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.



I've visited them a number of times and have tried just about everything on the menu and I've generally been pleased. The dishes are interesting, but flavour-wise, nothing special. At $5 a dish though, it's a good deal for what you get. Actually I should clarify that. They charge $6 per dish, but it's $10 for 2 or $15 for 3.


The style of the food leans towards your (now traditional?) food truck - fusion meat-in-bun that LA has made famous. Their specialty is a Korean-style bulgogi in a corn tortilla lined with nori. The sauce and beef are tasty, if unspectacular. There's some bean sprouts and carrots on top that add a nice crunch to the whole affair. Unfortunately, the dish was nothing special to me - it needed something else as a punch to take it to the next level. Maybe some extra spice in the sauce, or a light pickling on the veg. Also, they used nori to line the tortilla which was a great idea in principle - nori prevents the sauce from soaking through the tortilla - but nori also turns completely chewy when warm. To their credit, I recommended for them to sprinkle shredded nori on top instead, and they have implemented this change.


The duck confit salad was an interesting idea - mixed herbs/greens tossed in a light citrus vinaigrette, topped with shredded duck confit, pineapple, watermelon and cashews. It screamed 1980's Southern California. Not in a good way. I'm not the biggest pineapple fan, moreso when it's in savoury dishes (yes, I believe the "Hawaiian" is an affront to flatbread everywhere). The watermelon just didn't seem to belong - I understand why it was there - to add some freshness to contrast the heavy gamey-ness of the duck, but combined with the overly sweet pineapple, I did not enjoy it as much as I should've. It also diluted the vinaigrette, which there should've been more of. The positive? Duck confit was lovely. Could just be my duck-bias, but it was lovely. Instead of the fruits, I would've thrown in some jicama instead and jacked up the citrus quotient (a touch of pineapple juice instead of cubes) in the vinaigrette.


The "mantou" Chinese pork belly sliders were sandwiched in a traditional steamed bun and topped with sliced pickles and a thick unctuous brown sauce. So the pedigree of this dish is about as traditional as it gets, and what I got was a reasonable fast food facsimile. The pork was leaner than I'd like it to be, and the sauce too thick. The pickles were perfect for my palette - not overly pickly, but just enough to cut through the richness of the sauce. Nothing much to be said about the buns, they were just there.


They've also started offering a breakfast burrito during their farmers market visits, and I gave it a shot when I visited Trout Lake last week. It's your standard scrambled eggs, tomato and greens inside, with a very mild-spicy sauce, dusted with (I think) that ubiquitous red powder you see tableside at most Japanese restaurants (the name escapes me right now), with a thing of guac on the side. Nothing special - it is what it is.

My hands-down favourite item on their menu has to be the lychee-basil lemonade. This, as they say, is the SH!T. The smoothness of the lychee blends so well with the basil's earthy spiciness and added to the freshly squeezed lemonade - absolute perfection on a hot sunny day. At $4 a glass, it's quite steep - but I'd wager it's more refreshing (and has less sugar) than a venti frappucino. They also regularly do "secret specials" with it, so keep your eyes peeled on their Twitter account! (@DragonTruck)



Overall, I'll give Roaming Dragon credit for trying something different from what we've seen on our streets, but they need to tweak/overhaul some of the recipes to reach that level of culinary awesomeness that we'd all like to see. I'd say they're definitely one of the better food trucks in Vancouver, but really, that's not saying much considering the competition. If I worked downtown, yes they'd be a regular option for value and uniqueness. As a weekly visitor, I'd pick up a shawarma from Babylon or Aladdin, over them, without question.

I do want to to note that they're possibly the only food truck that accepts Visa and debit, so that's a nice plus!

Look for the big red Roaming Dragon truck on Georgia between Burrard and Thurlow on weekdays from 11-3, and at the farmers markets on weekends. Check Twitter for regular updates.

Done.