They came for lunch, and many stayed for dinner
Half an hour before the start, dozens were lining up at food truck windows
John Aitzis was lounging against a fence chatting with a few friends Friday morning. For a man who was about to start cooking for thousands of people at his first food truck rally, he didn’t seem anxious or nervous.
“I’ve got a lot of meat here,” said the owner/operator of Tony’s Corner food truck, new on Hamilton’s streets. “If we don’t sell it all, I’ll be eating meat for a while.”
Aitzis’ f amily has owned Tony’s Corner Greek restaurant on King Street East downtown for more than 30 years. But going mobile and taking part in Sew Hungry, Canada’s biggest food truck rally organized by the Ottawa Street BIA, is a first for them. “Sew Hungry is good for Hamilton and good for Ottawa Street,” he added.
Friday’s event was a repeat performance for Mike Pitton, who brought his Southern Smoke Truck to the rally last year. “I came prepared this time,” he said. “We got swamped last year. So I was up for the last 37 hours tending to the smoker. We brought 35 wood-smoked chickens, 20 beef briskets and 20 pork shoulders, about 450 pounds of meat. I think of Sew Hungry as the start of my season. Everybody is excited to be here.”
For the first time, Sew Hungry held an evening session in addition to the traditional lunchtime and early afternoon rally, so more people could come and try some of the gourmet goodies being prepared in those two dozen or so moving kitchens and in restaurants anchored permanently along Ottawa Street North. But even a half-hour before the 11 a.m. start, dozens of people were lining up outside the truck windows.
Instead of the normal restaurant review that appears in your Saturday GO section, I decided to try samples from as many local trucks and Ottawa Street restaurants as I could. While out-of-town trucks regularly take part and are integral to the success of Sew Hungry, I thought it best to stick to the kitchens that stay in the immediate Hamilton area. And we have plenty of those, on this day offering up multiple choices for their specialties.
As with all food trucks, you can follow their whereabouts on a regular basis through Twitter or Facebook (the whole idea of food trucks is to stay i n touch through social media). You can find a full list of who took part at sewhungry.com.
So here are a few brief notes on what I tried. Everything was very tasty and expertly prepared.
My favourite nibble was from a new vendor at the Ottawa Street Farmers Market, Rudy’s Paletas. Paletas are Latin American popsicles, a frozen fruit bar on a stick. But there’s no dairy and no artificial flavourings; it’s simple puréed fresh fruit. I tried the raspberry and basil, and it was wonderful, fresh and natural tasting, the basil adding a refreshing licorice twist. Rudy’s owner Clare Pearson says she’ll be using fresh local fruit as it comes into season.
At Meatball Shoppe, I had the cannonball on a stick. That’s a meatball made from beef and veal seasoned with garlic and secret spices and stuffed with smoked Gouda. It was very moist, almost crumbly, and had some real zing of spice in addition to the sultry, gooey cheese.
Curbside Crepes served up their tomato trio, featuring a gigantic made-to-order savoury crepe filled with fresh, roasted and sun-dried tomatoes and toasted pine nuts. It was excellent and intensely tomato tasting, and excellent choice for vegetarians.
The Big Chief Fresh Food Company is another addition to the food truck scene, offering adaptations of aboriginal dishes. In this case I had the Indian taco, a large piece of bannock bread (think scone) topped with venison chili, salad and basil sour cream. It was delicious and hot, the flavours and textures all working together nicely.
Over at Dobro Jesti, the order of the day was a zadilla — a pork schnitzel on bread — and the arancini. The schnitzel came with a zesty dill aioli and was crispy and delicious, while the large rice ball was piping hot and al dente inside.
Next stop was a cupcake from Sweetness bakery. They suggested the popular salted caramel, a midsized, moist vanilla and caramel cake crowned with caramel frosting. It was not too sweet (I hate cloying foods) and the salt added just the right touch to the assembly.
Back to a main course at Southern Smoke Truck. Here it was a sandwich of pretty remarkable smoked brisket in a medium spicy BBQ sauce. The beef had excellent tender texture and a beautiful subtle smokiness to it and the sauce added a note of spice.
Next door, Tony’s Corner served up their bestseller, an enormous pita wrapped around a generous portion of pork and beef gyros and lettuce, onion, tomato and tzatziki. The meat nicely seasoned and garlicky.
If we don’t sell it all, I’ll be eating meat for a while.
JOHN AITZIS
TONY’S CORNER
OK enough of the big dishes. Time to wrap up the visit with some dessert.
At Gorilla Cheese, they suggested the Neapolitan, a dessert grilled sandwich. It was very good; think Neapolitan ice cream. Cinnamon raisin bread was filled with Nutella, strawberries, creamy mascarpone cheese and marshmallow spread. It was not overly sweet, and was nicely balanced.
Two more to go, both of them landlubbers along the street.
Limoncello has been a fixture on the Ottawa Street restaurant scene for years now, and in addition to pasta and beef they were hand-tubing a creamy filling into crisp cannoli shells while you watched. The shell was super crunchy and the cream — again not too sweet — tasted vaguely of almonds.
A few steps away, the new and quite chic tea shop Blair Elements was serving up bite-size pieces of chocolate and Madagascar vanilla handmade Belgian chocolate from Beanermunkey Chocolate in Dundas.
That last little morsel wrapped up the day for me. Now I won’t have to eat for a week.
But everyone seemed to have a good time, and certainly nobody walked away from Sew Hungry feeling empty.