I had recently started falling in love with Fort Mason’s Off the Grid (accept no imitations: the Friday evening Fort Mason location is the one to hit), a weekly gathering of food trucks. You can sample a huge range of tasty snacks, watch the sun set over the salt-worn barracks, and people watch in the huge, slow-moving crowd.

Palo Alto’s Edgewood Eats went and stole some of that love. It is very much what you would expect of an event like that adapted to Palo Alto: The crowd is much smaller (perk: short lines!), there are more kids, and the dilapidated army base is replaced by an all-out abandoned Eichler designed mall: Edgewood Shopping Center. A Yelp reviewer referred to the setting as “super ghetto”, which is at least two kinds of wrong, three of sad, and seven of hilarious. There is something delightful, though, about seeing the sun set in the shade of a shuttered eucalyptus-ringed mid-century modern supermarket.

The quality and variety of the food is nothing to sneeze at, though. They seem to net around five or ten trucks each week, and they get good ones. Little Green Cyclo can put together a solid Banh Mi, and Oaxacan Kitchen makes superlative carnitas tacos and mole. Both are all organic, but don’t let that get in the way of making flavorful, well executed food.

They don’t have any alcohol vendors, or any bands, at least yet, but it doesn’t seem like anyone would make a fuss if you brought your own booze, or even your own instruments.

Edgewood Eats

Every Tuesday

5p–8p

Edgewood Plaza

1161 Embarcadero Rd at US 101

Palo Alto, CA

(Palo Alto E shuttle, VTA 35, 88)

Map | Site

Update: Edgewood is being demolished! The gathering is looking for a new location, but may be closed for good.