Saturday, May 14th - Dragon Foodtruck - Asian Adventure on Wheels

Roaming Dragon Vancouver Foodtruck

I have an oddly romantic view of food trucks.  Not some cheesy Anne Hathaway movie type of romantic.  I like the idea of people so passionate about food and cooking that they're literally and figuratively taking it to the streets.  These are the lunch trucks of my childhood that park by the construction sites with their greasy sausage rolls and questionable egg salad sandwiches.  Thankfully.  Food trucks have evolved to a level I would never have anticipated.  Scratch cooking, organic ingredients, trained chefs and foodies behind the glass is what you can expect now.  Well, at least in Vancouver this is what you can anticipate.  The coming of the food trucks to the streets of Vancouver was years in the making.  The applications for licenses were numerous.  Yet the citizens did not relent in clamouring for them.  Last year they slowly started to appear all over town.  One of those is so popular and serves such quality food that it was featured on Food TV's Eat St, the Dragon Food Truck.

A well seasoned chef was asked to design the menu for this pan Asian truck and he did not skimp on the number of ingredients or complexity just because it was going to be prepared on a rolling restaurant.  This isn't your typical pre-made steamer trays dim-sum fare you can get in the freezer aisle at TnT.  You can have fresh made Pork Belly Sliders, Bulgogi Tacos, Veggie Bahn Mi sandwiches and Soba Noodles Salad.

D and I followed them to the Trout Lake Farmer's Market on Saturday since we don't work near their work week parking spot on Burrard.  They only have two Vegetarian menu items, the Vietnamese Sub (Bahn Mi) and the Soba Noodle Salad.  I ordered the Vegetarian Bahn Mi and D ordered the Bulgogi Taco and a Pork Belly Slider.

Roaming Dragon Foodtruck - Vegetarian Bahn Mi Sandwich

D's first take was that for their price, they were exceptionally small.  You only get 1 taco and one small slider per order.  Second take was that the amount of meat on the Pork Belly Slider was on the 'chintzy' side.  It was very tasty but the bread to meat ratio was definitely not Atkins friendly.  The Taco had a decent amount of meat on it though and it was well seasoned.  Though again, it was on the small side.

The Bahn Mi was very tasty and bright flavours.  However, for a Vegetarian who dislikes being told that they can have a salad when they find themselves in a very carnivorous establishment, I did find it lacked 'Oomph'.  It had not depth or substance.  Though alot of vegetarians and certainly vegans would not have issue with it.  I just tend to believe that being a vegetarian does not mean I have to eat salad, particularly with such wonderful vegetarian asian options out there like Seitan.

Roaming Dragon Foodtruck - Bulgogi Taco and Pork Belly Slider

Now as far as the quality of the food and the flavours, I enjoyed it.  But I don't believe I would chase it down again..... now the second truck on my Food Truck adventure (next post Coma Food Truck) is a different story, I plan to find it every Wednesday it's in my neighborhood....but that's another post for another day. 


Cost: $$-$$$ (for Food Truck and quantity of food)
Ambiance: It's a truck
Payment: Cash and Credit Cards

Roaming Dragon Food Truck
Location Various
Vancouver, BC
www.roamingdragon.com

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