Imagine having your favorite dish with the blend of gentle music and decent weather on a sunny day outside, that is the extraordinary experience that we had at the Street Food City event.

We attended the 9^th edition of the Street Food City food truck event presented by Tourism Vancouver, StreetFood Vancouver Society and the Downtown Vancouver Business Improvement Association (DVBIA) as part of the Dine Out Vancouver Festival.

Street Food Vancouver Society is a non-profit organization that represents Vancouver’s food carts and trucks. They organize a lot of events to promote street food in Vancouver. (” About Us”,2013). The Streetfood Vancouver association is very active in social media, they promote the festival via Instagram (@streetfoodvancouver) Facebook (@StreetfoodVancouver) and Twitter (@StreetFood_YVR). Also, the local media and many Vancouver’s tourist websites made articles to inform people about the festival.

Tourism Vancouver (“Dine out Vancouver”, 2020) describes the Dine out Vancouver Festival as “Canada’s largest annual dining celebration, attracting tens of thousands of local and visiting food enthusiasts to experience the city’s exceptionally diverse culinary scene.”

The Real-Time Experience

The ninth edition of the Street Food City food truck festival event was going to take place on January 17, 18, 31 and on February 1 to 6 but because of the “snowmageddon” the first weekend was canceled and added three more days at the end, the 7, 8 and 9 of February. Our group has reached the event on 9^th February 2020. It was a sunny beautiful day in Vancouver when the outside activities are recommended after a long winter with raining and snowing all over the city.

The entrance is free, you just have to pay for your food. On average the prices of the main dishes are between $10 to $15 dollars and all the food trucks accepts cash, debit and credit card.

The Street Food City event is located just in front of the Vancouver Art Gallery on Georgia Street, between Howe Street and Hornby Street. One of the busiest areas in this capital of the west coast. Despite the busy, vibrant and crowed atmosphere during the weekdays, it turned to be ‘’slow down’’, chill and quiet and the sunlight created the coziness needed for people to walk with their loved ones around the city. 

We live in different areas of Vancouver and have chosen public transportation as the way to commute to the event. The traffic is vastly greater during the weekend but that did not stop us from getting to the event. As located in the centre of the city, it is very much convenient to use public transportation as the venue is surrounded by Skytrain stations, and bus links within a few minute’s walks away. For those who prefer to get in by their own vehicle, there is plenty of parking surrounding the venue, the closest basement parking is at Microsoft Building right next to the Art Gallery with the weekend rate of $25 CAD per hour. In short, transportation to the event is extremely convenient and user-friendly in all types of travel.

Even the city is built with many landmarks building, the Gallery area has its unique open area that made diner felt the spacious and coolness right in the center of the busiest city in British Columbia. The event is held on the northeast side of the one thousand five hundred square meters in a rectangle shape. The trucks are positioned along the dimensions of the yard leaving the middle areas utilized for seating and entertaining for the guests to enjoy. Visitors are excited and entertained by live music featuring by local artists.

Regarding the sustainable issues that the world is craving for, this event would tick all the boxes that we are concerned about. There were multiple bins allocated around and inside the event with separated wastes disposal drawers. Also, most of the food trucks deliver the dishes in ecological containers. The power of the food truck is eco-friendly as they used the electricity from their own generators and storage.

The event surprised us by the varieties of the cuisines available, everything you can think of is combined into one venue, from Western, South American to Asian dishes or a tasty gourmet burger to wood fire pizza and finishing by the fried banana ice-cream that Thai food is well known for. The variety and dynamic of food choices are interesting characters that will not be found in other typical restaurants and make events such as Street Food Festival worth attending.

The food trucks that participate in this edition are:

• Taters- The Baked Potato Co.
• Slavic Rolls
• Chickpea
• Come Arepa
• Holi Masala
• Kafka’s Coffee and Tea
• Kampong – The Truly Authentic Taste Of Malaysia
• Mr. Arancino
• Shameless Buns
• REEL Mac And Cheese
• El Cartel
• Old Country Pierogi
• Via Tevere
• Disco Cheetah Korean Grill
• Mama’s Fish and Chips
• The Reef
• Old Country Pierogi
• Holi Masala
• Tocofino Vancouver
• Salty’s Lobster Shack
• Melt City Grilled Cheese
• Rolling Cashew
• Via Tevere Pizzeria Napoletana
• Urban Wood Fired Pizza
  

Although not all food trucks were present every day, the organizers managed to find the perfect mix of food on all dates.

The day we went we met with the following food trucks:

• Disco Cheetah Korean Grill
• Kampong – The Truly Authentic Taste Of Malaysia
• Mama’s Fish & Chips
• Mr. Arancino
• The Reef
• REEL Mac And Cheese
• The Rolling Cashew
• Shameless Buns
• Tacofino Vancouver
• Urban Wood Fired Pizza
  

The Food Insights

Finally, it is the part that you all are waiting for the review of the food trucks that we try: Disco Cheetah Korean Grill, Mr. Arancino and The Rolling Cashew

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Disco Cheetah Korean Grill

The presentation of the dish was outstanding and creative. It is the mixture of Korean and Western Food. We were not even surprise to read on this food truck website that the goal of the business is to bring the creativity and mixture of styles to Vancouver, in the meantime, promoting the Korean true food (“Menu”, 2020). According to My Korean Kitchen website (“Korean Fried Chicken”, 2018), the fried chicken dish is originally garnished with sesame and shredded spring onions served with rice. However, at Disco Cheetah, it is topped with red pickled radish, chopped onions and garlic aioli sauce featuring fries or salad. The creativity really made the dish more attractive and yummier. The portion was just right for an individual lunch box and suitable for office associates who need a quick, delicious and nutritious box. The chicken is well mixed with Korean BBQ sauce but got the crispiness of the fried chicken. The taste was remarkable with the fresh and organic ingredients that Cheetah used. In summary, this is a great choice for anyone who crosses by Disco cheetah in the future.

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Mr. Arancino Food Truck

We try risotto balls in Mr Arancino’s food truck.  Mr Arancino was founded by Yannick Cudennec who discovered the arancini balls while travelling in Italy. Before returning to Vancouver he took an Italian food course with a Sicilian chef who taught him how to make these amazing risotto balls. As he spent all his money on the course, he had to couchsurf with some Italian families who nicknamed him “Mr. Arancino”. (“Our Story,”2015).

Mr Arancino’s menu satisfy every plate (“Our Varieties,”2015), they have options with animal protein like beef ragu, pizza, bacon pesto and salmon; vegetarian options like mozzarella, mushroom and spinach and even a vegan option made with quinoa, perfect for people with celiac disease (Food and Agriculture Organization of the United Nations, 2011, p.13).

Although the menu is varied, the day we went didn’t have all the options available. They only had vegetable ragu, beef ragu, spinach, cheese and pizza.

The price of the risotto balls is: 3 for $8.5, 4 for $11 and 8 for $21 and you can mix the flavors.

The food didn’t have the best presentation but because it’s a simple dish and served in a food truck we understand why. What we don’t understand is the fact that they don’t have forks. The reason they gave us is that arancini balls must be eaten with your hands, but come on guys, not everybody likes to eat like that.

After getting a fork in another food truck we finally taste the rice balls and they were so good! They are soft, delicious and have the perfect mix between the risotto and the filling. Our favorite was the cheese ball!

Mr Arancino’s permit let them park at Granville and Robson in Downtown Vancouver, so if you are in the zone and want something different, easy and healthier option don’t hesitate to visit them. 

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The Rolling Cashew Food truck

We choose The Rolling Cashew food truck because of its wide variety of vegetarian food since all the dishes are planted based.

The owner of this food truck, Bhibut, started this business five years ago with one friend. And because they both were vegetarian, they decide to create this kind of food.

The food truck’s menu basically consists in four parts:

• Hot Dishes:  You can choose one, two or three fillings -Thai Cashew Cauli wings, Korean Beefless ground bulldog or Chinese Mapo Tofu- that goes on top of the browncalrose rice.
• Crockets: Potato crockets with your choice of sauce -aioli, chipotle mayo, ranch, wasabi mayo-.
• Sandwich combo: a toasted sandwich with cheese, zucchini, red pepper, caramelized onion, kale, and meatlees pate with a side of crockets and salad.
• Pastries like dark chocolate tart and lemon tart.

We order one of the most popular dishes: the cauliflower wings with rice. Although it is bit expensive, yet it has a delicious taste. The service was a little slow, we had to wait for approximately ten minutes for the order. Since the food portion was big all the three members of the group could enjoy this delicious dish and be satisfied.

We definitely are going to eat in this food truck again!

If you want to know the location of the food truck you just have to go to their webpage https://www.rollingcashew.ca/find-us.html. You can also visit the Foodee website to have their food delivered to your office or house.

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In conclusion, let’s all go next year!!

Although the event satisfied us with its atmosphere and quality, there are improvements that the organizers should consider to enhancing the diner experience for its massive 10th birthday in 2021: According to Vancouver is awesome website (“25 food trucks will transform downtown Vancouver into Street Food City” 2020), a part of the event profit would be funded for charity to support local communities and hospitals. This information is rarely communicated with the visitors across the channels and onsite venue. It would be greatly better if residents were aware of such kindness from the Dine Out Vancouver. Secondly, there was a missed opportunity for the organizer of the event to have a booth at the venue for customer services and marketing purposes to promote the event itself and the whole Dine Out Vancouver as a whole for the engagements and awareness of the visitors. 

This was a great experience, we enjoy it very much, and we love having many vegetarian options. We really recommend you assist next year, we sure are going to do it!

References:

- About us, (2003). Retrieved from https://streetfoodvancouver.com/about-us/
- Dine out Vancouver (2020) Retrieved from https://www.tourismvancouver.com/restaurants/dine-out-vancouver-festival/#
- Food and Agriculture Organization of the United Nations. (2011, July). Quinoa: An ancient crop to contribute to world food security. Retrieved from http://www.fao.org/3/aq287e/aq287e.pdf
- Korean Fried Chicken (2018). Retrieved from  https://mykoreankitchen.com/korean-fried-chicken/
- Menu, (2020). Retrieved from https://www.discocheetah.com/
- Our story, (2015). Retrieved from http://mrarancino.com/about/
- Our Varieties, (2015). Retrieved from https://mrarancino.com/
- 25 food trucks will transform downtown Vancouver into Street Food City (2020). Retrieved from https://www.vancouverisawesome.com/food-and-drink/street-food-city-truck-festival-vancouver-2020-2005433