It’s been a while since I blogged. My apologies. I haven’t been too adventurous with my taste buds lately – until Saturday that is. What happened on Saturday, you might ask? It was the Ottawa Food Truck Rally, of course! I have always wanted to go to food truck festivals but have always managed to miss them. This time, I was not going to let this one go. For an admission price of $10 per person, we were able to explore the 17 food trucks, live entertainment and local beer.
Aaron, of course, got a little too excited and purchased $40 worth of food tickets right away, then another $30 more of food/drink tickets just for funzies, since we had to get drink tokens, which were different than food tickets; so why not get more food tickets? 🙂 Since we had so many tickets, I guess it’s time to explore!
First stop – Urban Cowboy. They only had 2 items on their menu – chicken waffles and shrimp tacos so we got both of them. These 2 items turned out to be the best of the day and we had to come back for seconds. The chicken waffle was crunchy, flavourful and their key to success? The waffle was made of cornbread. What? Yes. That’s right. The shrimp tacos were deep fried in beer batter, and this was encased in slaw, mango pepper salsa, avocado and a delicious aioli sauce. There were plenty of tacos at the festival but this is the one to beat. Check them out at their food truck or restaurant locations!
Next – Rico Peru Food Truck. We wanted to try something a little different and we picked out their Aji de Gallina. It reminded us of a breakfast dish we might have in somewhere like Bermuda or Malaysia. It was alright; not mind-blowingly amazing (see Urban Cowboy above).
Next – beer. Time for some liquid goodness to wash down the good food. I had the pumpkin beer from ClockTower, which was alright. Aaron had a brown ale from Lowertown Brewery, which I did not try. Aaron states it is “pretty standard, nothing special”. Later that day, Aaron tried the Kichesippi Wuchak IPA and it was really good. That’s more like it.
Time for more food – Sula Wok Cart is up next. It’s been a while (as in never) we had Tibetian food, so we decided to go all out. We tried their spicy beef dumplings, curry noodles and beef tacos. The dumplings were special and tasty. I would eat that again. The curry noodles tasted watered down. Not a fan. The tacos were difficult to compare to the amazing shrimp tacos from urban cowboys. Cowboy vs. Asian tacos 1:0.
Next – Angry Dragonz. We tried their pork belly and bbq pork tacos, which were again really good but not as good as the Cowboy. Cowboy vs. Asian tacos 2:0. We were told their pho and chicken skewers were amazing though – maybe next time!
Dessert time! We tried the filled and traditional churros at Mr. Churritos and were pleasantly surprised. The cream-cheese filling is not recommended though. It did not mix with the sweet churros too well. And of course, we had to end off the day with The Merry Dairy and their infamous frozen custard. In an attempt to use up all our tickets, we got their “Lunar Deluxe”, which was of course as amazing as it sounds. It was frozen custard in a delicious waffle cone drizzled with salted caramel. The taste of frozen custard is interestingly similar to ice cream but also different. It is less sweet but more creamy/salty. With the salted caramel, it is a match made in heaven. The cone was the most delicious cone I’ve ever had. I would eat the cone by itself.
Of note: I’ve also tried Gongfu Bao last week at their regular food truck location. Apparently they are experimenting with this hot dog business. I had their Banh Mi (vietnamese sub) and Gongfu ones and was not a big fan. Aaron claims that their regular bao’s (buns) are much better though (think Momofuku buns), so I will wait until those are back and give it a try.
Overall, I was satisfied. Maybe too much so. Others I would have loved to try – chicken skewers at Angry Dragonz, shrimp roll and seafood chowder at Ad Mare, grilled cheese sandwich at The Grilled Cheeserie… Wait, basically everything else that I did not have the chance to try 🙂
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