Rasa Rasa Food Truck

Singaporean food.  Not something I come across much in San Francisco, so I was really happy to find Rasa Rasa at Parklab Gardens, a food truck park in San Francisco.  I don't think they have any other locations.

Truck.

The "truck" is really more of a cart, a permanent vendor at Parklab Gardens.  When I visited, there were no other customers.  The staff was friendly, and my order was prepared quickly.

Menu.

The menu is fairly small, only 8 dishes, but hits the Singaporean classics: beef (or mushroom) rendang, chicken satay, laksa, and a few others.  No sides, no desserts (missed opportunity there! I *never* see Singaporean desserts around SF!).

Gado Gado. $12.

"Vegan. Vegan lover, mixed steamed and fresh vegetables, pairing with fried tofu, tempeh, and crackers; topped with peanut dressing sauce."

I was looking for something healthy and light, and the gado gado called out immediately.  While I'm not vegan, and don't actually care for tempeh or tofu, I wanted everything else in this dish.  

It really was perfect for my mood.  Eating it felt healthy - which was great, as I also may have had an order of Sarap Shop's Dirty Onion Rings alongside {LINK}.  

The shredded purple cabbage, cucumbers, and bean sprouts were fresh, crisp, and colorful.  The other veggies were steamed (but cold), which was novel to me when I first had food in Singapore, but I'm accustomed to now, and I liked having the juicy cooked veggies to contrast.  I was a bit surprised that the shredded carrot wasn't raw though.

The protein portion was kinda skimpy ... just one piece of tempeh and two cubes of tofu, but, as I didn't actually want that stuff much anyway, I certainly didn't mind.  They were, as I expected, not anything I liked - tempeh had the fermented funk to it I don't like, tofu was tofu, fried and spongy.  Not my thing at all.

Everything came together with the peanut sauce, served on the side, and a pretty generous handful of roasted peanuts scattered inside for some crunch.  I really liked the peanuts in the mix.  The peanut sauce was delicious, but very thick, very rich, and actually a bit too sweet.  Don't get me wrong, it was very, very good, but, I didn't quite like it with the veggies.  I used the extra later at home spread on toast (delicious!) and with a leftover fried spring roll (also delicious!), both of which seemed like better applications of the sauce.

Overall, this was good, nothing extraordinary, nothing novel, but, nice to have Singaporean food for a change.  ***.

Vegan Garlic Crackers.

Every platter comes with crackers.  The non-vegan dishes come with shrimp crackers, the vegan ones with garlic crackers, although you could substitute either.  The portion was quite small.

The crackers were good though - legit hit of garlic, crispy, not stale.  I actually liked the vegan garlic ones more than the shrimp ones, which surprised me as I usually go for the shrimp taste, but, the shrimp ones were a bit too oily.

***+.

Extra Shrimp Crackers. $2.

I wanted to try the shrimp crackers too, so I got some as an add-on for an addition $2.  While the ones that came with the platter were a tiny portion, this most certainly was not.  A nice value for $2.

The shrimp crackers I think were actually house made, as they were kinda dripping in oil, as if they had been freshly fried.  They were good - crisp, lightly fishy, and colorful, and went well with the rest of the meal, but definitely a bit too oily.  

***.