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| A small sign directs visitors at the Olympic Village to the festival |
For the long weekend Michael and I decided to explore this festival that many people raved and hyped about. The food cart festival was quite a challenge to find - It was like we were on a quest from Lord of the Rings. The website says they are located at West 1st between Cambie bridge and Olympic Village, but it was quite a walk through the gravel trail before hitting the actual festival. When we arrived we very surprised that there was a $2 entry fee. I thought it was pretty ridiculous that we needed to pay for the privilege of buying food.
When we walked in there weren't as many trucks that we thought there would be. It felt like a less busy and less rowdy Richmond night market. From what we saw there may have been about 15 trucks parked or so. It seemed like it didn't live up to its hype. Compared to the food stands that we have been to in Portland, this appears to be a weak attempt. But beggars can't be choosers.
A lot of them were just downtown Vancouver food trucks, but Michael and I wanted to try something different. We decided to share a lot of the stuff so that way we would have more room to eat more food. But again it was no surprise that everything was way too expensive for what is. We passed a truck that served fresh squeezed juice, I was really looking forward to try them because I saw them on Eat St. But $7 for juice sounds a little crazy to me.
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| Holy Perogy |
Our first stop was at Holy Perogy, they offer gourmet perogies with fresh local ingredients. We ordered the Italian ($8) five perogies served with a creamy pesto sauce with diced tomatoes. For $8 we think we would have gotten a lot more perogies than just five in Portland. And I have had perogies before at a bar in downtown Vancouver. It only cost me $10 with a side plate of extra sour cream and a ceasar salad. I also got to sit comfortably on a chair eating at a table. So you do the math.
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| Italian Perogy |
For the pesto sauce I didn't feel there was a strong pesto feel to it, it just tasted pretty creamy to me. I did like the diced tomatoes though because it had a garlicy flavour to it. Michael thought the tomatoes added flavour and tasted very fresh. It was Michael's first time eating a real perogy and he didn't know what was in it, but he thought the presentation looked simple with a lot of flavour backing it up.
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| Chou Chou breton crepes |
Our next stop was at the ChouChou, which was a crepe truck operated by an adorable French lady and her mom. It was nice for Michael and I to compare this crepe to a franchised crepe that we always come across. For $6.50 it was rather comparable to the franchised price.
We ordered the classic chocolate hazelnut spread. We watched her make three crepes at a time which was just astonishing. Our crepe is sweet and simple, but the crepe itself that is the star. It determines how well the crepe is cooked and how much tender, love and care has been put in.
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| Chocolate hazelnut crepe |
Michael and I thought the crepe was crispy on the outside, but inside had a still undercooked feel, making the dough soft blending in nicely with the chocolate. Although the chocolate was pretty splattered in there in a clumpy style. It didn't over power anything and overwhelm the crepe with just chocolate. There was a nice balance of chocolate and crepe. Another I thought was really neat was after completion of the crepe, she dabs of salted butter on the tip and the heart of the crepe. It added a slight salty component to the skin which melded to the sweet chocolate.
Michael and I really wanted to try more trucks but everything looked heavy and we just weren't up to pay a lot of money to street food. Even though we were disappointed by this so-called festival at least we can say we tried it. And we'll always have our love affair with Portland.
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