Food trucks roll to Park Royal
Organizers hope public is hungry for foodie event
West Vancouver isn’t exactly known as food- truck territory, and Park Royal Mall, even less so.
But what do you know! This Saturday, a wagon train of three food trucks with better- than- average pedigrees, as well as a complementary wine lounge set up by Cupcake Winery, will set up in front of the Gap store on the north side of the mall.
The trucks are RimFoodBaht ( Thai food), Le Tigre Cuisine ( modern Chinese) and ZeBite ( casual French bistro). I visited RimFoodBaht recently and was really impressed with the miang kham appetizer platter, with roasted peanuts, shrimp with ginger, lime, coconut, shallots, on romaine lettuce or sometimes wild betel leaf. It would be at home in a high- end Thai restaurant. A duck curry with pineapple was a pretty good deal at $ 8.75. ( I did feel the paper plates they use are pretty flimsy, however and don’t travel well on the street.)
Le Tigre is run by chefs who have done stints at Blue Water Cafe, Chambar, West and the Hyatt Regency Hotel. Their made- from- scratch dishes include barbecued pork bun, shao bing and sticky rice filled with pickled veg and local protein. And ZeBite’s engineer- turned- chef, Mathiew Gicquel, recreates the food he loved while growing up in France and takes it to the streets.
And with cooling temperatures, it’s the season for his hearty boeuf bourguignon. The menu extends beyond French to include Moroccan and Italian dishes.
The food trucks will be at Park Royal from 3 to 7 p. m. with music by Noah Nine. Coincidentally, you can book a shuttle from Park Royal to Sarah McLachlan’s Voices in the Park benefit concert in Stanley Park ($ 5 shuttle tickets can be purchased online at Ticketmaster). It starts at 2 p. m. and ends with McLachlan taking the stage at 10 p. m.
“This is the first time we have done this particular event. We’re hoping that it’s something we will do again,” says Park Royal’s Amanda Eaton. “We’re waiting to see how the public responds and how it goes on Saturday.”