Toby Vander Steen, a St. Albert native now living in Vancouver, has developed a new app for food trucks. So far, there are 16 Edmonton trucks on the app, called simply Street Food App, and other Canadian cities include Vancouver, Calgary, Ottawa, Toronto and Montreal. Boston is so far the only American city on the app, which is available free for I phone and Android devices.

The app gives the location of the food truck, and tells the user whether it’s open or not.

via streetfoodapp.com

“The thinking behind is it to be really easy to use and very reliable,” says Vander Steen. “I try to work closely with the vendors in the cities and get their schedules directly from them, and get them inputting the data each day so people can rely on them.”

Check it out on Twitter @streetfoodapp, or online at streetfoodapp.com.

I’ll be doing a story about the upcoming food truck season in the days to come, so watch the Journal’s food section and my blog for details.

(The photo above, by the Journal’s John Lucas, is of Ryan Brodziak (left) and Mark Bellows, the owners of one of the newest food trucks in YEG, The Local Omnivore.)

http://blogs.edmontonjournal.com/2013/04/22/new-street-food-app-targets-food-trucks-in-yeg/

Montreal Mayor Michael Applebaum tries out a taco from a food truck on April 9, 2013, after the city gave the green light for food trucks to operate in the borough of Ville Marie this summer.
(MARIO BEAUREGARD/THE CANADIAN PRESS)

Montreal is lifting its 65-year-old, Prohibition-style ban on street food, providing hope for sidewalk foodies and ending a quirky distinction for a city reputed to be among the gastronomic capitals of the continent.

With a quick nosh on a pulled-pork taco, Mayor Michael Applebaum signalled Tuesday that Montreal was not only terminating its ban but raising the culinary stakes in Canada’s second largest city: It wants to carve out a niche for unique street cuisine “à la montréalaise.”

“One thing we want is that when people come to Montreal and eat from one of these trucks, they’re going to know this is something special, something they can’t get anywhere else,” the mayor said at a news conference behind City Hall.

The freezing-out of food carts has long been one of Montreal’s more distinctive and incongruous urban traits, dating to a time when the trucks were seen as a threat to hygiene and scourge to public order. Pressure from established restaurants also kept would-be hot-dog and crêpe vendors off the streetscape.

With an eye to those concerns, the city is bringing in la bouffe de rue on a slow simmer. Trucks will be limited to 10 sites downtown on a trial basis beginning June 10. Candidates will be selected by a city committee, must be offshoots of existing caterers or restaurants, and do most of their food preparation off-site.

Tuesday’s announcement not only let City Hall try to take corruption and street protests off the front burner. It also offered hope for budding entrepreneurs in a city with well-regarded chefs.

“Montreal can show it can distinguish itself as a culinary destination for street food,” said Guy Vincent Melo of the Quebec association of street restaurateurs. “We’ve taken junk food out of our schools. We shouldn’t be putting it back on the street.”

Still, in a province that celebrates smoked meat and invented poutine, ruling out low-brow fare might not be an entirely popular move. A city committee will oversee not only the location for the food trucks but also what type of fare they dispense. The mayor said the committee will try to ensure the food “is of a quality that is going to be highly respected and renowned,” but “maybe someone’s going to come with poutine – a very special type of poutine.”

Some likely contenders to break the decades-old embargo have already been dispensing their goods at restricted locations around the city, such as city festival sites. (Technically, that meant they were not on a public thoroughfare and in violation of existing bylaws).

These include Grumman 78, whose chartreuse-green, converted fire-command truck was parked behind City Hall and served Mr. Applebaum his Vietnamese-style taco and tomato salad with cornbread croutons.

Chef and co-owner Marc-André Leclerc, who has worked at such noted Montreal eateries as Au Pied de Cochon and Joe Beef, says no one should expect fine food to rule the streets of Montreal forever.

“In an open market, there’s going to be natural selection. Inevitably, we’re going to see hot dogs and pretzels,” Mr. Leclerc said. “If there’s a demand, there will be a market.”

The Montreal ban on food carts dates to 1947, when the city banished its “chip” wagons on the grounds they spread litter, flouted traffic rules and unfairly competed with small businesses; successive municipal regimes seemed disinclined to change the rules and established restaurants remained steadfast opponents. However, the Quebec association of restaurateurs, representing the city’s 5,000 restaurants, now says it can live with the pilot project, partly because the vendors will be linked to establishments that pay taxes, a spokeswoman said Tuesday.

If experience is any guide, the trucks will not lack for customers. A food-truck gathering outside Montreal’s Olympic Stadium last summer drew such long lines that some trucks ran out of some menu items.

http://www.theglobeandmail.com/news/national/after-65-years-montreal-lifts-ban-on-street-food/article10964012/

Montrealers will be able to get a taste of the food truck experience starting this summer.

The city of Montreal announced this afternoon it’s setting up ten different sites in the downtown Ville Marie borough starting June 20 as part of a pilot project.

And there are already strict criteria in place.

The food truck vendor will have to be a tax-paying Montreal restaurant owner or caterer, they’ll have to prepare their food at their home base and heat it up and have it ready for serving in the truck, they’ll have to apply for a permit, they can’t set up in direct competition with another restaurant and they can’t serve any old junk food

“Maybe someone’s going to come in with poutine and a very special type of poutine, we’ll have to wait and see. We’re going to leave that to our creators and our restaurants and our chefs to come up with the different types of food they want to present,” Mayor Michael Applebaum told reporters at a news conference, adding it must say “Montreal” and represent its international gastronomic reputation.

A selection committee will determine that criteria. The ten sites will be in addition to the seasonal sites set up during festivals and special events such as the esplanade at Place des Arts during the Jazz Fest. They’ll also determine how many trucks will be in rotation.

Interested boroughs will be able to adopt the eventual bylaw.

Interested parties can contact 311 and leave their coordinates; starting next month, they’ll be contacted about how to go about applying.

http://www.cjad.com/CJADLocalNews/entry.aspx?BlogEntryID=10528638

Hilary McGown, with daughter Ruby, Gaelle Cerf, centre, and Marc-André Leclerc operate Grumman ’78, a popular taco spot in Montreal.

MONTREAL—It has taken more than 65 years and a popular gastronomic uprising, but Montreal’s foodies are finally catching up to one of the most popular trends to hit North American cuisine.

http://www.thestar.com/news/insight/2013/04/05/montreal_ends_ban_on_street_foods.html

A street food vendor is seen in the Old Port in Montreal last June. To test different scenarios, Montreal’s 19 boroughs are asked to propose spots they think could work for street vendors where they wouldn’t be in direct competition with eateries, and to grant vendors temporary permits on given days this summer.
Photograph by: Marie-France Coallier , Gazette file photo

http://www.montrealgazette.com/news/Montreal+gives+cautious+return+street+food+vendors/8171520/story.html

MONTREAL—Street food could be coming back to Montreal after a municipal commission recommended on Thursday that the city bring an end to a ban on street vendors in place since 1947.

Don’t expect hotdogs on every street corner soon, the city’s economic development commission has suggested a “progressive” approach to slowly allow street food to return with experiments in each borough.

“The aim is for sure to have street food in the downtown area, but also in other boroughs in Montreal,” said Veronique Fournier, the commission’s VP. “Why not in the parks, why not by the river for instance, at cultural events? Now Montreal is joining the ranks of other cities that have street food.”

Taking lessons from each borough’s experience, the city then could figure out how to regulate the industry. A task force could be struck to supervise street vendors.

“I love it,” said Gaelle Cerf, the owner of Grumman 78 and VP Montreal’s street food association. “We are going to have a year to prove what we are capable of, how it works, and only then will the regulations be drawn up.

“This is the best way to do it.”

Despite being banned from the city’s streets, Montreal already has a street food industry with vendors allowed to serve on festival sites and special events during the summers.

“We’ve been sending the trucks out, we’ve been having events at the Olympic Stadium for over a year now and people come to the stadium just to eat food off of trucks,” said Cerf.

http://montreal.ctvnews.ca/city-moves-closer-to-ending-street-food-ban-1.1215921

Grumman 78′s food truck has already been operating for two years. (CBC)

For the first time since 1947, Montrealers could soon be able to enjoy a hot dog or taco served right out of a truck — legally.

Late Thursday afternoon the city’s commission on economic development made a series of recommendations allowing for the legalization of street food vendors.

“Today it’s a yes for street food in Montreal,” said city councillor Véronique Fournier.

Food trucks have made a comeback in Montreal in recent years, despite strict rules prohibiting them from being on public property.

The existing rules permitted them to attend private events and to be invited into parks and spaces, but they haven’t been able to just set up shop wherever they pleased.

But popular events like last summer’s Just For Laughs souk on Ste-Catherine Street West between Jeanne-Mance and St-Urbain streets, and the First Fridays events on the esplanade at the Olympic Park have proven food trucks can be a boon to Montreal.

And so today’s news was welcomed by people like Gaëlle Cerf and Jacques Séguin, owners of Grumman 78 and Nouveau Palais, respectively.

They said it was a great step forward, and that a framework could be developed that would benefit all parties involved.

“I think we proved it in the last two years,” Cerf said.

Among the recommendations proposed was a stipulation that all food trucks must have a production kitchen or restaurant, and that the trucks can’t stay on public property outside of closing hours.

Councillor Fournier said the next step is to have the city’s executive committee rubber stamp the proposal at the next city council meeting.

After that, a pilot project will look at what kinds of rules need to be established, and a regulatory framework is expected for 2015.

http://www.cbc.ca/news/canada/montreal/story/2013/03/28/montreal-street-food-trucks-legalized.html

The roy jia mo, a famous street food of Xi’an, China, prepared at Restaurant ZhengQingQiao in Montreal’s Chinatown. The pancake-like flatbread is studded with sesame seeds and filled with braised pork and chopped fresh cilantro.
Photograph by: Marie-France Coallier , Montreal Gazette

MONTREAL - Rou jia mo, $2.50 at ZhengQingQiao in Chinatown

The item referred to as pork panini on ZhengQingQiao’s menu is known as rou jia mo in Mandarin. A popular street food in the modern megacity of Xi’an, it can be traced back to the Han Dynasty, which counted Shaanxi province in its empire more than 2,000 years ago. You’ll find this tiny hole in a hall inside the sprawling Chinatown shopping complex at the corner of St. Urbain and de la Gauchetière. In addition to the many things pork, including soups, balls, minced and breaded dishes, specialties of the lunch counter are milk teas and Taiwanese-style shaved ices. They will also do a version of the sandwich with beef, common to the Muslim population in the region. I got a pork rou jia mo with a glass of warm soy milk, which although beige tasted of fresh edamame beans, for a total bill of $3.50. Hearty, greasy and inexpensive, it suits winter here, just as it does the climate in north-central China.

The bread: The mo in rou jia mo is an oblong flatbread. A pale wheat-flour pancake studded with white and black sesame seeds, it’s drier and stiffer than a steamed bun.

The spread: The sweet, spiced, hot and meaty flavours of the braised pork activate all the sensors. Stewed with multiple seasonings, including cinnamon, anise, cloves, ginger, soy and chilies, the tender and ruddy meat is shredded up in the sauce to make a juicy sandwich filling. Leaves and stems of cilantro are thrown in for edgy contrast. I ordered spicy, and found the heat only made itself apparent after a few bites. Filling, flavourful and, for the price, hard to beat.

The secret: It’s not elegant, but it’s easier to eat this drippy sandwich straight from the bag.

Restaurant ZhengQingQiao, 1111 St. Urbain St., unit R09B, 514-750-5484

Read more: http://www.montrealgazette.com/Drippy+pork+panini+traced+back+years/7714696/story.html#ixzz2FTM82Y6x

Photo: Dispatch Coffee: a mobile café in a refurbished mail truck (courtesy of Dispatch Coffee)

Dispatch Coffee is on a mission. Though the fate of food trucks in Montreal may be up in the air, Dispatch is figuring out how to bring their coffee to the people, wherever and whenever they want it.

Coffee is sourced seasonally from sustainable roasters (courtesy of Dispatch Coffee)

Last summer, barista-about-town Chrissy Durcak began delivering bottles of cold-brewed coffee by bicycle. After working at popular Mile End/Plateau hangouts like Café Névé and Sardine, she’d already been toying with the idea of starting her own coffee shop. So when she witnessed the demand for delivery first-hand, she hatched a plan: a café-on-wheels built into a Grumman mail truck.

“I designed the layout – it’s like a tiny coffee shop, with a wooden bar and stools – and pretty much built the whole thing with my dad,” says Durcak.

Next step was stocking the mobile café with supplies, including beans from trusted roasters who buy seasonally (“Coffee is at its peak about six months after harvest,” explains Durcak, “so Ethiopian is good right now, Peruvian in the summer”). Other offerings include organic tea and baked goods, from savoury scones to sticky buns, from local, small-batch suppliers.

The business has been booming despite one very important impediment: Thanks to former Montreal mayor Jean Drapeau, food trucks have been illegal here since 1947. While the gourmet grub-on-wheels movement has been growing exponentially in cities like Vancouver, Portland and New York, in Montreal, about a dozen food trucks dare to tread the line of the law, popping up at special events and festivals.

“The laws are definitely changing,” says Durcak, who regularly heads to City Hall for meetings on street food. “A lot of cities start with a pilot project, a few permits and zoned areas, and wait to see if there’s an uproar. In Montreal, it’s just a matter of time.”

Also on offer: baked goods, including whoopee pies, from local artisans (courtesy of Dispatch Coffee)

Just because food trucks aren’t completely street legal doesn’t mean business is slow. For the moment, you can follow Dispatch’s doings through their Facebook and twitter pages, and find info about hiring them for events and parties (with or sans truck). Currently, the business includes barista training, a pop-up shop on Van Horne and plans for whole bean home delivery in early 2013. Which all sounds just our speed.

Dispatch Cofee, www.Dispatchcoffee.ca, 514-229-5008, Facebook , Twitter

http://www.urbanexpressions.ca/food/story/go-go-espresso

In Toronto, Calgary, Vancouver, Ottawa, and of course New York street food vendors have been allowed for years. Once upon a time, they were allowed here too, and now the city is thinking of bringing them back.

The city has opened public consultations on whether they should be brought back to the streets since they were banned in 1947.

Jean Lefebvre is the vice-president of the Canadian Restaurant and Food Services Association for Quebec. He says while some restaurant owners are worried about their possible return most of his members would welcome them back.

“It’s a very competitive environment in the restaurant business, so I think we will be able to cope with it,” he says. “Our recommendation is that Montreal set up a pilot project like they did in other cities. We can’t jump into this with 300 food trucks at once. We need to move slowly but surely.”

He is also recommending that a food truck not be allowed to set up shop within 60 metres of an existing restaurant. It would also have to follow the same rules as a restaurant when it comes to obtaining a permit, safety and food regulations, and so on.

The consultations continue next week. If the city gives the green light you can be taking a bite out of a hot dog or a pizza on the street by next summer.

http://www.cjad.com/CJADLocalNews/entry.aspx?BlogEntryID=10469589