots. It made me stop and think as I feel like I read somewhere on one of those innumerable lists that loaded fries or some such would be one of the food trends to really take off in 2018. But I feel like I've seen loaded fries or tots on menus at both sit down restaurants and food trucks for some years now here in SF. It is like we are always on the forefront of food, though if you go all the way back, you 'd really have to thank the Canadians since they put gravy and cheese curds on fries since forever. Hooray for poutine!

This is how my mind wanders when trying to decide what to eat. Drives the SO kind of crazy as it sometimes slows down my decisions about what to get. To me there is a round about thing to it all and it makes perfect sense, though now I am just rambling so back to the food. Sticking with Hula this time though and getting the loaded tots.

It's tater tots topped with your choice of meat, I chose the Kalua pork because duh, pico de gallo, shredded cheese, sour cream and their special "Hula Verde" sauce slathered across the top. This has all the hallmarks of great comfort food with a hearty portion of meat, potatoes, cheese, deep fried stuff and many more flavors that taste good apart and together. In the moment, it was everything I was looking for in the moment and really wanted to like it more than I actually did.

What I did like here was the idea of all this together. The pork was tasty and plentiful and the "Hula Verde" was like a spicy sriracha kind of mayo, just a little thinner. It gave a cool little kick to the dish. The biggest issue I had was it was served lukewarm to tepid, temperature wise there was no heat to any of it. I'm pretty sure the tots were not made to order and had been sitting out a bit as were the other toppings. I could tell because the cheese, which you can kind of see above, wasn't melted at all. If you put cheese on top of fresh out of the fryer tots, it will melt. Then if you add pork that should come crock pot or something, the cheese should melt even more. Here, not even a bit.

Maybe because it was a slow weekday lunch or something, they had these things prepared and ready to go but since it wasn't busy, they had sat around a bit and gotten all room temp or something. A shame really, since as I said, some flavors were there and I really wanted to like it. But as served, it just didn't come together like it probably should have. Now I know you have to have some stuff pre-made to be ready for a rush but where's the heat lamp for the tots? Was the pork not at least in a hotpot? Or at the very (very, super very) least, could you not have have microwaved it up a bit to melt the cheese? Cold pork and cheese on cold tots are not the best or exciting dish to be eating outside on a windy SF day.

Bummer, but it is why sometimes I waffle so much about what I am in the mood to eat. So many thoughts through my mind--will it be good, is that what I want, what if it isn't good and so on. A world or indecision whirling through my head. It is a wonder I even get to eat sometimes, and occasionally that does happen where I just say screw it and get nothing. That really drives the SO mad!

Maybe next I'll try to go when it is busier and things need to be made to order. Or maybe I'll find something else. Or maybe I'm not really hungry. Or maybe I don't need that many carbs right now. Aaagghhhh! So many things! Such are the joys of me and dining out in SF.