Two Spin-off Food Truck Debuts: Kasa Indian Truck and Pacific Puffs Truck

Tonight's Off the Grid:Upper Haight featured the debut of a new Indian food truck, the Kasa Indian Truck.  The Kasa Truck is a spin-off from Kasa Indian Restaurant in the Castro, and features kati rolls. Kati (sometimes spelled kathi) rolls are somewhat like burritos, only with a roti wrapper.  Tonight's menu included two kati roll options, chicken tikka masala and gobi aloo, $4.50 each.  The same two fillings were available as rice plates (thalis) for $7.00, as well as a saag paneer rice plate. An additional offering was a veggie samosa with a potato and sweet pea filling.  House-made mango lassi and house-made chai and several bottled drinks were the thirst-quenchers.

I went for the CTM (chicken tikka masala) kati roll.  In a way, it's like a smaller version of Curry Up Now's CTM burrito, but with the flakier roti wrapper. It was served as a to-go item, foil-wrapped and brown bagged, which caused some damage to be done to the fragile, buttery wrapper, as can  be seen from the picture.  Despite some cosmetic damage, my CTM roll was able to be eaten hand held, though I would suggest that they serve them in a paper boat with a fork unless specifically requested as a to-go item. Although I requested mine spicy when asked, it came to me far less spicy than Curry Up Now's CTM burrito. Despite, or perhaps on account of, the lack of heat, the flavors came through clean and sharp. It also came with enough heft to serve as a light meal on its own, and was a good value.

Earlier in the week I caught up with the Pacific Puffs truck in its debut.  The Pacific Puffs truck is another spin-off venture, with a bricks-and-mortar parent in the Marina.  It was originally to have debuted at Monday's Off the Grid:San Mateo soft launch, but hadn't cleared the approval process in time.  Its coming out party, therefore,  was the following day at a meetup event at The Lunch Box (246 Ritch St.) promoting the Foodspotting web app. Pacific Puff's offerings for the event were cream puffs with a choice of four different filling flavors:  vanilla, chocolate, fruit whip and peanut butter at $3.25 each.  They also offered a choice of powdered sugar or chocolate toppings for the puff. I don't have a sweet tooth, and seldom go for anything resembling a dessert, so I'll recuse myself from judging the product.  I did try a peanut butter flavored puff, and found it a little too, well, sweet, and the peanut butter flavor too subtle.  I would have been happier if it had been filled entirely with Maranatha Peanut Butter, but that is just me.  Sweets lovers will finally have an alernative to cupcakes and creme brulee.