Thank you all for your overwhelming support in the SF Street Food Fest Vote for Your Vendor Contest. We still can’t believe we received 510 votes to be placed in the top 4 and therefore eligible to show off our nem chua at the Fest. We are humbled and touched that so many of you invested your own time, effort, and enthusiasm to spread the word about us far and wide. We got votes from all over the US, from Vietnam, France, Australia, Canada, the United Kingdom, and many more places. Another happy side effect was the chance to catch up and renew so many friendships and make new ones besides.

As promised we are going to send a pack of nem chua to a randomly selected commenter on our previous post – Kristine, there’s a true random number generator out there that likes you.

And now the work begins. Our prototype for the one dish we will share at the Festival includes nem chua as the featured ingredient, supported by fresh herbs and veggies (always with the fresh greens, of course, we’re Vietnamese!), bánh hỏi (fine vermicelli mesh), all served on eco-friendly serving boats made from bamboo leaves.

Prototype of Rau Om's dish at the SF Street Food Fest

The scale of this festival is like nothing we’ve ever seen. The organizers suggested we be prepared to turn out a plate every 15 seconds for 8 hours straight. So, eeep! Still, we’re more excited than overwhelmed. Bird gets to put her operations optimizing skills to work, and this time she is finally accountable for her own recommendations. Unfortunately, this means the blog will be lurching along with less frequent and irregular postings. Please bear with us. We look forward to cooking and posting our ideas and experiments again soon after the SF Street Food Fest is over.

Hope to see many of you on August 20th!