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!

food cart madness - part ii - ragazzi pizza co.

Ragazzi Pizza Co.

Location: Northeast corner of Burrard, at Pender

As I savoured my pulled pork sandwich from Re-Up, I was already getting myself ready for the next stop on my little food truck madness tour. Ragazzi Pizza specializes in thin-crust pizza with a rotating variety of daily flavours. For the full menu, check out Ragazzi's site.