Street Food

[DKaz]

I love Bun Me. It's more of a fusion sub rather than a pure Vietnamese sub but still very very good.

[vanlaw]

Originally Posted by DKaz

I love Bun Me. It's more of a fusion sub rather than a pure Vietnamese sub but still very very good.

Totally agree. Just had the lemongrass chicken sub for the first time. It is a great sub, tons of flavor and at $5.50 tax in, great value. As I’ve written before the Re-Up pulled pork and Brassiere Chicken sandwich are good as well but at $7.00 all in, Bun Me's price may pull me back a little more often. It is at Robson/Hornby in front of the Foot Locker.

Yesterday I also tried for the first time the Nu (NE Corner Georgia/Granville) Lamb Pita. This is hands down the best pita I’ve ever had. The lamb was ridiculously good and the pita, apparently baked fresh at the restaurant every morning, was fantastic. At $6.50 I was thinking it could be a little bigger, but once I was done the flavour stayed with me for a few hours...really, really good so decent value. The homemade tzatziki was great as well.

Next up will be the Tacofino cart, currently at Howe, just north of Robson on the west side of the street.

[DKaz]

Originally Posted by vanlaw

Totally agree. Just had the lemongrass chicken sub for the first time. It is a great sub, tons of flavor and at $5.50 tax in

Did they raise the price? It was only $4.25 the two times I've been there. $4.25 is already pushing it for the price of a banh mi, otherwise I'd travel a few blocks east for a more authentic, cheaper banh mi.

[vanlaw]

Originally Posted by DKaz

Did they raise the price? It was only $4.25 the two times I've been there. $4.25 is already pushing it for the price of a banh mi, otherwise I'd travel a few blocks east for a more authentic, cheaper banh mi.

$4.91 +hst

Some list with tax incl (Re-Up, Nu) some dont (Brassiere, Bun Me). For the location and relative to the other carts, not too bad still.

[nova9]

Coma Food Truck is closing this week. They are one of the most popular food trucks around. They have even been feature on Food Network's Eat St. Yet they were not awarded a permanent food vendor license by the City. Could it be Coma's stance against the convoluted selection process?

There's a tweetup happening on Wednesday on their last day in downtown at noon at Burrard and Pender (they're elsewhere on Thursday and Friday).

Sigh.

[incognism]

The licensing selection process is utterly ass backwards.

COV needs to do what Portland does and just issue these things to everybody. The market will decide what's good or not.

Silly regulation leads to things like a 3.5% municipal tax increase.

[officedweller]

For some reason, a bunch of food trucks are now parked in front of TD Tower in the No Stopping zone on Georgia Street.
Could be because Arrow is filming at the VAG and taking up the spaces on Howe Street.



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[theKB]

I hate to say this because I love the concept of food trucks but I have found every single one I have sampled to be average at best and grossly overpriced for the most part. The exception to that was Brasserie. That was fantastic and was a good value.

Tried a mac and cheese truck at the pride festivities and it was almost TEN BUCKS for a small bowl of mac and cheese. Now I am a big proponent of quality over quantity but for ten bucks you are in the neighborhood of a side of mac and cheese at some decent steak houses and most of that stuff is pretty tasty and I would expect it to be as good or better given the concept behind food trucks. The flavor was OK (nothing special) and the size was one of those small dixie paper bowls and then it was a couple bucks to add a few slivers of bacon. End result, I would have gladly paid five bucks for it and been satisfied but $10 and I felt gouged.

Same with a waffle truck, it was one with a funny name, but they had a "grilled cheese" waffle and it was just a flavorless waffle with a pile of processed cheese in the middle. Same with the breakfast cone that seemed like egg beaters were used and was overly sweet, the price didn't throw me, just felt again it was nothing special.

Those were my last two encounters and over time probably have visited a half dozen more and every time disappointed or just felt it wasn't worth the effort to get to them or the price paid aside from Brasserie, They were great!

Am I the only person that feels this way? I'm sure there are a few great trucks out there but I do feel like the selection process potentially would scare away those really great talents or ideas or having to take the risk that you get a bad spot or no spot at all while having invested in developing a concept etc.

It just seems like a mobile version of Vancouver's somewhat bleh food scene. Again a few shining stars exist but it just seems a lot is HEAVILY overpriced and pretending to be something it's not. (Flame suit on for that comment to hahaha!)

[Spork]

I completely agree with you. I have tried a few, but in the end feel the same way as you. These things are nothing special at all, and it seems as though the fancy trucks that they have put together do nothing more than drive up the costs.

Perhaps my trip to Taiwan and experiencing a sliver of their 500,000-odd food carts across that country. There, you can feed 3 people lunch for $7 at some seriously amazing carts. Given that most things seem to be 1/3 the price of those here, that works out to a $21 equivalent for something that will knock the socks off of most restaurants.

[whatnext]

Originally Posted by theKB

I hate to say this because I love the concept of food trucks but I have found every single one I have sampled to be average at best and grossly overpriced for the most part. The exception to that was Brasserie. That was fantastic and was a good value.

Tried a mac and cheese truck at the pride festivities and it was almost TEN BUCKS for a small bowl of mac and cheese. Now I am a big proponent of quality over quantity but for ten bucks you are in the neighborhood of a side of mac and cheese at some decent steak houses and most of that stuff is pretty tasty and I would expect it to be as good or better given the concept behind food trucks. The flavor was OK (nothing special) and the size was one of those small dixie paper bowls and then it was a couple bucks to add a few slivers of bacon. End result, I would have gladly paid five bucks for it and been satisfied but $10 and I felt gouged...

Me three. The hype strikes me as a little bit of Portlandia run amok.

If I want to buy good mac & chesse I'll go to the Mac Shack in Kerrisdale

[spm2013]

Idiots deciding which food trucks should open and ta-da average, boring fare.

[Conrad Yablonski]

La Taqueria is the best of a mediocre bunch-the menu is familiar so you know what you're getting but Yes the rest suck.

What sucks worse is the craven toady mindset of people who pay for the privilege of buying food from those ripoffs-that is classic Vancouver stupidity.

[WarrenC12]

Tacofino is good too.

Please lets not compare food trucks here with other continents. It just doesn't make sense.

[ryanmaccdn]

Portlandia spanks us in soooo many ways.

I always look forward to my 2.50 Bahn-mi (I know I spelled it incorrectly most likely) after hitting the gay strip club... lol there is a bunch of food carts across the street. Its like heaven for a guy with a good old 5 dollar bill.... and its the best tasting one I've ever had.

Vancouver as per usual has made these cart elitist ... and now they command insane $$$ for crap.

[giallo]

The main problem with Vancouver's food carts (as others have mentioned) is the price; $10-$12 for a small main and a drink just isn't worth it at all, especially when there are so many cheaper, better options for lunch downtown. The food cart experience is supposed to be good CHEAP food. Not mediocre expensive fare. The fact that we all agree on this (rare!) goes to show how wacked out that lottery system the city put in place really is.

Oh, and I think it's perfectly fair to compare our food carts to places in the US and Taiwan. LA always has amazing burger and taco carts outside of bars that are, of course, super cheap. And don't get me started on Taiwan. Street food nirvana.

[Porfiry]

Originally Posted by theKB

It just seems like a mobile version of Vancouver's somewhat bleh food scene. Again a few shining stars exist but it just seems a lot is HEAVILY overpriced and pretending to be something it's not. (Flame suit on for that comment to hahaha!)

This.

It's not the trucks that are the problem, it's the entire scene. Vancouver food on average is uninspired. The trucks are just a continuation of this.

[theKB]

Originally Posted by Porfiry

This.

It's not the trucks that are the problem, it's the entire scene. Vancouver food on average is uninspired. The trucks are just a continuation of this.

Pretty much, I love going out to eat and would rather do it than be at home, but in the last while I have gotten to the point that every place I go to (aside from a few) are fairly disappointing. I really don't mind paying for good food (i had a love affair with refuel and went there frequently) and there are a few places that really stand out but most of them don't and as per usual most of the good places usually end up closing. For a supposed foodie town it is rather sad.

The other thing I neglected to mention was the fact that the 10 dollar mac and cheese taster was that they charged a 50 cent transaction fee for interact. I really don't like being nickled and dimed either. As much as credit card processors are thieves this is wrong ESPECIALLY when you are charging a massive premium for the product you are supplying.

Also can someone explain to me why people think the sushi here is sooooooo gooooooooood? Outside of the fact that its cheap, it is pretty bad but then again this is the same town that has a large number of people willing to line up for hours for AWFUL greek and italian food simply because they give you enough low quality food to feed a small village for weeks.

[jlousa]

I agree that the food trucks are overpriced, some of them are pretty good, but again they overcharge. They are supposed to be cutting out the overhead of rent/property taxes when pricing their food, instead they are adding a hipster tax onto their prices.
That said I can't beleive people are stating the rest of the food scene in Vancouver in Bleh. Keep away from the chains and you should fair pretty well in this city.

[WarrenC12]

Originally Posted by theKB

Also can someone explain to me why people think the sushi here is sooooooo gooooooooood? Outside of the fact that its cheap, it is pretty bad but then again this is the same town that has a large number of people willing to line up for hours for AWFUL greek and italian food simply because they give you enough low quality food to feed a small village for weeks.

Have you been elsewhere in North American for sushi? It's hard to find, more expensive, and lower quality.

[spm2013]

Who says Vancouver has the best sushi?