Street Food USA, the third round-up for the Netflix series after Street Food: Asia and Street Food: Latin America, makes the audience travel through the stories of working-class people and the absolutely delicious food they have to offer. This time around, the Netflix series took us to six different US cities, starting with Los Angeles, Portland, New York, New Orleans, Oahu and one of the best for the last, Miami.
Each city is rediscovered through multiple lenses of directors, including Daniel Milder, Tamara Rosenfeld, Suzy Beck and Mariano Carranza. Each episode ranges around 30 minutes, bringing you a fresh mix of stories and culture in a documentary filmmaking style to bring the audiences together for that one thing we can’t imagine surviving without: street food.
Netflix describes the series as:
Get a taste of the most beloved bites on American streets and, along the way, discover the heart, soul and wildly diverse real people behind the food.
– Street Food USA Review Does Not Contain Spoilers –
Street Food USA can be described as a visual version of a checklist to cover the best street food and the legacy it’s infused with. Each episode is grounded with a sentimental value, hoping the audiences would taste it the same way they would do its food. The series is explicitly described in Episode 1: Los Angeles, California: “You are minutes away from the next culture”. When Carnitas El Momo lifts the trophy up for Tacolandia, you do get a smile on your face, which encapsulates the essence with which the show was formulated.
Every story is immersed in the culture, heritage and legacy of every community, be it Filipinos, Mexicans or Guatemalans. The storytelling format focused more on the people and the food rather than trying to make it something it’s not. There was no corny editing or an over-enthusiastic host. The editing was slow-paced, the people were proof of good food, and no one had to stand tall and boast about how wickedly hunky-dory the food was.
The creators of the show, Brian McGinn and David Gelb, focused more on showcasing the human-centric notions by capturing the truly intricate and intimate moments between family members and the foodies. Each episode depicted different street foods offered by a city, anchored with a sentimental but empowering story at the centre, giving out hope, motivation and satisfaction, one frame at a time.
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Street Food USA: Community, Culture and Food!
Every introduction of specific community-based street food was anchored with music from their hood, giving the audience a feel of their brotherhood and bread. The show can also be construed as a 3-hour-long testimonial of keeping family traditions alive, quite happily, might I add. It also dived deep into a city’s preference for flavours and textures, which makes it stand atop in the competition of Satisfaction Supreme: The Heart & Stomach.
Loss of loved ones, trying to perpetuate a family’s legacy, losing jobs, the impact of Covid-19, navigating through poverty and keeping someone alive through their work were some themes covered in the show. Whenever you sit down to eat, your preference is to play something light on the TV, so it doesn’t get overbearing. But McGinn and Gelb baked a show with a perfect slice of life and an even better batter.
Street Food: USA is streaming now on Netflix.