The Soho Road food truck doesn't have the best spot in Vancouver by accident. Right outside the entrance to the Vancouver City Centre Station, it has two tandoor ovens inside and a seemingly permanent queue outside.
The truck gets its name from the street of the same name in Birmingham, England. It's where owner Sarb Mund comes from, and he's attempting to bring his fond memories of the British Indian cuisine to Vancouver. He does it so successfully that his curries wrapped in naan came first in the taste test when the city's judging panel was handing out licences in 2012.
That meant Mund got to pick his spot and his butter chicken with fenugreek, cinnamon and tamarind chutney has been a local favourite ever since.
Before 2010, Vancouver's food-truck scene was dismal. A bylaw basically meant you were allowed to have one only if you were selling hot dogs. That forced a change of plan for food-truck pioneer Noriki Tamura, a Tokyo ad salesman who migrated to Vancouver in 2005.
Thwarted in his plan to open a sidewalk crepe stand, he apprenticed at a traditional hot-dog stand for three months, then opened up his own – with a decidedly Japanese twist. Japadog serves up sausages made with kurobuta pork from black Berkshire pigs, generally regarded as the wagyu of the pork world, and dresses them with seaweed and teriyaki sauce.
Japadog immediately elevated Vancouver's street food several levels and, since then, it has opened numerous outlets. But, according to Lisa Martin, a guide for Vancouver Foodie Tours, the original, on the corner of Burrard and Smithe streets, remains the most popular.
The tours started in 2010, which was when the bylaw limiting food trucks was lifted.
"There was a lottery held for the initial 17 licences, and there were 800 applications," Martin says. "And they went so well that there are now 137 food trucks in the city."
Outside Eat Chicken Wraps, which specialises in hoisin chicken Chinese pancake wraps next to Robson Square, the reasons for the high standards in the burgeoning food-truck scene become clear.
Martin explains the rigorous vetting process that street-food operators have to go through – and there's much more to it than passing a taste test. Before a licence will be issued, a menu and a business plan – which must address sustainability concerns – has to be submitted. There also needs to be an off-site kitchen for food preparation, and priority is given to unique concepts. Operators also face limitations on how close a truck can be to a restaurant serving similar food and regular health and safety inspections. Changing the menu isn't allowed without permission.
In essence, Vancouver switched from "just saying no" to making sure their food-truck scene is world-class.
And, tucking into slow-roasted pulled pork tacos that have been smoked in a drum barbecue on the front of the Californian-style Feastro truck, it seems that tight maze of regulation has worked a treat.
See www.tourismvancouver.com .
Air Canada flies direct from Sydney to Vancouver, with code-share connections via Sydney from Melbourne. See www.aircanada.com.
The new indigenous art-packed Skwachays Lodge has queen rooms from $243. See www.skwachays.com.
The Vancouver Foodie Tours food-truck tour lasts two hours, costs $56 and includes tastings at four trucks. See www.foodietours.ca .
