street food!

This summer Toronto-s "˜A La Carte- street food program finally takes off. 8 successful applicants will offer healthy fast food that reflects the cultural diversity of Toronto, giving us a little more choice than the usual "˜Street Meat-. The carts will be located across a fairly large geographic area, so you-ll have to do a bit of traveling if you want to check them out. You can see the listing of carts and locations at the City of Toronto site HERE. It-s a start"¦.I hope that the city continues to expand the program, in years to come - this is the best city in the world for cultural diversity, we can experience authentic food from all over the world whenever we want. A lot of visitors to Toronto default to the usual chain restaurants, and food carts are a great way for people a little shy about trying something new to explore without too much commitment. Inspired by our city-s new foray into diverse street food, I-ve brought together some inspiring and creative approaches to street food that i-ve come across recently: Kogi Korean BBQ-to-go! (credit to Sue for telling me about this one!) A Korean Mexican food truck that has caused insane queues when it shows up in various locations around LA. The only way you can know where it-s going to be next is to follow them on twitter, (where they have way over 10,000 followers), or read their blog. Zagat called it "the hottest culinary phenomenon of the moment". I-m really curious about Korean/Mexican fusion, but wont be going to LA anytime soon so anyone who-s given it a try your comments are appreciated. Go check out their Flickr feed HERE for some great shots The Green Truck - Also in L.A. this mobile food truck is solar powered and runs on vegetable oil. Traveling far and wide (to offices such as HBO, MTV, the Discovery Channel"¦etc.), they serve healthy organic gourmet food that is sourced locally whenever possible. Skillet "a mobile joint" - a small fleet of Airstream trailers kitted out with commercial kitchens cooking gourmet food. Sounds fantastic"¦and they sell "˜bacon jam- - visit their site for more details and if you-re in Seattle, bring us back some bacon jam and you-ll be our best friend forever. Fresher than Fresh - I know! i-m cheating, this is a snow cone truck, not exactly a meal"¦but it-s so neat and owned by a designer who also works at Hammerpress - so she has two of my dream jobs"¦haha. Hey Cupcake! - I opened a door with the snow cones, but a cupcake stand (in another tweaked out Airstream) in Austin Texas? There-s really no limit to food on wheels. Street Food Mobile - an italian architect has created a mobile street food unit out of an Ape Piaggio, complete with a soundtrack and a chef making traditional italian food and serving it in really wonderful unique packaging. I think it-s a prototype, but it-s really fun. I-ve seen a little Ape Piaggio around my neighbourhood that Cumbrae-s is using as a delivery truck, it always gets a lot of attention. Looking forward to spring and getting out to some of Toronto-s new A la Carts, we-ll keep you posted when we visit them.