Affairs of the Cart....

Friday morning. It's really difficult to roll out of bed after a raucous night of karaoke with friends at a roaring East Van bar until later AM hours. This was made doubly so this morning having to face a dismal grey sky that shit cold despair down onto the city.- add to this the warm naked woman that shared my bed and you have a day that may just be best faced from under the covers. The alarm was bleeping though and I rolled over to shut it off and take a long guzzle of the stale water that is always beside the bed. My parched throat welcomed the hydration and I rubbed the sleep from my eyes. Rising up to shower I glanced back at the beautiful creamy curve that is the place where a woman's waist meets her hip at the cusp of her ass. Perfect.

***sigh***

The shower was warm and quick as I had places to be. A hair appointment with Liam at Clover Salon on Georgia. Then, a food cart tour with the sometimes lovely but always vociferous Jessica who works for These Guys. Hair shorn short and my spirits lifted I met up with Jess and the group of 4 other brave souls who felt that a Friday in December with the mercury at 6 degrees and a sky the colour of ash would make for an enjoyable backdrop to eating food and learning about Vancouver's burgeoning food-cart scene.

Vancouver has a storied past in regards to food carts and the eating of comestibles outside of brick and mortar licensed venues. Up until the Olympics jostled our collective consciousness regarding our city as a foodie destination and subsequently brought us to the attention of the world beyond snowboarders and pot smokers, who are too often the same people, Vancouver fucking sucked for street eats. Having traveled extensively I have come to appreciate many cultures and judge their food based on what I can buy on the street for a small amount of money in often less than optimum health conditions. Pad Thai, Anticuchos, Donair Kebab, Tacos and Cerviche, Lhaksa and Takoyaki these are the foodstuffs that create memories and scar a palate with their flavours and textures. Good food made in not the best conditions but full of passion and flavour.

Up until last year Vancouver had hotdogs. Yup. Fucking hotdogs. And generally, mediocre hotdogs with condiments that were by law mandated to have to be prepared by a commercial kitchen. Long and short, our street food sucked ass. We also inexplicably had roasted chestnuts and popcorn. I guess the logic was neither had led to any deaths or sickness so we were likely safe.

Where the fuck did this anal uptight food fear stem from?

Well.... It seems back before you were born there was a picnic in a park and foodstuffs prepared in residential kitchens were served. A listeria outbreak killed hundreds and sickened the city to the point that so many man hours were lost that week that they named it The Dark Times. Diarrhea effluent darkened the waters around the city and tourism dropped to pre-20^th century levels.

None of this happened. Well, except that a few people got pretty sick. But the reaction of the government was on par with my hyperbolic tale. They banned the preparation of fresh food anywhere but in a licensed commercial kitchen by state appointed apparatchiks and thus issued the death knell of anything that wasn't a long synthetic tube filled with unmentionable bits of animal by-product.

Fast forward to the Olympics. A little cart by the name of Japadog had been thumbing their noses at the city and provincial government by following the rules but breaking the mold of the standard frankfurter franchise and offering a hotdog with a Japanese twist. The immediate and lasting success of Japadog, the influx of erudite and moneyed tourist and the need to feed the millions that were flocking to our streets for 12+ hours a day led to a trial run in fresh food preparation. It seems that the rest of the entire fucking world may have been on to something as the first 18 carts created quite a buzz. Unfortunately the lottery system used to decide who would be given a license was probably not the best way to have approached a long term investment in culinary excellence. Fruit carts and other testaments to mediocrity slowly failed as people visited the best among the early upstarts and left the rest to die a slow death on the curb... Those that succeeded, like The Re-Up BBQ are still flourishing and now have a second cart to supplement their businesses. This move was part of the expansion of the program to include another 18 carts in mid 2011.

Now we are getting somewhere.

The law is still strict regarding placement and movement – or non-movement in this case – of the carts but we now have a flourishing, inexpensive, quick, and damn tasty set of options for food in the downtown core. So... what did we do on the tour?

Well, over the course of a finger numbingly cold 90 minutes we visited 4 of the 36 carts (I know, I would have loved to visit 10 or more, but you fill up quick, even when just eating half portion samples at each venue) We started at Re-up which interestingly enough, rents space in the commissary kitchen where I am a cook and does all their prep work there.

Texan style BBQ heavy on heat and vinegar we were presented first with a sweet Southern Tea. An iced tea that in mid July would have blown my fucking mind, in mid December I drank it quickly as my fingers began to remember the Edmonton winters of my past. The mix of lemon and sugar and black tea was spot on though and that drink was lovely if a bit misplaced season wise – but I guess in Texas they don't have a lot of hot refreshing beverages of a regional variety. The pulled pork sample we tried was good. Smoked in an electric smoker with Pecan Wood chips it was different than the fire smoke apple-wood that I used in my stint as a BBQ cook. It wasn't the best I've had, but solidly good. The pork shoulder could use longer in the smoker to really become a flossy melt in you mouth consistency but the BBQ sauce was very tasty and well rounded with a spicy bite. It wasn't a cloyingly sweet tomato-y mess and it complimented the cider vinegar and thick shreds of cabbage well starting a bit sour but finishing smoky and spicy. The bun was straight up traditional BBQ style, a simple slightly sweet hamburger bun which is more of a meat delivery system and sauce containment unit than anything else. I want to try their brisket because in my world almost anyone can make a decent pulled pork but cooking and slicing brisket is a skill. I didn't notice much else on the menu in regards to sides, condiments and desserts but it was cold and we were on our way to the next cart... Overall: I'd go back

Bun Mi... Banh Mi! Fuck yes.

Banh Mi is probably one of my favorite inexpensive satisfying-lovely-quick-bite-to-eat foods there is and now I can buy it on the street. On Robson near HMV (Soon to be not HMV) Banh Mi is probably one of the worlds best sandwiches. Harkening back to the leftovers of the colonials in French Indochina (Now Vietnam) the Vietnamese would take the leftover slightly stale baguettes that their asshole French rulers had left for them and add to them local ingredients like cilantro and cucumber and pickled vegetables and whatever odd meats might have been available. Sauce that bad boy up or not and we have Banh Mi. They rock a chicken thigh-meat simmered with lemongrass and I was hesitant as chicken is not a usual suspect in the otherwise suspect meats that make up the banh mi I love. I took my half and bit in. Banh Mi? Fuck me! It was tasty. I'm really glad they went with dark meat because while chicken breasts have their place, rich in flavour and body they are not. I would have liked more lemongrass and more jalapenos but the little bits of skin that were in the few bites I had were sublime. The pickled carrot and daikon were crunchy but not the best. The whole thing was also slightly over seasoned. Luckily I like my food salty. Overall: I liked it but at 5$ a pop it's not a destination for me due to my proximity to amazing and cheap Banh Mi 5 blocks away. I guess if I am ever shopping in whatever takes over the behemoth of a retail space that HMV is evacuating out of I might be tempted to visit Bun Me and have another go. Oh, PS. They also rock a tofu version for any vegetarians out there.

I was appetized at this point and ready for more.

We continued South on Burrard and I had a sense of where we were headed. Back to where it all began. This made sense today. Our group was small and it was a dreary December weekday. We approached Japadog in it's long standing spot at the corner of Burrard and Pender kitty corner to the Scotiabank Theatre. A few patrons waited patiently for their dogs but it was nothing like the epic lines that in the summer stretch down the block and during the Olympics precipitated 3 hour wait times with  people being paid as line holders by wealthier patrons whose time was worth more than waiting in a line like us working class schlumps. Today though, no lines. Just a hot delicious fusion of flavours. The hot greasy beef of a thick Frank topped with Japanese condiments. We had the basic starter dog. The beef teri-mayo with caramelized onions, kewpie mayo, teriyaki sauce and shredded nori.

Not my first dog and not my last, these are always good and if you can fight your way past students shooting pictures of each other in front and if you manage to negotiate this you too can be part of the craziness that is Japadog. I have to admit though, I don't eat a lot of hotdogs and Japadog is a novelty so therefor a food of opportunity and craving. I have to be in the area and wanting it's unique flavours but they do what they do well and in their words: “...Hot dog stand in the matrix as possible, changed the history of the stand of North America... Always something new, is growing in power to try to defy the common sense that hot fun!”

well played Japadog... Well played.

Turning about face I ran ahead at Jessica's bequest to the next “cart” because we were edging 3pm and things occur at 3 that could be detrimental to our next visit. You see at 3, Vancouver's rush hour starts and all lanes open in the downtown core and anyone still parked in those lanes is viciously and without mercy towed by hulking hairy brutes who smoke filthy cigars, kick dogs and curse openly in front of children. Our destination that we were fast approaching was the Tacofino Taco Cart... er... truck.

True to the Baja style prevalent throughout California some hippy surfer ne'er do wells had somehow obtained an old food truck and turned it onto the local Canadian version of a taco truck up in Tofino. It's must have played well with the locals and the surfers because now they are down in Vancouver spreading the taco gospel as the love of Baja mexi-cali cuisine spreads like a wildfire through wealthy LA county real estate. Seriously, at this rate, within a year or so we will have as many taco places as sushi and hopefully the quality will be on par.

Tacofina, by the way, also operates out of Save On Meats and they are a nice bunch of people who happen to make pretty sick food (sick like in the good surfer lingo the kids use these days) I hadn't eaten at their food truck before and we got there with just enough time to slam some deep fried fish taco into our gullets. They use locally sourced ingredients as best they can and the mix of crispy hot battered ling cod and crunchy cabbage beside the fresh salsa and sour crème in a soft tortilla made my heart beat a little faster. These guys nailed it. It's not Chronic Tacos and it's not La Taqueria it's just plain good and I will be back. As a nice little bonus we received a Chocolate caramel corn-pop tart. A soft subtle chocolate pastry shell filled with sticky chewy caramel embedded with corn pops cereal like crunchy little prizes of awesome and all topped with a fudgey chocolate coating. Now, this is outside of my usual go-to tastes as I don’t really rock dessert all that often, but for 4 bucks... get your ass down and demand one of these and if they are sold out I know for certain the Chocolate Diablo cookie will melt your grey matter with it's mix of sea salt, dark chocolate, fresh lime and loads of hot chili powder. Probably the best cookie I have ever eaten. Period.

A lovely day overall and that was just 10% of the fare available. I was stuffed after the four carts and in subsequent posts will be visiting 4 carts at a time with a friend and splitting a menu item or two. So stay tuned. Maps and routes will follow as well...

At this point we disbanded and Jess and I walked back to the HMV to peruse the 70% off sale that seemed to be mostly DVD's. She bought a CD for her brother. I left with a sense of self satisfaction. Have fun dying a slow slow death you outdated retail monstrosity - maybe a media cart might be in order.


* * *
Eat well,


Wiilie


Next time: Eggs and why the worlds best food fucking sucks.