Island Earth Market Now Open

Let's start with the name. "Island Earth Farmer's Market" sounds like a place where aging hippies sell sparse organic produce. What the place actually is, is a "market hall" full of mostly cooked-food vendors. How about "San Francisco Market Hall", guys?

Second, the vendors were shoved willy-nilly into the old Discovery Store space, which was awkward enough for the Discovery Store and is impossible for a large crowd and 2 dozen vendors.

On the up side, the vendors' food was very, very good. After spending the last week in the desert of cuisine known as Ottawa, I was exstatic to be able to buy handmade gourmet dim-sum for $5 a serving. I love San Francisco.

There were actually three organic produce vendors there, including huge swaths of strawberries.

What there were more of, though, was bakeries, including bread, pretzels, and pastry. I predict that a couple of these will drop out; there were really more bakeries than anything else.

There was also a lot of middle eastern food. In addition to the Afgan folks who seem to make it to every market in the greater Bay Area (but do stock very tasty boulani), there were several newly-minted food entreprenuers, courtesy of the Food Channel and the current recession. These two guys are the Flying Falafel Company. We bought frozen falafel from them, which was excellent, although do read the cooking instructions on the box (unlike us, sadly).

The San Francisco Spice Company also showed up. These folks usually sell to restaurants, and if you go to their main store on 13th Street most of the spices they sell are only in 1-lbs packs. So it was fantastic to be able to buy spices from them in reasonable quantities are wholesale prices. You can't do better that the SF Spice Company for quality/money ratio in this city.

Finally, we blew most of our money on a dim sum breakfast from one vendor who was selling the aforementioned gourmet dim sum. Dumplings we bought included dungeness crab shu-mai, shredded snow pea gyoza, a wild mushroom rice ball, and halibut and chard dumplings. All for about $20.

The market is open 7 days a week. It's probably your very best quick meal option if you're at Moscone, and maybe worth a stop-in for dinner ingredients during the workday. Enjoy!