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NYT: Kids These Days Choose Egg Rolls Over Ecstasy

Wholesome, street-foodie fun.
Wholesome, street-foodie fun. Photo: Jim Wilson/NYT

Just as the Chron is foraying into the world of food-truck gatherings, the New York Times catches up to the “secret” underground market and pop-up food-fest phenom. They highlight, in particular, S.F.’s Underground Night Market and Iso Rabins’s Underground Farmers’ Market that started it all in late 2009. And bizarrely, they come to the conclusion, with the help of Novella Carpenter, that twentysomethings these days aren’t doing drugs to get their kicks anymore! They’re eating instead! “Where psychedelic drugs famously transported another self-conscious San Francisco generation, the rebel act of choice by Valerie Luu, 23, a first-generation Vietnamese chef, is deep-frying string cheese in a cast-iron pan.” Ha!

And, says Carpenter, “When I was their age I was doing drugs and going to rock shows. Their culture is food — incredible yummy-tasting food.”

We’ve actually met plenty of twentysomethings who still do drugs, but anyway … some of them are just high on Yelp, we guess.

(The next Underground Market at Public Works is on Saturday, April 23.)

They Gather Secretly at Night, and Then They (Shhh!) Eat [NYT]
Earlier: Underground Dining Is Booming in S.F.

NYT: Kids These Days Choose Egg Rolls Over Ecstasy