Searching for Toronto a la Cart

I have read an article in the National Post regarding the Toronto a la Cart project yesterday. It reminds me of the fond memories that I have for the street vendors back in Hong Kong. I just love the spicy curry fish balls, stinky tofu, mini pancakes, roasted chestnuts and yam that I used to get on the street when I was small. Today is a little bit chilly compared to the past few days. However, the slightly cold temperature wouldn’t soften my determination of finding the Toronto a la Cart. With a food adventure on my mind, I took a short walk to Nathan Philips Square during lunch time. Little did I know that I forgot to read the fine print, “…will begin selling their wares by the long weekend in May”.

The Toronto a la Cart project has been going on for more than a year. The provincial Health Minister has been talking about relaxing the law that forbids anything other than pre-cooked sausages and hot dogs being served on the streets since July, 2007. And yesterday, they had only managed to announce the 8 lucky vendors that would be allowed to sell food on the street. Selling street food is not exactly rocket science. Many Asian countries have them. Even our big brother, the United States, has them on the busy downtown streets in Manhattan. How come it has taken so long in Toronto? While I understand food safety is a serious issue, can we just get inspector to make sure their food hygiene is up to the standard. It shouldn’t be much different than inspecting a real restaurant. Moreover, a uniform branding is definitely not necessary. Personally, I think this is a marketing agency’s cash grab. Why can’t we let the vendors have a little bit of room for their personal flair?

While I was at Nathan Philips Square, I did notice the fries and hotdog truck that parked on the street had a huge sign for shish kebab kubideh. After looking at the menu more closely, I found that the item was nowhere to be seen on the long list of food. I wonder if you need to say a secret password to order that item. This truck gives me an excellent idea. If existing trucks are capable of selling food other than hotdogs, we can just build more of those instead of spending so much consulting money on developing the Toronto a la Cart project. I have seen a few of these trucks in the city. There are a few in the University of Toronto area that sell Chinese lunch boxes and there is also another in the Korean Town that sells roasted chestnuts. The truck model would certainly work better in Toronto because of the harsh winter weather that we have. A small cart would not be able to keep the vendor warm during winter. While trucks do take up more space, we can just designate certain area for these food trucks just like what we are currently doing anyways. Regardless, I do hope these vendors would be successful in their new business and I am looking forward to try their exciting offerings!