All Star Tamale / Taqueria de Amigos

San Francisco, CA

After a morning workout, I headed over to the Alemany Farmer's Market near the 101/280 interchange. We arrived somewhat late (8:45am) but were lucky to find a parking spot. I hadn't been to this farmer's market in over six months and I was glad to see what veggies and fruit were available. The Ferry Building Marketplace is more posh but the Alemany market has more Asian veggies, very reasonable prices, and some organic produce. I noticed a few new stalls pushing more upscale items (a French patisserie stall) and a few empty slots (vendors/farmers with produce not in season) but the usual vendors were present.

Mom and I made a beeline to the All Star Tamale cart for some breakfast. I think the prices have increased a bit while the tamales shrank, but one makes an excellent breakfast for me. I do miss the elderly gentleman who used to sell tamales out of a big white plastic bucket back in the day.


Shown above is an unwrapped red pork tamale (1 for $2.50, 2 for $4.50, 4 for $9) with a plastic-wrapped sweet corn tamale ($1.25 ea??).

Saucy!

Now, All Star Tamale offers at least 4 different unlabelled sauces. I just splashed mine with the four closest bottles. I figured one was some sort of salsa verde, one was a type of red mole, some yellow-orange sauce, and a salsa roja. The tender, fluffy masa gave way to a well-spiced pork filling.


I had also ordered a Oaxacan-style tamale wrapped in a banana leaf. Mom and I swapped halves - I really liked this chicken-filled one as well. I love the aroma the banana leaves impart to the tamale. Again, the amount of fluffy and non-leaden masa balanced the meaty filling.

We also liked the sweet corn tamale. About half the size of a regular tamale and studded with corn, this lil guy was just lightly sweetened. Very tasty.

All Star Tamale, based in Pittsburg, CA, roves the Bay Area. This post on Chowhound.com lists the current locations where these tamales can be found. After tamale-fication we browsed the stalls for some fresh fruits and veggies. I bought a large bouquet of tender, young Thai basil for $1. Oh...did that smell good!!! I really didn't need that much Thai basil and honestly rather have had half the amount for half the price, but these were fresh beauties. We also picked up a 10 lb bag of super sweet, small oranges.

Best of yet, I picked up 3 baskets of these babies:


Mmm...strawberries! Prices are still a tad high and I know that it's still early and that the strawberry crop was partially damaged by the excessive rain and hail we'd had over the winter. Vendors throughout the market had similar prices though I purchased mine from the strawberry vendor selling from the stall with the strawberry mural on the wall (3 baskets for $5). =) The kind lady vendor gave me one strawberry to sample and hers were the sweetest of the ones I'd tried. She even topped off my tray with more strawberries!

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San Mateo, CA

After running errands and shopping at Whole Foods and Costco, we headed to Marina Plaza where the Marina market is the anchor. We meant to check out the Malaysian restaurant that was advertising its grand opening, but we ended up at Taqueria de Amigos instead. Every time we stop off at Marina, we see this little taqueria bustling with activity. I stepped up to the counter and ordered the al pastor taco and a pollo asado taco ($1.85 each) and a regular carne asada burrito ($4.95) for mom.


The grilled chicken was moist though somewhat greasy and flavorless. The al pastor was the real winner here - I couldn't tell if this taqueria had a pork roasting spit but I had a nice mix of tender and super crispy, charred, flavorful pieces. Topped with chopped fresh onion and a scatter of cilantro, this taco really hit the spot. The al pastor was teense greasy, but no more than I usually encounter. Along with freshly fried chips (amongst the best I've had) some salsa roja, and a sunny windowside seat, I was rather content.

Tortilla: 8.5/10 - Nicely grilled but not too greasy.
Pollo Asado: 7.5/10 - Perfectly cooked but needed some oomph.
Al pastor: 9/10 - Crispy bits, tender bits, and flavorful. Right up there with Taqueria San Jose in Oakland.

Funny, I seriously dislike raw onion and cilantro - and tacos are some of the only food I can tolerate with onions and cilantro.

Now, the burrito was a total disappointment. While the carne asada was flavorful, this $5 burrito was tiiiiiiiny.


This had maybe a 3" diameter at best and maybe 8" long. As you can see, they were skimpy on all of the ingredients, though in good proportion to each other. Plus, they tucked in a good chunk of the tortilla into the burrito! WTF! This shows that this sized tortilla can handle more fillings! Such a ripoff...El Farolito's are twice as big for $4. I would strongly recommend the super or jumbo burrito instead - other patrons' burritos looked more hefty. Since Mom had filled up on the excellent chips and salsa, she was still satisfied with half.

Anyway, we headed into Marina for some groceries. Mom likes their coarse ground pork for making wontons since it adds a nice texture to the filling. I bought one of these:


A ci fan tuan ($2.50 - ouch)...yum! You tiao/you zha gwai are yet another food I'm not fond of by itself or with congee, but I love in another dish. I remember the first time I had this was at a Northern Chinese/Shanghaiese restaurant in the Sunset (SF) which is long gone now. That place had the BEST zha jiang mian (Beijing-style, vs Korean-Chinese style). *sigh* A cí fàn tuán is a Shanghai dish with glutinous rice wrapping around a filling of Chinese donut (you tiao), preserved mustard (zhà cài), and pork fluff (ròu sōng). So filling...sooooo goooood.