When I was living in London, I got very obsessed with checking out the local food trucks. In fact, my favorite burger place there started out as a food truck…and my favorite pizza place. (Actually a lot of the burger places did.) There were always a fleet of them at Camden Market, and it gave me the opportunity to try out a lot of delicious food. My favorite tacos in London were from the vegan taco truck where they served up some delicious pulled jackfruit and chipotle black bean tacos. I’ve been itching to get into the food truck scene since moving to San Francisco, but every time I check out the ones around, they just don’t seem quite as interesting or elevated as the ones in London. But, in the name of food and research (SCIENCE!), I’ve finally decided that I need to explore and give them a try. The first one I went to was JapaCurry which I often see walking around. Due to an unfortunate missing cat experience cancelling my lunch plans and a sudden cold front, I decided a Japanese Curry was exactly what I needed, as I’m a huge fan of it (and I’ve been known to whip up my own chicken katsu curry at home using the hottest Golden Curry packages I can find).
The menu looked interesting, as they seemed to have several things on there that weren’t just curry. Except they were also all crossed off as “Sold out”. It seemed a bit odd to me, but the curry is really wanted I wanted, so I just went for it. I’m also a huge fan of the crispy coating with the hot curry sauce, so I went for their Kara-age Curry with a pumpkin croquette. (I love the textural mouth feel.) There wasn’t a massive queue at 1:00 pm, so it didn’t take long for me to get my order. They also package the curry sauce separately, which was really nice as it prevents the crispy coating from getting too soggy as you travel to wherever you need to go. I was a bit surprised they went for making it as Kara-age instead of just frying up the whole boneless thigh pounded out flat like most chicken katsu curries I’ve had, but I don’t usually mind a good Kara-age either.
So how was it? The curry sauce was okay. I think it wasn’t really any better than the prepackaged cubes you can buy and make at home, especially since you can just add a bit more heat to it and make it the way you like. To give them credit, I have had curry sauce that is far worse than the prepackaged stuff you can make at home though! The chicken was a bit like eating fried shoe leather. It was incredibly tough and overcooked, so that was sadly disappointing. The pumpkin croquette was much better, but also incredibly sweet. I know that pumpkin pie is sweet, but I’ve roasted my own pumpkin to make it, so I know that it’s not usually that sweet on its own, so I’m not really sure what they did to make it taste like eating fried pumpkin candy. It wasn’t ridiculously expensive though, so it’s a good amount of food for lunch. Overall, the food wasn’t really anything exciting, and not something I think I’d try again, but I’m excited to check out many of the other trucks nearby!
Score: 2/5
Recommendation: I can’t say I have any. Probably go someplace else.
