Whole Foods Market - Tapas To Go in Noe Valley
The neighborhood of Noe Valley in San Francisco has been missing a grocery store, focused on organic foods for six years now. When the Saturday farmer’s market began in the Noe Valley Ministry parking lot, across from Martha’s Brothers Coffee, a few years ago, residents and visitors alike were over the moon! Now Whole Foods Grocery, the famous Austin, Texas grocery store chain, has come to the neighborhood and they are out to make a big impression.
One of the first attempts at winning over the locals is their Tapas To Go truck, set up in the Whole Foods Market parking lot. We stopped by one afternoon before our brunch at Savor, and tried their four item menu.
The location is convenient because you can’t miss the large truck when you are walking along 24th Street. However the order process was a little odd, especially since the person in the truck was cooking, and this was similar to a taco truck from which we had ordered many times. However we went along here and dutifully walked up to a portable “ironing board type” table and chose the “eyes with fries” or smelt, from the menu for $3.
Whole Foods Tapas $3 Menu
Unfortunately for us the result was not so good. We have been to tapas bars in a Barcelona, Spain. What we ate was a strange hybrid. Maybe it was the deep fryer in the truck that didn’t produce the necessary temperature to fry the smelt properly? Maybe it was the batter or seasoning that they used? I don’t know but the result was not so great.
However I have to give Whole Foods credit because they did not charge us for our order. They were honest enough to see that the resulting clumpy oily smelt in the tiny paper cone, was not worth $3 nor a dish Whole Foods probably wanted to put their name on.
The Whole Foods Market Tapas Truck is not there everyday. Maybe they are working out the kinks in their system and the menu at another location? Hopefully they will do a little more homework in the test kitchen and while they are at it, expand the $3 menu beyond four items.
Whole Foods Market Tapas Truck
3950 24th Street
San Francisco, CA 94114
(415) 282-4700
www.wholefoods.com
Photos by Sharon Castellanos
