Eat & Drink Like a Local - California - page 135

FOOD TRUCKS & POP-UP RESTAURANTS
Weekday lunches may last only 30 minutes for Californians, and every minute counts.
Rolling along the streets of many cities, creative food trucks deliver gourmet options on
the go, anything from Indian curry-and-naan wraps to Chinese buns packed with roast
duck and fresh mango. To find trucks coming soon to a curb near you, search for 'food
truck' and your location on Twitter. Come prepared with cash and sunblock: most trucks
don't accept plastic cards, and lines can be long.
Lately, dinner has also been popping up in unexpected urban spaces, including art gal-
leries, warehouses and storefronts. Chefs at pop-up restaurants prepare wildly creative
meals around a theme, such as street food or winemakers' dinners. Foodies seek out
these overnight taste sensations via Twitter and websites like www.eater.com . Bring cash
and arrive early, as popular dishes run out fast.
Napa & Sonoma Wine Country
With international acclaim for local wines in the 1970s came woozy wine-country visitors
in need of food, and Sonoma cheesemakers and Napa restaurateurs graciously obliged. In
1994, chef Thomas Keller transformed a 1900s Yountville saloon into an international
foodie landmark called the French Laundry , showcasing garden-grown organic produce
and casual elegance in multicourse feasts. Other chefs eager to make their names and for-
tunes among free-spending wine-tasters soon invaded the area. To plug into the locavarian
and artisanal food scene, make time for Napa's Oxbow Public Market .
North Coast
San Francisco hippies headed back to the land here in the 1970s to find a more self-suffi-
cient lifestyle, reviving traditions of making breads and cheeses from scratch and growing
their own everything . Early adopters of pesticide-free farming, these hippie homesteaders
innovated hearty, organic cuisine that was health-minded yet still satisfied the pot-smoking
munchies.
On the North Coast today, you can taste the influence of Ohlone and Miwok traditions.
Alongside traditional shellfish collection, sustainable oyster farms have sprung up. Nature
has also has been kind to this landscape, yielding bonanzas of wildflower honey and ber-