Food carts come to town part II

And so on to our final lunchtime destination,

'Chinese skewer king'.

 Location: 900 W Hastings, south east corner of Burrard

Situated in a quieter part of town, but still surrounded by lots of business, this is run by two friendly guys. The menu consists of pork, vegetable or tofu skewers in choices of 2 with toasted bread, or 3 alone or 6 with bread. I opted for 3 skewers for $5.50 (the cheapest cart so far!), and chose 2 pork and 1 vegetable.

Neil had to go back to work at this point, so it was up to me to eat lunch no 3. (I only had the smallest bite of the pulled pork sandwich!). I was asked if I wanted spicy or not and opted for spicy, the smell very appealing with that Asian mix of sweet, sour, salty and spicy. I heard one of the owners commenting to another customer about the leanness of the pork and the fact that they had to apply a sauce to keep the meat from being tough. Interesting point. I guess using the prime cuts of pork, beef etc. is just not cost efficient for small businesses who cannot charge the appropriate prices to the customers who want good quality but reasonable food. This is street food, after all.

The skewers were indeed very lean which did mean a slight chewiness yet again. However, the sauce or marinade was a good flavour and it reminded me slightly of curry paste. The vegetable skewer was zucchini, mushroom and red pepper, the mushroom being the star, as always for me, being juicy, meaty and earthy. Overall, this was really good value for money, the meat well flavoured, charred and seasoned, very lean and a nice sauce.

The original street cart sensation in Vancouver: Japadog: Japanese style hot dogs.