Note: The scavenger hunt is over (a concluding post will come soon) and we got second place out over 300 teams! This is a series explaining the background and thinking of our missions of the SF Street Food Scavenger Hunt!

The Mission: Create a postcard showcasing an American classic with a special ethnic spice. Look for a cart that would make Buddha happy.

We figured out quickly that it was alluding to a hot dog with kim chee—a Korean hot dog. The site said that it was not located in the mission, but somewhere else. Using Yelp, I figured out that it was in Golden Gate Park. So on a free day, we headed to the Golden Gate park following the comments we analyzed to locate the Happy Belly stand somewhere near the entrance of the De Young Museum. Chris dropped me off and I ran around the square in my heels and dress (I was dressed as Korean spice)…and holding a huge Mashimaro.

It was insane. I couldn’t find it and I was surrounded by gawking tourists wondering why I was wearing a slightly revealing purple dress with a huge Mashimaro in my hands. Did I look like a Korean? Maybe.

Fortunately though unlike walking around Tenderloin, I didn’t receive any unwelcome comments. The only comments were from a group biking that loved the “stuffed animal” and greedy stares from little kids at the large bunny in my hands.

Eventually, I found Chris who was still looking for parking. He was dressed in American classic with a baseball jersey and hat…and a baseball bat. We called the restaurant who started the Happy Belly stand and unfortunately the stand had closed for several months. What happened to this word play testing?

So we headed to the restaurant Namu instead…and try to see where the Korean hot dog was. Apparently Happy Belly was only in San Francisco on Thursdays at the Ferry Building. ugh no go. I wanted to complete this mission asap.

They didn’t serve the Korean hot dog for brunch (we came at 1 pm) and only served it late nights. The host told us, “But if you really want it, the chefs will make it for you.”

We nodded.

And about 30 minutes later, we had the Korean hot dog. We asked the host to take the hot dog…with us. As we took the picture, we got hoots from the chefs about Yankees. Red Sox was definitely in the house.

A few days later, I got time to photoshop. I searched around google for the appropriate images and fonts…and assembled the photo as below.

On the Korean hot dog? Yes, it was definitely amazing. But I say a Korean taco—a flavor of Asian and Mexican—beats Asian and American any day.