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: Show some love at the El Tonyanese Truck. Buy a burrito and show some romance!

The week leading up to a moment that we could get to the taco truck, we brainstormed several ideas:

Ultimately, we took a safe approach. Perhaps having a romantic dinner in front of the taco truck with candles, my plush rose and a nice silver serving plate. But right before leaving for the taco truck, I checked the website and it turned out another team Hungry Bears Love Salmon uploaded something similar.

I came with an idea that Chris would bring an extra friend. The huge Shadow that Chris had dragged all the way from Mountain View. In my own awkward way, I described the detail of how the photo would end up. He had a friend…and I would be unhappy about it. We did a quick rehearsal with our equipment setting it up with my plush rose inside a vase we got from Mike Lauren, a silver platter and a glass candle holder with candle that did not fit.

We took a bar stool, my mini stool and a folding chair stuffed it into the car…and drove over to Harrison. I knew there were three trucks to choose from since I regularly pass all three on way home while biking down Harrison. The first two—one at 20th and another at 18th—we deemed too quiet and with too much low light. We stopped at the one near Best Buy and Chris pulled into the Best Buy parking.

Then we grabbed a shopping cart and quickly loaded it with our equipment. At the taco truck, we ordered a burrito with carne asada. I paused for a moment, not quite sure how to explain exactly what we were doing. A guy started talking to us about burritos in LA…how it was much better down there…and that this truck was the best burrito in the Bay Area. As he told us about his Hummer, we set up…and asked him to take the photo. People inside the truck laughed…and other people around us gawked at the sight of us dressed up and having a “romantic dinner” in front of a taco truck.

So I made my face while Chris held Shadow close with a great grin. The most difficult part I found was trying to make sure the camera caught my face. We had the guy take 4 photos trying not to let the disappearing light affect our photo.

Shortly afterwards, we rushed back the equipment into the car. I hope my roommate didn’t notice that I took the bar stool out into the parking lot of Best Buy.

Our final caption was:
I have a bad feeling about this