food cart madness - part i - re-up

I have an inherent fascination with food trucks. After a visit to the University of Pennsylvania campus back in 1998 and bearing witness to a parking lot filled with gimongous white trucks preparing and selling every cuisine under the sun, I was hooked.

Fast forward 12 years later, and Vancouver finally jumps onto the (fairly literal) bandwagon and opens up a food truck program. Now with all fairness, City Hall had just recovered from the Olympics so to jump onto a program like this was fairly foolhardy and I will give them all the props in the world for making it happen one way or another. That being said, if you want some details on how they completely dropped the ball, give Andrew Morrison of Scout Magazine's take on the situation a read.

Long story short, over 2 months AFTER the program started when we had 1 food truck (Roaming Dragon) show up, (due to them purchasing someone else's license and location) we finally had a few out there hawking their wares. Not quite the 17 vendors expected, but we'll take what we can get.

I decided it was time to check a few of them out:

Re-Up

Location: Vancouver Art Gallery on Hornby side

Specializing in pulled pork sandwiches, Re-Up has become downtown's most popular food cart thus far, experiencing long line-ups everyday. A lot has to do with their sweet prime location, but also because the sandwich is absolutely fantastic!

kelowna

On an Okanagan wine tour with the parents, and trying to fit in as much eats as possible. I've only been out here twice in the past, and they really didn't count (I was too young, and the second trip was a daytrip for more official purposes) so not only am I going out with the parents, but I'm going to take an extra day to hang around the area to see and do more.

Sadly I've been more disappointed with the meals than impressed, but I'll start hitting up farms tomorrow so there's definite promise there.

Details to follow of course.

a rant

A note to all Asian-wannabe chefs.

Stop trying to recreate "authentic" Asian food. You will not win. You will by default whether you like it or not invite the comparisons between what you want $10 for and what you can get for $2 in Chinatown.

And you will lose.

It's as simple as that.

Why? Because the grandma/grandpa cooking in Chinatown with MSG, 40 years of practice and just pure skill is always going to be better than what your wannabe culinary school/FoodTV education/organic-hormone-free vision can churn out.

You know what will win? If you actually take some initiative and creativity (and it doesn't take much) and create SOMETHING NEW with those same ingredients. Then you know what? You'll have something people CAN'T get for $2 in Chinatown - then at least you'll have a chance.

It's telling that some of the most creative modern Asian food I've had is from food trucks. There guys are playing with flavours and managing to create magic (or at times, not) for under $4 a pop. I don't know what their food costs are, and I don't care. All I care about is getting f*cking tasty food at a decent value.

I don't care that you make your own tofu, or find and kill your own pig somewhere in Upstate New York, or stew your own hoison sauce. If it doesn't taste as good as that stuff I get from the cooler section at T&T (or 99 Ranch for the Americans) - then I'm very literally not buying.

Or maybe... just maybe... cook the same thing and actually make it genuinely TASTE better than what grandma is doing. But good luck with that. Maenam's the only place that can do it right, and that's because Angus has the skills of a Thai grandma with a classical French culinary education to back it up.

And no, this doesn't mean you start stealing recipes from David Chang or Jean-Georges.

Rant - done.

burgoo (main st)

I love comfort food. I was brought up in the Philippines where food is love. It didn't matter how rich or poor you were, as long as you have food on the table for the family - you've got love. Now the Philippines being a particularly poor country, long simmering braises, stews and soups are king. How that juxtaposes with the tropical weather - I never quite figured out - but along for the ride were every single part of that fabled creature, the pig, were usually thrown into the cauldron. Wiki "dinuguan" if you dare.

Burgoo is a small local chain (3 locations strong) that specializes in all manners of stews and soups from around the world. They go out of their way to create a comforting atmosphere - the Main Street location is essentially a log cabin in the middle of student/boheme town. It's quite amusing really. They also have blankets handy for those especially chilly evenings, and the West 10th location has a fireplace. It helps to come by during off-times, but it's very very easy to end up hanging out for an afternoon, nursing a hot drink, and a steaming plate of ratatouille for hours.

The traditional burgoo comes from the great state of Kentucky where "wild" meat usually took the place of beef and pork. I won't go into details, but think Cletus the slack-jawed yokel from The Simpsons and you'll get the rough idea. Now Burgoo does serve a version of burgoo, but nothing quite so provincial. They also have a lamb tagine, butter chicken, beef bourguignon, among many other selections.

I've been to Burgoo enough times to have tried just about every single soup and stew on their menu, and a few sandwiches as well. Unfortunately I can't say necessarily say I've been blown away by anything on the menu. Some of the stews and braises could use a longer simmer to create a thicker, and more flavourful sauce. A lot of the soups are competent, but generally one-note. Not quite out of the can, but for the prices, I do expect more flavour. A lot of them are just too sweet (tomato soup, butternut squash, pea soup...) and could just a tone down. The biscuits are a huge disappointment - more like scones in their thickness and texture, than the crumbly buttery-ness I expect from biscuits.

Now what does keep me coming back - the aforementioned ratatouille is a bowl of steaming vegetables roasted in a rich thick tomato sauce. A great dish to share among friends (a bit too much for 1 person to ingest that much tomato IMHO). It's a great complement to a lot of their stews and mixed in with the weaker sauces, take them to the level where they should be.

The big hot mama on the menu though is their grilled cheese sandwiches. For $12, you get 2 sandwiches cut from a filone loaf, filled with 4 flavourful cheeses (mozza, gruyere, emmenthal, white cheddar), then practically dunked in butter, and grilled. There are moments in your life where you remember every single moment of a food-gasm, and the first time I had the grilled cheese was one of them. I remember every bite, every buttery gush, and I savoured the living f*ck out of it. How vivid is this memory? The first time I had them was over 3 years ago... and I have NEVER ordered them again. The memory of that first bite has kept with me ever since.

How happy was I at that moment? Every single table within 6 feet of me ordered the grilled cheese after watching me pretty much make love to that sandwich. No joke. I have since brought many other people to have this cholesto-nightmare to their absolute joy. It is that f*cking awesome. I have never had another grilled cheese sandwich since, and I doubt I will have another one in a long long time.

So go get your friends, SO, parents, whomever, and get to one of the Burgoo locations this week while it's perfect comfort food weather. I'm done.