On the empty lot at Valencia and 18th streets sits a new food truck printed with black, bold letters: “KAYMA,” which serves Algerian cuisine from North Africa.
Kayma is owned by an immigrant couple from Algeria: Wafa and Mounir Bahloul, who now live in the Mission, raising their two daughters. The Bahlouls have found authentic Algerian food very rare in San Francisco and, with the food truck, they now carry their home flavors and memories around with them.
“Each dish has a story,” Wafa said of the dishes that she cooks as the head chef. “Each dish has a signature.”
Wafa learned to cook when she was 16 from her mother, who is a chef in Algeria. “The kitchen is just something I grew up with,” she said.
The most iconic part of the ingredients for making Algerian dishes, Wafa said, is called “ras-el-hanout,” a characteristic mix of 13 different spices. She likened it to the common spices used in Indian dishes: “Ras-el-hanout is like masala — Algerian masala.”
“We even use rose petals,” Wafa said proudly of her special mix.
Kayma’s menu includes “Casse-croûte,” a sandwich of chicken, black olives and garlic sauce; the “couscous bowl” of yogurt-braised chicken over couscous; “aubergine,” which is grilled eggplant marinated in a homemade sauce; and “Kayma sherbet,” made from a light, iced citrus juice with a hit of floral scent. Right now, the best-seller is the couscous bowl.
Kayma came out of a women-centered business initiative organized by La Cocina, a food nonprofit based in the Mission that cultivates restaurateurs. Wafa first attended the free classes at La Cocina in 2017 to learn how to build a business. Already, she and Mounir were thinking about selling the food they made at home. Later, Kayma was selected to be one of the eight women-owned food kiosks at the La Cocina Municipal Marketplace at 101 Hyde St.
“We were selected because we had a unique cuisine,” said Mounir, sitting at the wooden table set up in front of the trailer. The marketplace was set to launch in the spring of 2020, and the Bahlouls were planning to set up a food trailer downtown, too, with the marketplace serving as their main kitchen. Everything was rolling out smoothly toward a grand opening of their new venture.
Then the pandemic came. The marketplace didn’t reopen until April 2021, and their food truck only opened at the Presidio last July. Even then, it didn’t turn out the way the Bahlouls expected.
“It’s been so rough for the industry in the whole,” said Mounir of the marketplace, adding that it used to be a good location to be surrounded by offices. “It’s supposed to be a lunch destination.” Even now, office activities and food traffic have yet to pick back up.
Not so on Valencia Street, which, to Mounir, has a very different vibe: A place where people live and spend time. “I’ve been meeting a lot of the neighborhood around here,” he said. “That warms the heart.”
Mounir has found some difficulty in introducing Algerian food to diners who know little about it — hence the popularity of the couscous bowl, probably the most familiar dish on the menu. Still, he said, people are curious.
The word “Kayma” originates from Arabic, meaning “tent,” the home for nomads. “We travel in Algeria, big and vast. And that’s where you go, you settle and that is your home,” he said.
The Kayma food truck retains some “nomadic” traits, too. They cannot park the trailer overnight in the same spot they sell food during the day, so Mounir has found a parking lot on Treasure Island that costs $375 a month; it would be at least $750 in the city, he said.
Every morning, Mounir drives his car across the bridge to Treasure Island, hooks the trailer up to his car and drives to the marketplace on Hyde Street. Then he loads the trailer with fresh food made in that kitchen by Wafa and two employees, and drives to Valencia. He unhooks the trailer from his car and goes to park his car. Then he comes back to the food truck and starts serving.
After work, he has to go through it all again: “Same thing. Bring the car. Hook it. Drive it. Drop off the food and go park it and go home,” Mounir said. “That’s just three extra hours of my day.”
Mounir said the Kayma food truck will be here for at least six months and then they will decide the next step. When asked his favorite pick from their menu, Mounir laughed: “It’s my wife cooking — so, everything?”
Kayma is open from 11 a.m. to 6 or 8 p.m. daily.
