2011 Street Food Landscape To Be Injected With More Awesome

Tonight we can bring you some very promising “almost” news on the Vancouver street food front. I say “almost” because none of it is official, but rather pooled together from reliable sources. I ask those journalists who are reading this to confirm what I am about to write, because I am now going to go out and celebrate for the next 72 hours…

Word is City Hall is going to vote next Thursday on increasing the number of street vendors from 80 to 140 by this summer. If all goes according to plan, applications for these new slots will be made available to the public next month. So hoorah for that, and the 15 new vendors that will then be allowed every year thereafter, until a presumably arbitrary ceiling is reached (or we all explode from over-consumption in the year 2213).

But that isn’t the especially awesome part. Are you ready for this? Read more

New “Cartel” Invades Georgia & Burrard With Korean Tacos…

by Andrew Morrison | Several months ago, Abigail’s Party owner James Iranzad (interview) teamed up with Jesse Grasso and Joel Watanabe (the two kitchen rulers at Chinatown’s Bao Bei) to create “Cartel”, a street cart serving Korean-style tacos.

They’d hoped to win one of the coveted 17 mobile food vendor slots given out in City Hall’s famously messed up pilot project lottery, but no such luck. With concept, brand and menu ready to go, they were forced to wait patiently until granted a location and an operational green light. That assent from on high came late yesterday, and today – their first day of trade – went down swimmingly on the southwest corner of Georgia and Burrard.

The first thing I noticed when I arrived during noon’s final prep was the smell. It was intoxicating. It caused hundreds of hungry passersby on their lunch break to slow down long enough to catch the quick zephyr wiffs. “What are you guys cooking?” was asked just about every ten seconds. You’d think “Korean tacos” would be the least expected answer imaginable, but no one was overheard replying “that’s crazy” or worse, “ew, gross“. The expressions on all the passing faces seemed to say “whatever it is, it smells freakin’ good”. It’s rare that a deadly fine aroma is also unfamiliar. Our brains trick us into thinking we know all smells, but when a new one comes along and it’s so rad that it makes your olfactory toot, it also quickens the pulse.

The tacos come in three guises: pork, beef and vegetarian. Both the beef and the pork are done in the Bulgogi style (a wet Korean marinade, literally “fire meat”). As mentioned, it’s very aromatic stuff. Both meats are local and organic, with the pork from Fraser Valley Farms and the beef from Two Rivers. Thinly shaven, they’re sizzled on a square flat-top before landing on corn tortillas (also local, from Burnaby’s El Comal). Once plated, they’re topped with cilantro, onion and a mild kimchi. The vegetarian version is with mushroom and tofu from Sunrise Organics, but I could give a damn about that (sorry guys).

The prices are reasonable. One double tortilla taco is $3. For two, it’s $5.75; three, $8; and four, $10. I had a pair, and I’m still thinking about them 10 hours later. I’ll talk about the taste in my column on five new and upcoming eateries in the next issue of the Westender. Some food porn above (video) and below (big photos) to tide you over until you bumrush the joint at lunch tomorrow… Read more

Guess How Many Of The 17 New Street Food Vendors Are Ready?

photo: Jeanine Anderson

It turns out I was wrong a few weeks back when I opined on City Hall’s methodology to determine who would be granted licenses for their street food pilot project. They “chose” by lottery instead of by merit. I thought that was a no good, very bad, terrible idea, writing…

The winners are required to be operational in just 22 days [that's today, folks]. In that span they’ll need to be Coastal Health approved (always fun), have a base of operations, and be ready for volume on opening day. How many of these unknowns do you think will be ready? I’d wager no more than 10.

According to the Sun, it’s just one.

Surprise! Not All Street Food Lotto Winners Ready To Operate

When City Hall trumpeted their list of the lucky 17 who’d won a flawed lottery for spots to sell street food from mobile carts last week, we were concerned as to how many would be ready for prime time and how many had just put their names in the bingo basket for a lark. According to a story in today’s Vancouver Courier (hat tip to reader NW), it turns out that we weren’t alone in our worries.

Claudia Kurzac, acting manager for health protection, doesn’t expect all 17 new food vendors to be operational by July 31, as per the city’s goal. “It sounds like some went into the lottery without even a business plan and don’t even have an actual trailer or cart and would have to manufacture that first, never mind even find a base of operation,” Kurzac said.

Add to that the coastal health inspections and the massive fees the City is charging for parking spaces and licenses, and it looks like the City nabobs may have a problem on their hands. If they aren’t ready, the spots go to alternates (also chosen by lot). If they aren’t ready, well…the City didn’t think that far ahead.

As we’ve argued before, they could have hand selected prospective operators for their long overdue street food pilot project based on business plans and track records, but they insisted on doing it randomly in the absurd name of “fairness” (and meritocracy be damned). While I do have faith that some tasty good will come of this lottery (I’m looking at you, southern BBQ), what I’m really hoping for is that Grant Woff, acting manager of No Fun City street administration (and the fellow who backed the lotto), takes a few private moments at his desk with his palm on his forehead…

How City Hall Screwed Up Their Own Street Food Pilot Project

photo: SteffanyF

When City Hall announced that it was going to overhaul its position on mobile street food vendors (previously: “we only want it if it sucks”), I was really excited. Finally, just maybe, we’d start inching toward a town like Portland, a paradise of food trucks serving a wild array of culturally diverse dishes from the curb.

Several local restaurateurs and chefs geared up to meet the new challenge (I naturally grew hungry) but when the City explained that vendors for their summer pilot project would be decided by lottery, my enthusiasm was replaced with fear and dread.

While I’m glad the city recognised that they were unqualified to choose which food businesses would suit our streets best (their track record on this is pretty bad), they could have just asked around, perhaps even called in a couple of independent consultants who knew a thing or two about food. Better yet, they could have actually interviewed the applicants to discern whether or not they were serious. I certainly would have advised them to the best of my ability for free, as would (I’m sure) other local food writers, chefs’ associations and so on…but no. In an effort to be democratic (which can be interpreted as ‘blameless’), they basically drew names from a bingo barrel as if the vendors would be selling scarves, toques and glow sticks. This, according to Grant Woff, acting manager of street administration, was “the fairest method as everyone was given the same odds”.

Big mistake. Read more