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July 29, 2012 – Lunch and afternoon snacks
Written by: Second Stomach
I heard about the food cart festival when I received a recent e-mail advertising it. I read that there was a similar festival this past Canada Day (which we missed as we were visiting the Okanagan) that was incredibly popular. I always seem to miss when and where all the food carts are and my most recent fond memory was a food truck called Coma (Korean-Mexican fusion) which unfortunately is no longer around. So, what an opportunity to sample food from various food trucks all at one location at the Waldorf! Today is the first day of the festival which runs every sunday until September 2, 2012.
It didn’t take long to get a group of us together to enjoy the festival together. Today, Snowman and I we were joined by The Man in Yellow and his cousin, The Woman who is Yellow, and Pharmboy. We arrived to the festival at around 12:30 pm and it was already getting very crowded.
Here’s the sea of people that we saw when we arrived:
Pig on the Street
Pig on the Street is all about bacon and features flatbread sandwiches. I was happy to see that Pharmboy chose this one to line up at first. It probably had one of the longest line up amongst all of the food trucks out today.
Here’s the menu:
Another popular item today was the lemonade! I think they were one of the first food trucks to run out of drinks today. Despite arriving here at close to the start of the festival, I think the whole experience of lining up, ordering, and waiting for our order probably took a good 45 minutes. Later when I returned back to explore more food trucks, I noticed the line-up here was much longer than what we had. I can’t imagine how long some people waited.
Bacon & Cheddar Twisty Bread – $2
- Lining up was making me hungry so I ordered one of these and ate it while I waited for the sandwiches.
- The twisty bread was greasy, crispy, cheesy, and had bits of bacon. It’s very bad for you. But it tastes good.
- It’s not really very big. It is advertised as a great treat for the little ones. Maybe they should make a bigger one for the adults. Adults have larger arteries anyway.
Taste: 4.5/5
Presentation: 4/5
Value: 3.5/5
Southern Piggy – $9
- This is Pharmboy’s choice. It is described as having double smoked bacon, grilled peppers, corn, bourbon bbq sauce, cheddar, chipotle mayo, and greens. I think Snowman wished I ordered this one.
- It was a very wet and messy sandwich and certainly the tastier of the two sandwiches that we ate today. The bbq sauce provided a very satisfying sweet and savory flavor.
Taste: 4.5/5
Presentation: 4.5/5
Value: 3.5/5
The Porker – $9
- This was my choice. It is described as having double smoked bacon, sausage stuffing with apple and sage, goat gouda, caramelized onion mayo, and greens.
Here’s a closer look inside the sandwich:
Definitely a drier sandwich than the Southern Piggy. You can see the slice of stuffing along the bottom of the sandwich. The flavor was less pronounced on this sandwich but still suited my palate.
Taste: 4/5
Presentation: 4.5/5
Value: 3.5/5
Street Meet
This food truck focused on european style food. Although there was a line-up, this one seemed to move faster and so did the orders. In fact, while I was still waiting for my flatbread sandwich at Pig on the Street, I snacked on some risotto balls from here.
Here’s a look at the menu:
Apparently The Man in Yellow and The Woman who is Yellow ordered pork belly bites and The Veggie Burger. The Woman who is Yellow raved about the pork belly bites and The Man in Yellow said The Veggie Burger was very satisfying so he didn’t really need to eat much more after having it!
Crispy Risotto Balls – $5
Inside, the risotto ball has risotto with slow braised pork and is drizzled with basil truffle aioli.
- These risotto balls are rather large. In fact, I probably would have preferred that they would be smaller (and provide more per order) instead so that you get more crispy breading with each bite.
- Pharmboy, Snowman, and I all thought that these were way too salty. In fact, Pharmboy could only tolerate eating 1 of them.
Taste: 3/5
Presentation: 4/5
Value: 4/5
Virgin Pomegranate Sangria – $3
We later returned to this truck for a drink. We purchased the very last one (and it was mid-afternoon!). So, we all had to share this. It went very fast.
Sicilian Cannoli’s – $4
Each order comes with 2 cannoli’s. Here’s a closer look at one of them:
- The pastry was extremely hard. I wished it was a flakier type of pastry. Inside, there was creamy tiramisu filling dusted with cocoa powder.
- Overall, though, it was a good snack especially on this scorching hot afternoon.
Taste: 3/5
Presentation: 3.5/5
Value: 4/5
Feastro the Rolling Bistro
So, many of us lined up here, and we were disappointed when we got to the front of the line and discovered many of the items we wanted were all sold out! I was looking forward to trying the Fanny Bay Oysters. I opted to try the prawn and prosciutto taco instead.
Here’s a look at the menu:
Prawn and Prosciutto Taco – $8
- This soft taco is described as having star anise chutney, organic greens, sour cream, salsa, pickled jalapenos, and grilled avocado fresca.
- I was impressed that there were lots of prawns in this taco. But, the prawns were very plainly flavored. Grilled prawns may have been a better choice. The prosciutto did, however, help with the salt balance.
- Overall, I thought this taco was good but not really exceptional. It was also a little smaller and less satisfying.
Taste: 3/5
Presentation: 3.5/5
Value: 3/5
We spent almost the entire afternoon at the festival today. Part of the reason was because we weren’t in a rush and it was a gorgeous day and the atmosphere was joyous and casual with loud music playing in the background. The other reason, was that the line-ups were simply taking too long.
Overall, the food cart festival at the Waldorf is a great opportunity to try a variety of food from food trucks you may not otherwise see. Unfortunately, the line-ups are almost unbearable and many of the food trucks ran out of food only a few hours in! The festival is running every sunday from 12-6 pm until September 2, 2012 but I’m not sure if we would visit again unless we show up very early and are willing to wait a long time. I know I won’t be able to drag Snowman to this again (at least, for this year).
