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Cuisine a la cart
RON BULL / TORONTO STAR
A lamb kibbeh pita takes a little work back in the kitchen, but Pat Riley says the Lebanese dish is great street food that could take off in, say, the Distillery District.
Apr 21, 2007 04:30 AM
Matthew Chung
Staff Reporter
This might be the start of a street food revolution.
Toronto City Councillor John Filion's first move to bring more ethnically diverse street food to Toronto may sound like a grander version of Taste of the Danforth.
But behind that festive plan are some high-profile chefs who have joined Filion in turning up the heat on the enemy – provincial food regulations that date from 1984.
"This city is trying to be world class, but on this subject we are so ghetto," Guy Rubino, executive chef at the restaurant Rain, told the Toronto board of health Monday.
Filion got the board's approval to ask the province to consider changing its rules to allow more variety on the street. He has also approved a plan to hold a special event or two this summer that would showcase the possibilities for Toronto street food.
Mobile food preparation premises, which include vending carts and burger and chip wagons, must meet restaurant standards, plus added requirements.
Where a cart vendor trying to serve empanadas or falafels runs into trouble is a subsection that says "food shall be prepared within the premises and served to the public by persons working within the premises."
Basically, you can't prepare anything outdoors – at a vending cart – except "where food preparation is limited to the reheating of pre-cooked meat products in the form of wieners or similar sausage products to be served on a bun."
Those regulations baffle these six chefs, who have tasted everything from frog legs porridge to dog meat stew in their travels around the world.
The Star asked them to carve out their plan for improving Toronto's street food.
Pat Riley, 41 - Chef at Perigee Restaurant
With a Lebanese mother and a Canadian diplomat father, Pat Riley hopped around the world — Singapore, Colombia and England — before settling into Toronto.
No wonder he’s taken with the idea of a food scene where you don’t have to settle down to eat.
“In Singapore, in the day time they don’t even stop to eat,†Riley says. “They grab something here, they grab something there.
“We can only ever get better here when we have more types of choice.â€
Riley thinks vendors would help keep people moving to see Toronto’s sights. He believes tourists now are disappointed with what they find on Toronto’s streets.
“We have a lot of people coming here for tourism and I think it’s a big let down when you’re walking around and all you can get is a hot dog,†he says. “People view us as a very kind of distinguished city, I think, and we don’t have (street food) to match it.â€
Kibbeh, minced lamb stuffed inside a bulgur pastry, is a common food in Lebanon that Riley says would be great tasting and easy to carry if provincial regulations were changed.
He thinks standards should be maintained, like those set for restaurants that regulate the storage and handling of food, but laws should be opened up to allow more than just weiners and sausages be sold.
“I think the mechanism for delivering the thing is not what’s important, as long as it’s monitored,†he says. “When it becomes available you’ll see all kinds of people rush to do it. There’ll be good and bad things like there always are, but there’ll be more variety for sure.â€
Favourite Street Eat: Grilled Kibbeh. Considered to be Lebanon’s national dish. Ground lamb meat, peppers and onions mixed with bulgur wheat, a pinch of ground cinammon and chopped parsley, flattened into a 2’ ball and stuffed with a date and pine nut mix.
Susur Lee, 49 - Chef/owner Susur and Lee
It was crunchy and salty, like popcorn.
But a giant black beetle isn’t exactly what Susur Lee considers great theatre fare.
But this was Thailand, and Lee just had to try the fried beetles, next to a bucket of fried worms and other insects.
“It’s not like I woke up in the middle of the night needing another one,†says the Hong Kong native.
That’s the strangest street food Lee ever tasted, but he’s also been smitten by fried stingray in chili sauce on a banana leaf in Singapore. In Toronto, Lee says he’s concerned that his teenage boys have no healthy options if they’re looking for a quick bite on the street.
“In my mind I say, `Street food? It’s junk food,’†Lee says. “You want to serve street food, it has to be good and clean food.â€
He’d put slow-cooked vegetables on the streets, along with fresh sandwiches and Asian salads. But he’s really excited to see what vendors might do.
Toronto’s street food has the potential to be internationally recognized, he says.
“Every city in the world, they should have something to highlight what they have,†Lee says. “Paris, you’ve got fashion, you’ve got perfume.
“Every city has its specialty of highlights and I think Toronto should have that too.â€
Whatever the changes, Lee says they must be done with the environment in mind. He favours street foods that don’t require much packaging.
Favourite street eat: Grilled skate (young stingray) on a banana leaf in Singapore. This seafood is served with a spicy sauce that includes hot red bird’s eye peppers, calamansi limes, shallots and dried shrimp paste.
Didier Leroy, 51 - Chef/owner Didier Restaurant
The first hot dog Didier Leroy tasted was also the last.
“The relish, I think, is very disgusting,†says the French-born chef. Leroy says he’s prepared to stand on the front lines to bring Toronto more diverse street eats.
If the provincial regulations change, Didier says he’d set a crepe cart out front of his restaurant. Passersby might even get their ham and cheese crepe served to them by Leroy himself.
“I think this is a part of the show,†he says. “I think the idea is for people to see us doing something like that, to attract them. To show them that for good and healthy (food), the chefs, they are co-operating.â€
Crepes, he says, “can feed you but you don’t have to become fat with it.â€
Leroy, who came to Toronto from his home country of France 20 years ago, says opening up Toronto’s street food is a chance to not only showcase the city’s culture but also to show off made-in-Ontario produce.
In France you can get fresh-squeezed fruit juice from local producers, he says. “We live here and what we want is to promote the produce we have here.â€
Favourite street eat: Crepes. Served around France, a crêpe complète containing ham, shredded cheese, and an egg provides a filling, nutritious lunch. Sweet tooths will go for dessert crepes with fruit or chocolate.
Chris McDonald, 49 - Chef/owner Cava
A hot dog is “perfect street food,†says Chris McDonald, a mustard squirt of irony in his tone.
After all, it can be eaten standing up, held in one hand and it leaves no mess behind.
“But it’s limited,†McDonald says, “when you can take a plane and fly for an hour or less to New York and get anything you want on the street.â€
McDonald, who worked as a chef in Mexico for two years, says healthier choices such as tacos or shishkabobs wrapped in a bun could spice up the city’s street life and heat up its tourism industry.
“It would better reflect the multicultural mosaic that we have here, which is evident in the markets, but not on the street,†McDonald says. “We are very impoverished, from a tourism level, here.
“I’ve been in the restaurant business for 25 years and compared to Montreal, for instance, there’s not really a lively street scene here. And I think when there’s street food ..... it means people stop and linger.â€
McDonald supports thorough inspections of vendors selling these new foods, but he says that with ice or a refrigerator at a cart, “I don’t see it as a safety issue any more than there’s a safety issue in restaurants.â€
There are lots of tasty drinks McDonald had in Mexico that he thinks could be a hit here, such as horchata, a rice drink blended with sugar and cinnamon. But he says a Corona would suit him just fine. “I would love to see a future where on a hot summer day in Toronto in Nathan Phillips Square, for instance, you could get marinated ceviche and a chilled beer. â€
Favourite street eat: Anticuchos. These spicy skewered kebabs, made with beef hearts, squab hearts, a lean leg of venison or in a vegetarian version, are sold from push carts throughout Peru.
Guy Rubino, 39 - Chef/owner Rain restaurant
At a night market in Hong Kong, Guy Rubino held a lacquered duck head while a street vendor and his family watched with eager anticipation.
"I took it and I looked at it, and said `Oh my God, this is it,'" Rubino said. "I bit into it and it was really good. You bite it like it's corn on the cob."
Rubino, who co-hosts the Food Network show Made to Order with brother Michael, has been among the most vocal advocates for diverse street food.
His show has taken him across Asia, where the street-food markets are vibrant. Rubino says Toronto could be like that, with people out walking and enjoying the city instead of making a beeline to their destination.
"All I'm really hoping for is we see the beautiful diversity of what our culture in Toronto is about," says Rubino. "If we just lift this stupid law, you'll see what Toronto is made of."
He envisions a system where street food is made from scratch in a kitchen and kept warm at the vending cart until it's served.
In Singapore, "in most cases the stalls are so small it is impossible to do it on-site. The idea is you get a home-cooked meal on the fly ... served on the street. That is why this is so exciting; if this law changes we could have the same opportunity."
Rubino says the vendors and consumers would share a sense of pride in the city.
In Asia, street vendors are characters, the purchase of their food a "humane and connecting exchange."
"They're proud of what they do, as opposed to walking up to a hot dog stand and ... guy just hands it to you, you exchange the money, put on your condiments and walk away."
Favourite street eat: Red Snapper Fish Curry Singapore style. The snapper fillets are cooked on a skillet in a complex coconut-milk sauce with mussels and mangosteens.