Michael Van de Elzen’s latest restaurant The Food Truck Garage in The City Depot. Photo / Babiche Martens

If you have yet to discover The Food Truck, the TV One show that’s been a runaway success, you’re missing out. It’s funny and quirky and jollies you along for the ride in a classic 1970s Bedford truck that has been set up with a kitchen in the back.

Its message is that we need to be making better choices when it comes to fast food. The affable host, and driver of said truck, is the extraordinary chef Mike Van de Elzen and he’s a man on a mission. He wants to have a positive impact on what and how people are eating, and the TV show, he says, is just the start. “It’s not just another food show for the sake of it, we’re doing something important withThe Food Truck,” he says.

Van de Elzen takes on some of our most popular fast foods – burgers, sushi, fish and chips and more – and turns them on their head. He deconstructs and reinvents them using his own innovative approach, to create new versions that are healthier, price-competitive and able to be delivered in the short time-frame we’ve come to expect when ordering fast food. His presenting style may be off-beat and fun but he’s deadly serious about his vision of creating fast food that is tastier and better for us and, with his background, he’s well-qualified to drive the message home. He’s a qualified chef and restaurateur, successful cookbook author and this month will launch perhaps his most ambitious project yet – the Food Truck Garage.

The concept for a sustainable, healthier dine-in and takeaway eatery was born out of the popularity of the TV show and the desire to bring the recipes he created for healthy versions of classic fast food, from the TV screens to the dining table. It is a collaborative partnership between the producers of the show and Van de Elzen.

“We’ve just finished filming our third series of The Food Truck and I’m more convinced than ever that it’s possible to bring better fast food to people. So now we’ve set up our own fast food restaurant to prove it,” he says.

Since qualifying as a chef in his mid-20s, Van de Elzen worked in some of the best kitchens in London and Ireland, before returning to New Zealand. He then opened Molten in Mt Eden Village, which he ran with his wife Belinda until they sold it in 2011 so that he could focus his attention on The Food Truck and other endeavours.

“It’s been an amazing ride so far. When I headed overseas to work in London, I started by doing a year with renowned restaurateur Terence Conran at his Bluebird restaurant on King’s Rd, followed by a stint at Bank, a 500-seater restaurant where we would do 1000 covers, in two sittings, every night. It broke me as a human being. I was a senior chef in charge of 33 chefs and I turned into a ‘Gordon’.” It’s hard to imagine yelling and screaming from the cheery chef we’re used to seeing poking his head out of the food truck window, but he assures me it was true “I had to, or they would have walked all over me. I worked there for a year and came out a monster but it did teach me there are two ways to deal with staff, hard and good, and there’s an art to finding a balance between the two.”

It was about this time Van de Elzen also figured out that health, eating well and maintaining personal fitness were going to be important if he was to succeed in an industry not necessarily known for its clean living. “I noticed that the chefs I admired the most, those who ran successful operations and managed their kitchens effectively, were physically fit and subsequently more mentally switched on. A chef’s life is not necessarily a healthy one – you work long and late, eat at odd hours, there’s the drinking involved – and this isn’t conducive to balance. Despite the fact that we’ve got more technology and equipment to help us these days, it is still a very physically demanding job and the pressure to financially succeed in the face of so much competition is huge. Unless you’re on top of your health, you’re making it harder for yourself, in any job.”

Combine his habit for sensible self-management with an overall shift in the trend for diners demanding healthier options and you might say the stars were aligned when he got the call up to audition for The Food Truck. Except that he didn’t realise he was auditioning. “I thought the job was mine.”

The producers phoned B (his affectionate name for his wife Belinda) and said they were looking for a host for a new food show and could he meet them. A time and day were set up. Then he was out playing pool with some other chefs and one said he was booked in to meet them too.

“I then discovered heaps of other chefs, all of them superstars, which I am not, had been asked. I didn’t want to go but B convinced me to.”

So he turned up, acted naturally because he didn’t really think he stood a chance and was asked back for a second audition. This time it was for real. “With the film crew, we went to a McDonald’s and people stared. I realised if I got the job it would be a case of educating the public through a TV series about fast food. It dawned on me that I was embarking on something that was serious and that I cared about. I was tasked with producing a healthy burger, from scratch, in under six minutes, then approaching strangers to try it and give me feedback.

“So there I was, in front of a camera, asking the public what they thought of my food. How scary was that for me? Very, because hey, I’m a chef and used to hiding in the kitchen. Not only that, I had to be open to getting straight-up feedback about my food and as a chef, believe it or not, you rarely get feedback directly about your food.”

It was a rigorous auditioning process but what helped him was that if it hadn’t worked out, it wasn’t going to be the end of the world. “I have never set out to be on TV for the sake of it, so it wouldn’t have mattered. I just kept thinking that I still had my restaurant.” But he did secure the role and it changed his world significantly.

For a while he was juggling it all – long days filled with filming the The Food Truck, cooking full time at Molten at night, writing a cookbook at the weekend and being a dad for the first time. He admits working like that couldn’t go on; “I was working in excess of 80 hours per week and home is lost to you. I’d just come home complaining about things because I was tired. I’m the type of guy who likes to stay busy, sure, but that was too much. So we started to think for the first time about not having the restaurant. I had never intended to end up in a stainless steel box but after seven years of running my own restaurant, I was beginning to feel like a sardine in a can in there, I had to jump out.”

The business was sold so Van de Elzen could focus on filming, working on his cookbooks and spending more time with his young family. But inevitably he began to miss the buzz that goes with owning and working in your own restaurant. “I missed the business, it was my office, the staff were my family, I missed that sense of belonging that I had always enjoyed so much.”

Having had a break he now felt he had a fresh perspective and the freedom to bring all of his convictions into the one venture. “I want to do fast food really well.

I also like being inside a season and I’ve never been molecular. I’m not one to go hunting and fishing or to get into the outdoors a whole lot in fact. Al Brown can do that, he’s good at it, I’m not.

With the Food Truck Garage we’re being innovative and breaking new ground – we’re a fast food joint without a deep-fryer. It has to be fast because that’s what people want when eating out these days – my goal is food cooked to order in under 10 minutes – and it has to be healthier than what’s already out there. Of course the actual Food Truck will be permanently parked up serving hot dogs, but these won’t be ordinary hot dogs, they’ll be paua and watercress, pork and dried apple, chicken and green vegetables, all cooked to order …”

As he starts rattling off how he has sourced wholemeal and spelt bread rolls from specialist bakery Elske and how his famous chips will be triple-cooked – steamed, then coated in special seasoning, then roasted at high heat for five minutes, then blasted at an even higher temperature of 300C for another five minutes – you see the passionate TV persona in full force – or rather it is just Mike Van de Elzen talking about what excites him most – the business and challenge of bringing great food to the public. He pats his large state of the art combination oven and points to the gleaming non-stick chrome grill plate that requires no oil to be used. The Garage opens this week and an indication of his growing influence on the food scene comes from the approaches he has had in advertising for staff to join the Food Truck Garage team; “One guy applied for a chef position because he had lost 60kg and was committed to being involved with a role where there was a healthy eating environment. He’ll be the new chef for our hot dogs. It tells me we’re attracting the right kind of people with our concept.”

Van de Elzen shakes his head when I ask how different life is from when he was the owner-chef at his first restaurant.

“Most amazing is the reaction I get from people who recognise me or the truck. People love the truck. We were filming in Christchurch recently and I was driving through the Red Zone at the end of a day of filming and people would see the truck and drive through red lights just to follow us. People out walking would stop in the middle of pedestrian crossings. Kids, especially boys, are really interested and it’s gotten boys cooking more and that has got to be a good thing.

“I’m more public now, I can’t just walk down the road and be hidden. People look in my shopping trolley and ask me questions all the time about how they should be eating and cooking. I’m a late bloomer I guess and this is just the start.”

• Food Truck Garage opens on May 1, dine-in or takeaway. Shed One, City Works Depot, 90 Wellesley St, City.

- VIVA

http://www.nzherald.co.nz/lifestyle/news/article.cfm?c_id=6&objectid=10879301

It occurs to me that one of the most efficient ways of conveying food into your gob is to wrap it in thin(-ish) bread-type material, and roll it up. It is present in a number of Middle Eastern cuisines, in Asian food and Mexican food. And I like them all, to greater or lesser degrees.

What most of them have in common is that it is food you can hold in one hand and eat as you stroll. It is convenient food – no mess, no fuss (unless you want to count the slop of sauce that invariably, unfortunately, winds up in my lap when eating a kebab). It is like - a rolled sandwich, of sorts, no?

I am tremendously fond of burritos, even if they do seem to be a more Tex-Mex variant than a proper, traditional Mexican dish (I didn’t, for instance, encounter a lot of burritos in Mexico City – soft tacos and fajitas, yes; burritos and nachos – nope).

(Incidentally, the best burrito I ever ate came from a place in Haight Street in San Francisco, just over the road from the amazing Amoeba Records. It was a bean burrito, and it was full of spicy, savoury, nutty black beans, a sweet, tangy salsa, cheese and salad in a soft flour tortilla. I still think about it from time to time. Sigh.)

There is my great and profound love of the Greek souvlaki, seemingly indigenous within New Zealand to Christchurch. Dimitris, Costas and Nomads have all fed me gloriously over my many years. The souvlaki is an entirely different beast from your garden-variety kebab of the Lebanese or Turkish variety, which is far more common here in Wellington. The souvlaki generally has thicker, denser bread, a more coarsely chopped salad, thick yoghurt sauce and a sweetish, mild tomato sauce. It is something I am greatly looking forward to when I next visit the Garden City.

In Wellington, the reigning kings of the kebab, for me at least, are the magnificent Phoenician Felafel in both Kent Terrace and Cuba Street, in a Lebanese style – my faves are the falafel, mehshi (citrusy rice-stuffed vine leaves), and the spicy sujuk sausage. I am also fond of the Turkish-styled Kilim in Jackson Street, Petone. Theirs is a slick operation, banging out hot, flavourful kebabs at express pace, packed with salad and meat (or falafel!), and generous with the sauces – recommended.

And then there are your Asian variants – the delicious, sour Indian dosai (actually a kind of fermented crepe or pancake rather than a bread, but, you know…), long and thin and filled with either meat or vegetable curry. The best I ever had came from the old Wakefield Street food markets when Roti Chenai had a stall there – I believe they still do them at their restaurant in Victoria Street (I haven’t had one for a while – now there’s an idea).

The delicious fresh spring rolls in rice paper that are popular in Thai and Vietnamese cuisines are another example of wrapping fillings up to make them easier to eat – in this case, they usually feature vermicelli noodles, carrot, cucumber, fresh herbs such as mint or coriander, plus poached chicken or prawns, and are served with a dipping sauce featuring fish sauce, lime, sugar and chilli.

I always find it interesting that different cultures have different variants of the same types of dishes, but that end up offering wildly divergent tastes and textures. The idea for the wrap (or roll) has obviously been shared among different countries and continents by travellers and traders over centuries, making it a ubiquitous meal or snack, especially for lunches, and for better or for worse, for cross-cultural food fusion (YEAH!). You can also cut ‘em up and turn them into bite-size snacks.

It makes a pleasing change (even if it is mostly just in shape!) from the conventional lunchtime sarnie, and I reckon the wrap, regardless of its origin (Asian, Mexican, Middle Eastern) is a winner, and I dig them all.

Wraps and rolls – are you partial? What’s your favourite – kebab or souvlaki? Rice paper rolls or dosai? Ideas for fillings?

http://www.stuff.co.nz/life-style/blogs/the-omnivore/8578708/Its-a-wrap

While food trucks are not ubiquitous on New Zealand’s streets yet, the food truck trend is catching on with the cruising Oyster Saloon. The Oyster Saloon has popped up all over New Zealand’s north island, most recently at City Market Christmas Night Market in New Zealand’s capital Wellington, and the Food and Wine Classic in Havelock North, a suburb in Hawkes Bay on New Zealand’s east coast.

The shiny silver truck offers fresh oysters, shucked-to-order, served ice-cold or deep-fried. The truck serves a rotating selection of six oysters that can be paired with craft beer or New Zealand wines.

“They all have their own terroir about them,” said master shucker and owner Rachel Taulelei.

When The Daily Meal caught up with the truck, the menu included New Zealand oysters from Te Matuku Bay, Clevedon Coast, Mahurangi, Tio Point, and Stewart Island. Also on offer were natural mignonette oysters served with hot sauce and a lemon wedge, and Tuatara beer-battered oysters with handmade tartar sauce.

Open in 2012, the food truck is owned by seafood purveyors Yellow Brick Road, who decided to share their passion for oysters by hitting the road with their Oyster Saloon. It’s a shucking good meal.

http://www.thedailymeal.com/oyster-saloon-new-zealand-s-best-food-truck

TRUCK TUCKER: Molten Restaurant owner and chef Michael van de Elzen stars in The Food Truck where he makes healthy alternatives to fast food from the back of a Bedford truck.

Owning and running an award-winning restaurant would be a big enough job for most people, but Michael van de Elzen has added a television show, a charity event and a new baby to the mix.

The chef and owner of Molten Restaurant and Liquid Molten Bar in Mt Eden stars in The Food Truck which hits screens on Sunday night – a show which sees him cooking up healthier versions of fast food in the back of a 1970 Bedford truck and selling it to the public.

Filming wrapped up a month ago and Mr van de Elzen says it was a “pretty full-on five months”.

Along with the usual Christmas rush, he organised a charity luncheon for Christchurch that raised $100,000 and welcomed baby Hazel to the family.

“There were moments when it was quite difficult but I’ve got really good staff at work who knew how much pressure I was under.”

The show covers the summer period with the food truck, which is kitted out with a domestic kitchen, visiting sites around Auckland and places further afield like Whangamata.

It’s the first television show he’s fronted and he’ll be seeing the finished product for the first time when it screens on Sunday, after choosing not to watch it in advance.

“It’s quite exciting. It’s a family show so there’s nothing too Gordon Ramsay.”

He says 80 percent of the time he cooked alone but for some of the bigger events he enlisted the help of the Molten chefs.

The idea is to give people alternative options to traditional takeaways.

“We’re not trying to recreate the wheel, we’re not saying don’t go out and have takeaways.

“We’re saying there’s another option. If I can make these things in the back of the food truck in the same amount of time it takes the fast food giants, people can make it at home.”

Mr van de Elzen researched the different fast foods available then came up with his own healthier versions, making them in the truck’s kitchen and selling them.

“Sometimes it worked amazingly well and sometimes it was a complete disaster.”

He says having to make money from his creations gives the project credibility.

“It’s been great, I really hope the show is well-received. We’re not trying to be hypocrites and say all fast food is bad, because it’s not.”

He says the idea is to encourage people to make food at home rather than eating fast food three or four times a week.

The Food Show screens on Sundays at 7pm on TV One.

http://www.stuff.co.nz/auckland/local-news/central-leader/5123170/Healthy-food-comes-from-the-back-of-a-truck

Harry's at Woolloomooloo has fed Frank Sinatra, Marlene Dietrich and Elton John but today it's popular with a young crowd. Photo / Supplied

Street food, whether it’s kebabs in Istanbul, pho in Hanoi, tacos in Mexico City or meat pies in Australia, is always immediate.

It’s urgent. It’s mobile. The aromas and flavours of it are gutsy and bold.

You have a direct connection with the person who is actually cooking your food. And it’s usually great value for money. All of that makes street food the most relevant and responsive culinary trend around the world.

Street food has been around for as long as cities have been. Try these six.

1. The Australian meat pie:

This national dish sells at bakeries, convenience stores and street vendors. A good old Aussie pie is often paired with a game of footy or a swig of beer. Head to Harry’s Cafe de Wheels at the wharf at Woolloomooloo, inner Sydney, to buy one of the country’s finest pies; sold here for more than 70 years.

Sydneysider Harry Edwards began the business in the 1930s and it wasn’t long before it became notorious with sailers, soldiers, cab drivers and celebrities.

Reopening in 1945 after the war, it became Cafe De Wheels, due to council regulations ordering street vendors to move their vehicles at least 12 inches a day.

While no longer on wheels, Harry’s still provides a satisfying late-night fix. And its popularity is growing, with franchises opening around Sydney and in Newcastle during the past few years.

Harry’s Tiger is the joint’s signature dish, a chunky beef pie smothered in mashed peas and potato, swimming in gravy. It’s the type of meal best eaten at 4am.

The shop serves other pies, baked daily from Hannah’s Pies in Ultimo: steak and mushroom, seafood, chicken curry. It also has American hot dogs.

Harry’s has seen Elton John, Frank Sinatra and Marlene Dietrich tuck into its pies. These days, it’s mostly the young crowd that drops by late at night for a good feed.

2. Fish kebabs in Turkey:

Fishermen return to ports in cities like Istanbul and Izmir with the day’s catch of mackerel, sea bream, anchovies and other fish.

They fillet then pan fry or grill the fish, and hand it over to you from the decks of their small boats.

No marinade, no salt, just a kebab of fish with bread; perfect. Round out the meal with bits from other street vendors, such as watermelon, cherries, cucumbers and, finally, something sweet.

3. Picarones in Peru:

These hand-rolled doughnuts are deep-fried in the Spanish tradition and are available in most cities, which have been influenced by different cultures and cuisines such as Spain, the Andes, Amazon and Pacific Ocean. Vendor-chefs make an accompanying honey sauce infused with dried figs, raisins, clove, cinnamon or anise.

4. Beef pho in Vietnam:

The main ingredients echo the main cultural and political influences of Vietnam: beef from the French, rice noodles and ginger from China.

It’s the signature dish in Vietnam’s street food repertoire. It is common for a chef-vendor to make only one dish for nearly their entire life. The same woman has parked herself on the same corner in Saigon for the past 30 years with her sticky rice flavoured with turmeric and coconut, served on a banana leaf.

But Vietnamese street vendors face a modern threat: the Government is pressuring street vendors to move away from streets populated by tourists.

Chefs say the move will alter the nature of the food on offer.

5. Sfenj in Morocco:

Street food in Marrakesh, Morocco, originated with poor, working class people who travelled to the city from outlying areas for work and had no car or means to return home for meals.

They would treat themselves to sweets such as sfenj, a type of doughnut made with an unsweetened yeast dough, and hearty meals like kefta, spiced ground meat.

Today, residents – working class or not – choose to go out and eat street food for dinner rather than stay home and cook. It’s cheaper and simpler than the preparation and clean-up at home.

But the trend to eat away from home reflects another class shift, says chef Mourad Lahlou.

“Ten or 15 years ago, people had maids and cooks in their homes. No one wants to do that anymore. They are there from eight to five, and then they go home to their own families.”

6. Laksa in Singapore:

Ten thousand itinerant street food hawkers used to crowd the one-square mile that is central Singapore.

But 50 years ago, the Government swept them all into 120 hawker centres the size of a football field, each of which houses about 200 tiny kitchens.

Today, some 35,000 licences have been issued to hawker centre vendors. The secret to their food?

Each chef-vendor prepares and sells one dish and one dish only.

For laksa, a spicy noodle soup, the chef prepares each component in the morning.

First, they make the broth, then they blanch the noodles, cook the shrimp, shred the cucumbers and grind the chillies. Then, when everything is ready, they sell it until it runs out.

- NZPA

http://www.nzherald.co.nz/travel/news/article.cfm?c_id=7&objectid=10727703

http://www.MobileFoodNews.com

ROCK'N'ROLL: Rolled roast pork with a tasty filling and, inset, Annabelle White with Roy Choi.

There is a food revolution happening in the streets and neighbourhoods of Los Angeles and it won’t be long before it’s here. Thankfully we are not talking another multinational fast- food operation. This is fast food on a small scale: inexpensive, fun, creative, social and very much reflecting the neighbourhoods where it was born. We are talking food trucks.

Only five years ago there were just a couple of food trucks in LA; now there are 200 to 300 serving everything from gourmet hot dogs to Vietnamese pork rolls.

One of the most popular food trucks – and one of the first – is Kogi BBQ (www.kogibbq.com), started by Roy Choi. Back in 2008, this Korean-born classically trained chef gave up his job as a hotel chef and started making great fusion food that reflected his neighbourhood kitchens. It was good, simple, clean food at great prices. Think kimchi quesadilla and Korean beef tacos – Choi has taken Korean classics and mixed them up in a Mexican kitchen.

Choi started with one truck and now has five, and more than 90,000 people follow him on Facebook to find out where his trucks will be each day. It’s no wonder they’re so popular – $US2 will get you a soft Korean spicy pork taco with beans and lots of fresh ingredients. They are an amazing testimony to great street food at good prices.

What makes his food so special are the sauces, packed with chillies and herbs, and used as a marinade to baste the meat while it is cooking and then as a serving sauce with the finished product.

Here are instructions for one of my favourite pork dishes:

Slice the cooked meat and rest on a kumara ginger mash (kumara mash with a little hint of fresh ginger and chopped parsley) and a side of cooked beans.

For a sauce, I simply place the pan juices into a pot with 300ml of good chicken stock and a generous spoonful of mustard and chutney, and reduce by half. You can add more fresh herbs if you wish, but this combination is superb. It’s light and perfect with the rich pork and mash.

PORK SCOTCH FILLET WRAPPED IN BACON

This recipe has been slightly adapted from one given to me more than 15 years ago by Auckland food writer Pip Duncan. Her pork recipes are always a delight.

1.5kg pork scotch fillet

150g middle bacon, diced

1/2C toasted pine nuts

1T grated orange rind

A squeeze of orange juice

1/2C finely chopped apricots

2C fresh breadcrumbs

Freshly ground black pepper

1 large egg yolk

1 bunch spinach, stalks removed

180g bacon strips

Preheat the oven to 180[Degree]C fan bake.

Cook the diced middle bacon and place in a large bowl with the pine nuts, orange rind, orange juice, apricots, breadcrumbs, black pepper to taste and the egg yolk. Mix well and set aside. Wilt the spinach leaves by cooking covered in microwave for just a few minutes, drain well.

Butterfly the pork scotch fillet by cutting down the length, three- quarters of the way through. Open the fillet out and press flat. Spread the spinach leaves over the cut surface of the pork. Spread the breadcrumb mixture in a log in the middle, then roll up and place the bacon strips around the pork fillet. Secure with string.

Place on a rack on a roasting tray and cook for 15 minutes to caramelise the meat and seal it. Then switch the oven back to normal bake and cook for another 60-80 minutes at 180[Degree]C on bake or until cooked (a meat thermometer inserted should reach 71-76[Degree]C). Remove from the oven and stand dish, covered, in a warm place for 10 minutes.

http://www.stuff.co.nz/life-style/food-wine/5037715/Truck-stop-tuck-shops