Food Forward Toronto wants more food selection on the streets. (Peter McCluskey/CBC)

The issue of selling food on the streets of Toronto has been a thorny problem for vendors and politicians over the past few years.

Businesses are lobbying for more food carts on the streets — but the city says it needs to regulate the operators to guarantee health concerns are met.

A lobby group called Food Forward Toronto wants the city to relax the rules a little and let more and different foodsellers onto the streets.

On Wednesday the group held a demonstration in front of City Hall to make the point that it’s hard to find diverse food from carts and trucks.

One of the biggest problems, they say, is the lengthy approval process and costly permits.

Darcy Higgins of Food Forward Toronto says the city should do a few things.

“One is a moratorium that prevents any new street carts downtown and also food trucks aren’t allowed to be parked or in parking lots,” said Higgins.

Food Forward Toronto says it wants to see more diverse carts, but the city says there are already too many downtown.

“There needs to be a role for the city to say is the food safe, people need to know that … how do you stop people fighting over the same street corner, because some corners are more popular than others. All these issues need to be resolved,” said Coun. Adam Vaughan.

Vaughan says the food containers at Scadding Court near Dundas and Bathurst are an ideal model.

The city has set up shipping containers and turned them into speciality kitchens.

Diona Joyce paid a one-time fee for a business licence and rents her spot for $16 a day.

“A shipping container it looks like a food truck but we don’t have wheels,” she said.

The city says it wants to approve more trucks — but in areas that aren’t as densely served,.

http://www.cbc.ca/news/canada/toronto/story/2013/05/15/toronto-food-carts.html

Food truck worker Ronald Cockburn waits for lunchtime customers at the All Class Mobile Kitchen near the corner of Queen Street East and Jarvis Street in Toronto, Monday afternoon, June 25, 2012.
(Aaron Lynett / National Post files)

Piles of plump grapes, oranges and granny-smith apples spilled across a red-and-white checkered tablecloth outside City Hall Wednesday — a food stand effectively banned by municipal regulations.

Local advocacy group Food Forward bypassed the rules by offering the fruits to passersby for free instead of selling them, a demonstration aiming to highlight the absurdity of the city’s controversial limits on food carts.

Councillor Josh Colle, who stopped by to snag an apple, blasted the city for dragging its heels on the file.

“It’s unfortunate that for so long we’ve had this burgeoning industry that really City Hall has kind of kept down,” Mr. Colle said.

“It’s a matter of red tape and overmanaging this… I think it speaks to how antiquated some of our rules are. It’s 2013; puritan Toronto rears its ugly head again. Let’s just get over ourselves and open it up to these entrepreneurs.”

Although council voted last year to allow existing food carts to offer certain healthier items, there is a moratorium on new street food downtown, and rules against parking food carts on streets or sidewalks. A report on Toronto’s street-food program is due out in 2014, but members of Food Forward believe change should come sooner.

“In a multicultural city like Toronto that values different food and health, I’d like to see things like this available,” said the group’s executive director, Darcy Higgins.

http://news.nationalpost.com/2013/05/15/advocacy-group-hands-out-fruit-in-front-of-city-hall-to-protest-limits-on-toronto-food-trucks/

Saskatoon is getting closer to regulation of food trucks like the ones seen here in Austin, Texas.
Photograph by: Keith Morgan , PNG

Saskatoon has a recipe for a new food truck policy, but one ingredient may still be missing: namely, a place for people dining on the street to answer calls of nature.

“My question, which I haven’t seen answered in any of the recommendations, is who is providing bathrooms?” Jimmy Oneschuk asked the city’s planning and operations committee on Tuesday.

Oneschuk, who recently opened Museo Coffee on Broadway, said he spent more than $15,000 installing running water and washrooms in his new location. He thinks it’s unfair for food trucks, which could be making their way onto his block this summer, to take advantage of those facilities.

“I’m all for competition as long as there is a level playing field and I don’t have to share my facilities with a food truck,” Oneschuk said.

The committee approved the city’s new food truck policy on Tuesday, though it still needs final approval by city council. The policy stipulates that the trucks will licensed, inspected and not allowed to operate within 20 meters of any existing restaurant.

The trucks will have to comply with all provincial health and safety regulations, and civic officials say they’re willing to work with the appropriate agencies and vendors to ensure that the food trucks have access to washroom facilities.

The Broadway business district will override the 20-meter buffer zone and allow food trucks to operate along the busy commercial strip, the committee heard.

“We are essentially looking to make the buffer zone mute on Broadway,” said Sarah Marchildon, executive director of the Broadway Business Improvement District.

The BID will receive applications from potential vendors and determine where the food trucks can operate, but it will be up to individual vendors to make deals with nearby businesses and the city to use washroom facilities.

According to the provincial regulations governing mobile food trucks, “arrangements for adequate public washroom facilities should be made between the operator, municipality and/or private individuals.”

In other cities, such as Portland, Oregon, where food trucks have become popular, the trucks are clustered in specific areas and washrooms are provided.

Saskatoon’s food trucks will be able to operate in commercial districts, but not in residential neighbourhoods.

City councillors at Tuesday’s meeting were convinced that the new food truck policy provides fairness for existing businesses and vendors alike.

“You want to see something succeed, but you need to find that balance,” Coun. Charlie Clark told the committee after the 20-meter buffer zone was agreed upon. “We are striking a balance here.”

The policy goes to city council next week for final approval. If approved, the trucks could hit the streets in June.

http://www.thestarphoenix.com/life/Concerns+about+washrooms+food+truck+patrons+raised/8384807/story.html

Customers line up outside the Perogy Boyz food truck last summer in this file photo.

More food trucks are likely to roll on to Calgary streets this summer with city council set to review the results of a lengthy pilot project.

The food truck pilot project is drawing to a close after beginning in August 2011, and city officials have drafted a bylaw that would allow more trucks to launch as soon as August of this year.

Keith Pallister, chief license inspector with the city, said council is expected to review a draft bylaw for food trucks on July 29, and if approved, the current cap of 40 trucks would be lifted, potentially creating more competition.

“Calgary seemed to have a lot of interest, a lot of people that really like them,” he said, adding the city has had consistent inquires about launching food trucks.

“I would imagine that the market is going to dictate who’s going to be successful or not.”

James Boettcher, founder of YYC Food Trucks, currently works with 20 of the city’s trucks, and said he sees the potential addition of new trucks as an incentive for existing trucks to create the best products they can.

“I think there’s a lot of people that are actually in a holding pattern in terms of getting in to the industry and they’re actually at a slight advantage because they’ve got to see what business looks like prior to investing in it,” he said.

“The cream will rise to the top; I think the best trucks will succeed.”

Details:

• The proposed by law would still include “no-roll zones” in certain Business Revitalization Zones such as Kensington and 17 Avenue.
• Trucks would also be prevented from parking within 25 metres of a brick-and-mortar restaurant, unless they receive the restaurants consent.
• Pallister said the city is planning to host one more open house before the proposed bylaw comes before council.

http://metronews.ca/news/calgary/670776/food-truck-review-could-bring-more-street-eats-to-calgary/

via flickr – jbassett9(http://www.flickr.com/photos/jbassett9/)

If there is one person bearing witness to the food-truck phenomenon sweeping North American streets, it’s probably James Cunningham, a Canadian standup comedian and the host of the Vancouver-produced Food Network show Eat St.

And even he is impressed by the impending explosion of street-meat variety that is coming to Ottawa streets this month.

“I had no idea how many trucks were coming to Ottawa until I started looking at your articles on the website (ottawacitizenstyle.com). You got like a crazy number.”

Cunningham is the self-described “food-truck man,” but he has been doing standup in Ottawa for many years. Ottawa, he says, is like his second home.

Eat St. just finished shooting its fourth season and there are 26 episodes that have begun airing, which will take in 104 food trucks. There is also a companion cookbook available featuring 125 recipes from across North America. It’s called Eat Street: Recipes from the Tastiest, Messiest, and Most Irresistible Food Trucks and costs $24, available from Penguin Canada.

Featuring 104 trucks may seem like a lot, but it is really only scratching the surface of this business.

“Every time we think that we’ve found the ultimate food truck, we move on to another city and find a better one.”

Over four seasons, they’ve featured more than 200 trucks.

There is a distinct difference between the U.S. and Canada.

In Greater Toronto, with its population of about five to six million people, there are 30 to 35 food trucks. “It’s been such a slow thing to catch on.” In Portland, Oregon, population 2.2 million, there are 700 food trucks. Austin, Texas, has 500 food trucks.

The weather is a major factor. In Canada, in most places, Cunningham says, a food truck is a seasonal business.

Vancouver leads in Canada, he says. The city has thought through what it wants on its streets. There are healthy menu requirements. Trucks are auditioned at city hall to get their permits, that sort of thing, Cunningham says.

The spark for this explosion is the crash of 2008 when a lot of good chefs were tossed on the streets.

What happened? Cunningham explains that chefs improvised and the street was the beneficiary of a lot of creative cookery. Trucks were much cheaper than opening a bricks and mortars restaurant. In the U.S., food trucks are available on leases. In Canada, proprietors tend to buy their trucks.

But the accessibility of the trucks allowed chefs to experiment with combinations of food styles, Cunningham says, and the result is what Ottawans will start eating this month. The other thing that happened is social media, which allowed the food trucks to reach their consumers directly, tweeting location and menu. So when a truck would pull into a stop, the patrons would be waiting. In Ottawa, the trucks and carts have assigned spots, but expect social media to play a large role in the future of their business (don’t forget to tweet #ocfoodtrucks when you eat on Ottawa’s streets).

In other cities, the trucks have tended to locate away from restaurant districts, moving into the suburbs or into working-class neighbourhoods to reach a new audience. The result has been an improvement of the diet in some of these tougher neighbourhoods. As well, some restaurants have converted to a food truck and vice versa, Cunningham says.

In Ottawa’s case, with many trucks located downtown, Cunningham suggests, they may start moving outside the core over time to find new markets and avoid the competition provided by á la carte menus.

Cunningham says Ottawa has been slow to get in the food truck game. Montreal, too.

“We’re really far behind in Canada, compared to the U.S.”

James Cunningham is at the Ottawa Spring Writers Festival, May 8, Ottawa City Hall at 7 p.m.

Tickets: $15, $10 for seniors, members free; writersfest.org Join Ottawa Citizen writers on May 15. Eat and tweet your views on the new food trucks and carts to #ocfoodtrucks.

Read more: http://www.ottawacitizen.com/life/Keep+truckin/8352145/story.html#ixzz2T7lTyslD

http://www.ottawacitizen.com/life/Keep+truckin/8352145/story.html

These are good times for omnivores in Ottawa!

Ottawa City Hall is a place, I suspect, where politicians are more accustomed to circling wagons than food trucks.

So imagine my curiosity Wednesday on spotting a cluster of street vendors corralled over lunch hour at Marion Dewar Plaza, outside the Laurier Street entrance, where they served eager folk a taste of new and interesting sidewalk eats the public can expect in the nation’s capital this summer.

By any measure it was a glorious, warm and bright early-summer afternoon, with postcard-perfect weather smiling on a momentous occasion — celebrating an end to the city’s moratorium on new street food vendors that, sadly, saw the number of carts and trucks dwindle to 32 from about 100 just two decades ago. For a complete list of trucks, carts and locations, click here.

Accomplished restaurateurs and experienced vendors promise much more diverse fare, often with an ethnic twist, to supplement the usual tired staples of poutine, fries, dogs and sausages that have distinguished the city’s street food scene for so long. But at the end of the day it’s all still sidewalk food and much of it remains high-caloric, which in popular Food Network culture seems enough to thrill an enthusiastic audience.

Above left, Layne Belcher and Matthew Hinds of Urban Cowboy serve brisket from a table Wednesday outside Ottawa City Hall. They expect their truck will be ready later this month.

And what an audience it is. People Wednesday were encouraged to purchase one of 550 plastic bracelets for a $10 donation to the Shepherds of Good Hope soup kitchen, which entitled bearers to try the victuals. The astonishing thing was, within 20 minutes every bracelet was snapped up — and still the people came, queuing in long lines here, there and everywhere — well over 1,000 by my estimate — all anxious to sample, and every one hungry for more.

Those who didn’t get a coveted bracelet had to pay as they munched. Not surprisingly, some carts ran out.

“We had to limit the bracelets because vendors are donating the food,” says Anna Silverman, executive director of the Shepherds Foundation. “We’re very pleasantly shocked by the turnout.

“It’s clearly something Ottawa wants, so having all these new vendors is a very good thing. Everyone is anxious to sample their food,” Silverman says.

It’s all about new and interesting choices,” adds city employee Maria Grant, in line outside the brightly coloured Ottawa Streat Gourmet, one of 11 new trucks (plus another seven carts), by chef/owner Ben Baird (photo, left), who previously launched his successful upscale Urban Pear restaurant in the Glebe in 2002.

Baird’s is a repurposed 21-foot, 1994 Chevy P30 diesel van, formerly a Snap-On Tools wagon, he had outfitted by Kitchens on Wheels Canada in Alexandria, at a cost of $60,000.

“For lunch it means you can get not just the usual fries and sausages,” Grant says.

“Now you can find everything from Korean to Vietnamese, and the big turnout today speaks to the fact Ottawa is dying for food like this.”

A selection of street eats served outside city hall. Clockwise from top left, Mr. Churritos’ traditional deep-fried Mexican flour dough dusted with cinnamon and sugar; from Bobites, baked potato, sour cream, butter, cheddar and chives; from Urban Cowboy, the Belcher Burger with smoked brisket, barbecue sauce on a potato bun with onion, pickle.

On hand for the honours was mayor Jim Watson, as always, along with a small gaggle of councillors including Mark Taylor, chair of the city’s community and protective services committee that shephered the new and relaxed rules for 18 successful applicants through city hall in February. Also on hand were four out of five members of the volunteer selection committee who vetted 61 applications based on a potential score of 100, as well as standup comedian and television celebrity James Cunningham, host of the Food Network show Eat St.

“Ottawa is so hungry, and it’s so wonderful to see this,” Cunningham told revenous well-wishers.

“Ottawa is now a leader in Canada in the food truck revolution … I couldn’t be happier as a food truck aficionado,” he says.

Photo L-R, Red Roaster Food Truck owners Glen Galbraith, Steve Dupras.

Adds the mayor: “These 18 new food vendors bring their own unique tastes and cuisines to the streets of Ottawa — from Asian to frozen yogurt.”

In a few cases, trucks were not ready to press into service: Some are still being built, while others are waiting for final government permits, which obliged a few operators to set up makeshift stands. “Our truck will be out in June,” says Wasi Choudhry, who calls his operation Olive Green, offering south Asian cuisine, which translates into a range of Indian and Pakistani snacks, entrées and desserts from samosas to butter chicken and lassis.

“We’re new in the food truck business, but we operate a restaurant called Olive Green inside Midway Family Fun Park on Kaladar Avenue. We have a passion for food and when we saw the city was looking for diversity we definitely applied and got it. Our food is very tasty — we’re using home recipes that people appreciate,” Choudhry says.

Above right, owner Ulises Ortega prepares churros, a Mexican deep-fried sweet pastry at Mr. Churritos.

Red Roaster Food Truck owners Glen Galbraith and Steve Dupras did their own work, outfitting a 21-foot former Frito-Lay delivery truck now complete with stainless sinks, counters, fryers and an expensive Rational oven that can perfectly roast a flock of eviscerated chickens simply by pushing a button. Unfortunately, they’re still awaiting final health and safety permits, and so could not serve food at the grand unveiling last week. The partners figure they’ve invested $110,000 — considerably less coin that leasing and fitting a traditional bricks-and-mortar restaurant.

“I had this vision of doing a truck more than a year ago,” Galbraith says, “so I bought the truck in Indiana. We spent a harsh winter getting it up here and retrofitting it.

“Originally we were going to do rotisserie chicken and call it Turns, but because propane is so expensive and you can only carry a limited amount of gas we figured the rotisserie would consume too much fuel. So we went with the German combination oven, which is six times more efficient. The Rational can cook 18 chickens in 36 minutes and it does absolutely everything.” He”ll be serving chicken, shaved beef, meatball tortillas, roast potatoes, slaw and fried noodle balls.

“Being mobile for me is a big attraction,” Dupras adds. “And we were able to do the outfitting work ourselves.”

Layne Belcher and partner Matthew Hinds expect their truck, Urban Cowboy, will be ready later this month serving Texas street food. On Wednesday, they set up tables and dished up smoked brisket with barbecue sauce on a potato bun with onion and pickle, made famous when Belcher’s dad, the late CFL star football great Val Belcher with the Ottawa Rough Riders (1979-83), used to serve food at Lansdowne Park. The tradition lives forever on.

“Both of us really love food,” Hinds says. “We’ve been in the food industry for years and we thought this is a great forum to show what we’re about. It’s all about food and trucks without the bricks and mortar. Me and Layne just started talking about it, which led to a business plan, and then – behold! – we got a spot in the City of Ottawa.”

Clockwise from top: from ROYI Fruta cart, a tray of home-made guacamole, bean medley, red-skin potatoes, beef empanada; serving Harvey & Vern’s Olde Fashioned Soda at Ottawa Streat Gourmet; Olive Green owners Wasi Choudhry and his wife, Nighat.

Sheila Whyte, a member of the city’s truck and cart selection committee and owner of Thyme & Again Creative Catering, is confident the interest in street eats has legs with the public. “We’re catching up with the rest of the world,” she says.

“There are food trucks in every great city and we’re now part of it.”

(Only time will tell for sure. After all, I’m old enough to recall opening day in April 1993 when the city’s $17-million Lynx Stadium was packed to the rafters with 10,000 adoring fans out to welcome professional Triple-A baseball. True, the Ottawa Lynx sold out 43 games in its first season, but by 2006 the farm team had the lowest average attendance in the league, and it was gone after 2007. Today, well, the stadium stands as an underused monument to wishful thinking …

(With street food, at least, taxpayers aren’t on the hook in any big financial way. Perhaps Ottawa has done something right after all.)

Left, part owner Irene Cummings serves Latino fare at ROYI Fruta food cart.

Cathleen Kneen, also on the city committee representing Just Food, says the street food evolution reflects a change in demographics. “Food is the way people connect to express what and who we are, so now we have the opportunity to see that diversity in vibrant, dynamic and eclectic street food,” Kneen says.

Philip Powell, city manager of licensing, permits and markets, says he’s blown away by the public response. By the way, without any question Powell deserves the credit for pulling this off.

“The demand and interest is beyond anything we could have imagined,” Powell says. “It’s phenomenal with the public interest, the number of applications and the interest here today.”

“People eat like this all over the world,” says selection committee member Scott Warrick, a chef/instructor at Algonquin College, representing the local chefs federation.

“And for young people having a truck or cart is a more affordable way to get into the business and show their skills.”

In fact, Warrick says, Algonquin College is also considering setting up its very own student-manned food truck.

Hey, why not?

http://blogs.ottawacitizen.com/2013/05/12/the-food-trucks-cometh-oh-my/

BlogTO has added a companion iPhone app to its torontofoodtrucks.ca portal. The locally-designed app allows frequenters of Toronto’s now-famous and ubiquitous food trucks to locate their favourite cuisine, be it cupcakes or tacos, across the city.

The interface is sleek and responsive, and the various food trucks are well distinguished from one another with high-resolution images, contact numbers and other important details. You can add favourites to quickly access the location of your ideal take-out, or browse through the growing list of fare.

Because Freshdaily, the curators of BlogTO and creators of the Toronto Food Truck portal, are pushing for the service to be a bit like an independent social network, you can take a photo or your food or the truck itself, add filters to your image and post it to the relevant section. All comments and photos are linked up to your BlogTO account, and you can share photos to Facebook or Twitter.

While it may have a limited audience, it’s a loyal one, and we’d love to see it hit Android sometime soon.

Download Toronto Food Trucks for iPhone.

Via: BlogTO

http://mobilesyrup.com/2013/05/10/blogto-releases-iphone-app-to-track-down-torontos-food-trucks/

Sudbury’s first gourmet food truck, co-owned by Natalie Lefebvre, will roll into the city’s downtown this weekend. (CBC)

Sudbury’s first food truck will set up on a downtown street this weekend.

Mobile trucks selling gourmet eats are a big trend in other cities, but in cities like Hamilton and Montreal, food trucks have become a hot, steaming political issue.

Restaurants accuse them of stealing business while not paying property taxes — prompting some city councils to pass restrictive bylaws or even designate specific food truck zones.

Little of that uproar has come with the Dee-lish food truck in Sudbury, which is covered by several existing city bylaws.

The truck needs a vendor permit, just like a hot dog cart, plus a $35 permit to park on Larch Street. It also must rent a parking spot.

Co-owner Natalie Lefebvre said downtown restaurant owners she’s spoken with are supportive.

“They kind of want the business,” she said.

“They want more stuff happening downtown, because it’s all good for the downtown, right?”

Not according to Janet Lacroix, who owns Michelle’s Cafe on Larch Street.

“They’re definitely getting a better deal than I did,” she said.

“My rent over here is $3,400 a month. Restaurant business downtown is very competitive. Since I’ve been here four years, I’ve seen quite a few cafes go under.”

Sudbury city council in recent years has talked about restricting mobile businesses that sell gold and furniture, but so far food trucks haven’t been on its menu.

In the meantime, Lefebvre said she appreciates that most downtown businesses seem to be very receptive.

“But who knows once we’re out there,” she said. “We may encounter some issues.”

http://www.cbc.ca/news/canada/sudbury/story/2013/05/10/sby-dee-lish-food-truck-sudbury-downtown-restaurants.html

If the Liberty Village BIA gets its way, Toronto’s food trucks will never operate within the boundaries of the neighbourhood. The Gourmet Gringos truck was asked last week to vacate its spot on the Cinema Nightclub property.

The story largely revolves around a convoluted he-said she-said situation. Lynn Clay, the executive director of the Liberty Village BIA, says it was the nightclub who asked Gourmet Gringos to leave the property. But Krystian Catala, the owner of the truck, says he had a friendly relationship with the property, and they were actually under firm pressure from the BIA to ask him to move.

“They’re saying food trucks take people away from local businesses, but there are studies saying they make people come out to the neighbourhood and make streets safer,” Catala says.

He’s right, Clay does feel that food trucks detract customers from restaurants in the area, and she says many restaurant owners have told her they feel the same way.

“It does absolutely have an impact on business. [The Liberty Village BIA] is not against food trucks, but we can’t endorse them within our boundaries.”

The BIA only controls operations on public property, not private property. So there’s a chance the trucks could still operate in the neighbourhood, if someone offers up the space.

But Clay feels that because the BIA levy its members pay goes toward beautifying the area and making it more desirable, food trucks shouldn’t be able to move in and capitalize on the work that was done without having contributed to it in the first place.

Catala, on the other hand, sees it as a non-issue. He doesn’t see food trucks and restaurants as competitors, but rather as separate entities that can peacefully co-exist.

“It’s not like there’s this mad competition. People who want to go to a restaurant go to a restaurant; they’re not going to go to a food truck.”

He sees food truck set-ups as a good way to foster community and bring more people outside to get to know one another and actually chat each other up, rather than lunching alone at their desks. He says that because food trucks bring more people to an area, they’re actually doing their part to contribute to the community. (They buy produce and other ingredients from local businesses whenever they can, too).

Catala, who has a five-day old baby, says he’s willing to go beyond that level of contribution and work out a fee to be paid to the BIA in order to operate in the neighbourhood. He’s put a major investment into his business, and he’s willing to compromise in order to operate it the way he sees fit.

“These are restaurants on wheels. They’re $100,000 investments. People have second mortgages on these things, it’s our livelihood.

But Clay seems pretty set on her decision not to endorse food truck operations in the area. She says there are bylaws in place defining who can be a member of the BIA, and there’s no classification for food trucks. She says she understands that they need to operate—after all, they’re businesses, too—just not on her turf.

The owner of Fat Bastard Burrito Co., Sal Zahid, is at least one person who agrees with Clay. “From a negative point of view, it does affect revenue. Every dollar counts,” he says.

“But they’re out there to support their families, just like we’re out there to support our families.”

Although Zahid would rather not have food trucks stationed near his restaurant and drawing away potential customers, his tone sounds really similar to Catala’s. It’s clear Catala sees food trucks as a different kind of operation drawing a different kind of customer.

I think Lynn Clay and Krystian Catala should sit down over a beer and some fish tacos and hash this out. It seems like there must be a way to please everybody and let food trucks reign free.

http://www.blogto.com/eat_drink/2013/05/why_are_food_trucks_not_welcome_in_liberty_village/

Foodies paid $10 to sample a variety of street food from vendors Wednesday over the lunch hour. The showcase event sold out in about 15 minutes.

Last fall city staff —along with a culinary panel — licensed the 18 new trucks, something that has not been done for 17 years.

The new trucks and carts will add to the 44 street food vendors already licensed.

The trucks offer everything from Indian chicken kabobs and spicy Korean chicken, to Hong Kong waffles and endive leaves with quinoa salad and crispy leeks.

Soon Prak, of the food truck Chow Down, was excited for the opportunity to offer sugary egg waffles to the lunchtime crowd.

“It’s a new era, a new change,” she said.

Shelly Morry left her sandwich and banana at work on Wednesday, in favour of the spicy Korean chicken at city hall.

“We definitely need this for sure, we need to start eating healthy.” she said.

Mayor Jim Watson apologized to those who didn’t get to the sampling because the tickets sold out so fast.

“So those of you who have come down I apologize that we didn’t have enough food for everyone, but there are food stalls near the rink of dreams at the tulip festival,” he said.

The first of the new food will start rolling out on May 15 on Ottawa streets.

http://www.cbc.ca/news/canada/ottawa/story/2013/05/08/ottawa-food-truck-preview-debut.html