food cart madness - fasttrac fusion

So I'm driving north on Cambie, heading to the happiest place on earth (Whole Foods), when I notice a conspicuous silver cart hanging out on 49th Ave, just outside the Langara Canada Line exit. I make a borderline Stig-like right turn into the first street I pass and park.


One of the supreme tenets of the food industry has always been location, location, location. Langara College, hidden away in a residential area bordered by a golf course, has never been a focus of cheap eats, even though within its walls hides an untapped market of hungry and extremely budget-conscious eaters. Main Street's East Indian market is a few minutes walk, but the selection is limited. Oakridge Centre mall is a train stop away, but if you're between classes, that may not be an option. So in comes Fasttrac Fusion trying to fill a need.

update: isaac & agatha (richmond)

This is a follow-up to my initial review which you can find here.

A friend of mine called me up for lunch last Saturday, and I always use that as a reason to go eat Filipino food. He and I grew up together, and it's just one of those things that links our friendship. That, and he's also the guy who got me started with this whole love-of-cooking business. After I moved back to Vancouver after 4 years of living off dining hall food in Boston during university, he showed me quick-and-easy pasta, as well as the wonders of the George Foreman grill. Yes, I'm admitting to owning one.

farmers market saturday

The true sign that fall is here? The Trout Lake Farmers Market shuts down for another season.


Check out this massive golden beet I found! Lots of apples around, some late-season tomatoes, beets, and piles upon piles of squash were to be had. With Halloween a week away, the sweet smell of pumpkin pie should be filling the air.

food cart madness - fresh local wild

One of my rules is that I will not visit, let alone review, an establishment that has been open less than a month. I just consider it fair to give the staff time to get into a comfortable groove, and adjust the food as needed. It always leads to a better experience for all involved... or consequently, they close down before then...

I'm about to break that rule.


Fresh Local Wild is the latest food truck to wind its way into downtown Vancouver. It's based on bringing local sustainable and seasonable food to our streets, at an affordable price. The man in charge is Chef Josh Wolfe, formerly of the Glowbal Group's flagship Coast Restaurant on Alberni, which brings some hefty credentials. He and his partners launched Fresh Local Wild only yesterday, but the local Twitter-verse is already abuzz with their arrival.

dinner - scrumptious short rib with beet greens and couscous

I love short ribs.

Actually... I'm downright obsessed by it. There's just something about a properly braised short rib - fork-tender, fall-apart gorgeously-unctuous meat? I could eat that forever. Wagyu beef so tender you can cut it with a spoon? I've had it. It was good. But I DREAM of short ribs.

Ask any of the folks I lived with in university about my quest for the BBQ short ribs at B.B. Wolf's. They will roll their eyes in bemused recognition.

I usually make pulled pork with short ribs. There's so many things you can make with them in that form. I can make a sandwich, make a ragu, deep-fry it, or my personal favourite, put it all into a bucket and eat it as-is with a spoon. This time though, they didn't finish braising until 3 AM, so I left them whole, tossed them into the fridge and went to bed. The next day - it was time to play.

phnom penh (chinatown)

Vancouver doesn't have too many places deemed a "beloved institution." On the higher-end of the culinary scale, there's Bishop's, and Vij's. Then you have the Elbow Room and the Lamplighter, more known for quick and easy chow, holding fort on the other side.


Tucked away in a quiet street in Chinatown, surrounded by the telltale signs of unnecessary gentrification, Phnom Penh has been venerated by all that have passed through its doors. Serving up Vietnamese and Cambodian specialties for 20 or so years, there is a constant line-up weaving out the doors any day of the week. The faces you see in line represent every demographic Vancouver has to offer, speaking volumes of the old adage "if you build it, they will come."

food coma at refuel (w 4th)

My cousins and god-daughter are in town from the Philippines this week so that necessitated a fried chicken run to, in my opinion, one of the finest tables in town - refuel on West 4th.

Full disclosure, I staged a few times at refuel, and I also worked a week at their sister restaurant, Campagnolo after graduating from Northwest Culinary. Regardless, I was already a semi-regular at refuel long before then. Everyone's got to have that one place where everyone knows your name right?

It was nice to see the kitchen crew again - Chefs Jane and Nate were always super nice and supportive of me when I worked with them. I'd never felt more welcome and at-ease in a kitchen. Had life gone in another direction, I would've followed Chef Jane to any kitchen she went. Amazing leaders/mentors are hard to find, and when you do, don't let go.

So - where's the food porn you may ask? None. I don't take any pictures when I'm at refuel because quite honestly, I'm there to enjoy the food and company. You will probably never see a formal review of refuel from me. Just take my highest encouragement to go and try them out and have the best fried chicken you may EVER have.

No. Seriously. EVER. I have stats to back up my claim.

I was just looking for a semi-light dinner - maybe an arugula salad and lingcod -- but between all the leftovers from everyone, and my current obsession, roasted golden and red beets being on the menu -- well... what can I say but it was very satisfying night.

What happened next? I'm not sure... except that I woke up from my food coma at 11 AM the next day with the world in a slight haze...

That's a d*mn fine way to start a day-off if there ever was.

refuel's located on 1944 West 4th in Kitsilano. Go check them out, and say Russell sent ya.

strawberry cones (richmond)

Pizza.

I have a pretty complicated hierarchy of tastes and preferences. Sometimes, a 99c slice hits the spot. Othertimes, all I want is Naples style which I will gladly drive hours and pay $20 or more for.

Along the same lines, I have palate issues with certain Japanese interpretations of western cuisine, specifically French desserts and Italian food. The desserts I will get into in a future post. As for Italian food, it's practically inedible for me. Really puffy and doughy pizza dough, overly sweet and syrupy tomato sauce... and this is from a few different experiences - not a one time thing.

I do understand that some of the best and authentic Italian cuisine can indeed be found in Japan. There's something about the meticulousness of Japanese hands that can recreate the intricacies of Italian pasta... and Italian nonnas. But we're not talking about that here. We're talking about fast food.

food cart madness - roaming dragon

Roaming Dragon was the first alternative food truck running in the city - they were doing private catering gigs, as well as stationed at the Kitsilano farmers market. When the now-infamous City of Vancouver food-truck lottery came about, they were the only operation who actually met all the set-criteria and were ready to go.

Of course, they weren't one of the lucky 17 to get a spot.

Being the brilliant business minds they are, they bought one of the spots - and everyone was better for it.

sorry about the post delay

Hey Slif-ers, sorry for the delay in posts. I was at a close friend's Chinese wedding all day yesterday, in a food coma for most of today, and now, my desktop has gone down with a case of the sniffles.

Posting to hopefully resume by tomorrow evening if I can this annoying bastard exorcised. A few things to look forward to this week?

• Roaming Dragon food truck
  
• Strawberry Cones pizza in Aberdeen Centre
  
• Beard Papa's cheesecake stick
  
• And maybe, just maybe, the first part of the long-awaited Okanagan trip will show by this weekend
  

thanksgiving detox lunch - panzanella salad

So after an evening of Thanksgiving turkey fat, whiskey-laced whipped cream, and far too much pumpkin and pecan pie - I needed to detox.

Nothing too drastic, but I wanted some veg in my system. Nothing quite so boring as a spinach salad of course, so I looked at the remnants of yesterday's farmers market trip, and came up with a panzanella salad.

farmer's market saturday

Is there anything better on Thanksgiving weekend than to visit the farmer's market? Cloudy fall day, the ground still fresh from an early morning rain - but dry and cool enough for a comfortable walk around Trout Lake.


Squash are everywhere! I still have some freaky gimongous ones I picked up at Keremeos on the way home from the Okanagan so I took a pass, but I did pick up a sugar pumpkin. Going to try and make pumpkin pie from scratch :-)

happy (canadian) thanksgiving!

Happy Thanksgiving everyone!

Hope you get to spend this weekend with your family having some awesome food, and just chilling out.

I thought it apropos to post this educational video, featuring Vancouver's favourite daughter Cobie Smulders, explaining the origins of Canadian Thanksgiving.

phillips seafood (baltimore inner harbour)

I was in Baltimore in September for my college roommate, Vijay's aka Hungry Globetrotter wedding. It was my first Indian wedding, so I was pretty psyched for it (oddly enough, I live in Vancouver but don't really have any Indian friends).

The fun part of travelling coast-to-coast is leaving Vancouver at 6 AM PST, and arriving at the hotel just shy of 9 PM EST. Good times. I don't hate air-travel (anymore), but I do hate lost time/productivity and being stuck behind neophytes who don't know how to navigate airport security.

Plus this leg took me through Chicago O'Hare - high on my list of no-likey airports (it's a technical term I assure you). On the bright side, I did get a chance to visit the airport version of the famous Billy Goat Tavern and got to try an Italian beef sandwich. Didn't get a picture though as my hands were completely greased up by it - in a good way! ... ... ... Wait... is it even possible to refer to a sandwich as greased up in a bad way?

If the Billy Goat doesn't ring a bell, watch this and it might rejog your memory... if you're over 30. Under-30, I got nothin' for ya.

I'm infamous for exhaustively researching dining options of every city I find myself in. This time though, I knew that I would be doing wedding events all weekend long, so I didn't bother... and even if I did, I probably would've just rented a car and driven to Bryan Voltaggio's Volt, which is about an hour east of the city.

isaac & agatha (richmond)

You know what my favourite food trend is?

It's not locavorism or ocean sustainability, though both are practices that I pride myself in practicing as much as I humanly can - as you should too. It's not the proliferation of $10+ desserts. It sure as hell is not smearing sauce on a plate (so let me get this straight... thick mucky sauce is a good thing now?)

No, my favourite trend is the sudden discovery and pride that opening a Filipino restaurant can actually be a viable business model. AND it doesn't have to be a dirty dingy hole in the wall (though they have their perks too)!

I recently heard about Isaac & Agatha through the blog-grapevine. It's located on the industrial strip of Bridgeport in Richmond, a bizarre paradox of eating to say the least. The Richmond Summer Night Market is close by, as well as modern Chinese restaurant, Hakka-san, practically a stone's throw away - mixed in with the McSubWendyBucks, cookie cutter office-park cafes, and even, the monolithic "Home of the 99c Rehydrated Breakfast" Ikea cafeteria nearby.

dinner - pulled pork sandwich

As good as it looks :-)


I'm having too much fun emptying out my fridge. This was the last of the pulled pork I made earlier last week, striped zuke, thick-cut heirloom tomato, spinach, Skillet bacon jam, all into whole wheat batard that I baked on Saturday.

One last taste of summer.

I know I promised my review of Roaming Dragon today, but I wasn't able to visit them over the weekend for a follow-up, so I'm going to push it off for next week. Maybe I can make a resolution to visit a new food truck every week? Hmm...

dessert - boozy bread pudding with creme anglaise

So, dessert.

Decided to try my hand at two things I'd never done before: bread pudding, and creme anglaise. I had some leftover pan de sal (Filipino butter rolls), cream that was a few days away from turning, and some eggs. I wanted to use them up. Also, with the extra custard, I could make an anglaise - so no waste!

dinner - red-wine pork ragu pappardelle with summer tomatoes

I love it when a plan comes together.

This was tonight's dinner, a red-wine pulled pork ragu on pappardelle, topped with some late summer cherry heirloom tomatoes that took 5 days to prepare.

I made the chicken and vegetable stocks on Tuesday; marinated the pork on Wednesday; slow-cooked the pork for 5 hours, pulled it, and reduced the jus on Thursday; and put it all together on Saturday. No, I didn't make the pasta myself - that would've been awesome though wouldn't it?

Result? A ragu with such a range of flavour, perfect balance of sweet and tart, and overflowing with sweet sweet porky goodness. I prepared it using Chef Pino Posteraro's signature method: I cooked the dish in 1 pan, boiling the pasta and reducing the sauce all at the same time, essentially like a pilaf, except with pasta. The intense concentration of flavour that goes into the noodle is amazing! Give it a shot if you haven't before! And you gotta use stock and wine, not water of course.

Now, dessert :-)

okanagan - a preview

Here's a little preview of my Okanagan trip. Post and all sorts of yumminess coming soon!

food cart madness - part iv - panda fresh bakery

PanDa Fresh Bakery
Location: David Lam Park, Yaletown

So just to ease your worries that I'm some unstoppable eating freak, I visited the Home & Interior Design Show at the convention centre to get my metabolism back to where it needed to be, before I hit up dessert. That being said, being in that area necessitated a visit to my favourite gelateria, Bella Gelateria. That's a review for another day.

Clutching my cone of delightfully creamy almond gelato, I made my way to the Canada Line, onwards to Yaletown, an area of town that used to house some of the most innovative eats in town, but is now more known for overpriced, lukewarm conceptualized, mediocre restaurants, with a restaurant failure rate that would make your head spin. Don't get me wrong - there's still great food to be had (Cioppino's, Blue Water, Ganache, etc) but I've long since moved on from classifying Yaletown as a true foodie destination. The final nail to the coffin was the arrival of eponymous-local-steakhouse-king The Keg.

With that in mind, I made my way to the former location of LiveCity Yaletown, David Lam Park - now restored back to its former green glory. There sitting at the intersection of Pacific and Drake is a lone retired yellow school bus advertising freshly made croissant creations. A little background - I have notoriously high croissant standards. I will not accept soft, stale, mushy croissants - I want an explosion of crumbs, followed by a ethereal wave of buttery goodness with every bite. Chef Peter Fong's Ganache on Homer stands as some of the best I've ever had.

food cart madness - part iii - csk chinese skewer king

CSK Chinese Skewer King
Location: Southeast corner of Burrard, at Pender

My third stop in... wow... in 45 minutes is CSK Skewer King. Seriously - let's take a look at this, in 45 minutes, I've had a pulled pork sandwich, big glass of iced tea, tiny cup of absolutely disgusting smoothie (the less I say about that, the better), and a slice of pizza. Such is the difficult life that I lead to bring everyone news of the food world.

You're welcome.

CSK closely resembles any of the innumerous skewer stands at the Richmond Summer Night Market, or at many street markets in Asia. There are a few choices of skewers: the holy trinity of beef, chicken and pork; lamb; tofu; and mixed peppers/mushrooms. Just to continue the tradition of Chinese fast food, there are value combos available for your dining dollar - all at quite reasonable prices, from $5.50+. Each skewer runs $2.50 and is jam-packed.

I decided to go all the way with the pork theme, and they threw the skewer fresh onto the grill for me. That was a nice touch. They asked if I wanted "spicy" and as it was a fairly chilly day, I said yes and they proceeded to shake this magic powder onto it.

As I took my first bite, I took note of how fresh and hot this sucker was, and just how much meat was on the stick. Upon first bite, I got the familiar taste of "super secret recipe MSG spicy powder" (my description not theirs, but isn't it so much fun to say?) in my mouth, which was then replaced by a glorious explosion of pork fat juice. Yes folks, they did not skimp on the pork. There was plenty of meat on here and it was yummy and juicy, unlike the prototypical overcooked dry and stringy souvlakis and hawker stands we generally see.

There was enough meat to keep me quite satiated as a snack, and certainly a combo of 2 with pop and bread would suffice me nicely for lunch. Though next time, I'll ask them to go light on the "super secret recipe MSG spicy powder" (SO much fun to say!).

The fun continues tomorrow with PanDa Fresh Bakery in Yaletown!