Wheely GOOD EATS
East Coast food trucks BY DARCY RHYNO
N
ot sure I can get my mouth open wide enough, but I’m gonna give it my best shot. One of the three lobster rolls being handed from the Peggy’s Cove Lobster food truck window has my name on it. Even better, I get to dine al fresco in one of the most scenic locations on the East Coast. It’s February, the time of the great, month-long Nova Scotia Lobster Crawl festival and the middle of lobster season. I’m standing just steps from a wharf where live lobster is landed daily.
I’m all in for this year’s Lobster Crawl, with a face painting of the red crustacean on my cheek and a new pair of mittens, each with a lobster knit onto the back. Just as I get my mitts around one of those fat lobster rolls, food truck owner Peter Richardson suggests we grab a few pics of the delicious looking trio. Reluctantly, I place my roll with the others on the picnic table so we can snap a few quick shots and post them. With our food truck fare blowing up on social media, we tuck our phones away and dig in.
A world of flavours Street food is my thing. Everywhere I go, I seek out the open-air foods unique to the destination. I’ve dined on herby lamb kabobs in Athens, burn-your-face-off spicy falafels in Amsterdam, piping hot boiled peanuts in Georgia and loaded noodle bowls from soup carts in Bali. Still, the sheer number, variety, quality, creativity and even humour of Atlantic Canadian food trucks puts the street food scene here on par with any other location. At least 50 of these “non-staurants” roam urban streets and rural roads while others have long been ensconced on their favourite corner or roadside pull-off. The chip wagon is the original food truck, and the oldest in North America is right here. Mike and Marielle Yorke have
been serving up piping hot batches of fries from their Glace Bay Chip Wagon for over 30 years. The truck itself dates from 1942 and is still equipped with its original gas burner used in the field during World War II. Everyone knows the blue wagon for its chubby Belgian-style fries. It’s a fixture in the community. Lots of other chip wagons are fixtures on their favourite vending spots in other communities as well—Bud the Spud on Spring Garden Road in Halifax, Yes Bye Fries by the side of the road in Fredericton Junction and for a quarter century, Ziggy Peelgood’s—now with three chip trucks running the streets, in St. John’s, Newfoundland. Peelgood’s specializes in perfect French fries as a hearty lunch or as the foundation for a deep, delicious poutine or a mess of fish and chips. At the other end of the spectrum, some food trucks specialize in out-of-the-box fine dining gone mobile. Nomad Gourmet on the Halifax waterfront thinks nothing of offering frog legs on the same menu as their Dirty Pig Burger. Others take to the streets with that famous and lively East Coast sense of humour on full display. Oh My Cheeses of Port Rexton, Newfoundland serves grilled cheese sandwiches hot off the grill like The Kevin Bacon, The Pickle and The Hot Mess. In The Gull Island Grilled Cheese, creamy
DANIELLE LETHBRIDGE
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ATLANTIC PROVINCES
