New York Street Food

Vancouver

At the Vancouver Olympics, street food is available at some of the international pavillions.  It’s not the best street food you’ll ever eat, but it seems worthwhile when you consider the gorgeous setting.

In the Ontario House pavillion, all the items are tapas size and cost $5.  Some of the better offerings were the slider, a smokey mini-burger and Dufflet’s brownie (a well-known Toronto bakery). Jerk-marinated Conestoga pork loin skewers were nicely spiced but reportedly a bit dry; pakoras and duck spring rolls were fine as long as you juiced it up with their sauces.

dim sum at Plaza of Nations

The food court at the Plaza of Nations has a multi-cultural array of foods, and feels like a street food market in Asia.  And in the Yaletown neighborhood of Vancouver, there are stalls set up with a creperie and hot chocolate.

The Olympics doesn’t have to be a rip-off.  This sounds like a good time.

After the positive feedback I received about the kimchi-bulgogi hot dog post on Saturday (including Oleg from Schnitzel & Things‘s breathless question about where he can get one), I did a little more research about fusion hot dogs.  Vancouver seems to have some pretty good ones.

If anyone is going to the Winter Olympics, which start this weekend, you might want to check out their great street food.  Vancouver is a well-known foodie city, with access to a lot of fresh ingredients nearby.  The city also has a very strong Asian influence.

Terimayo

One of the street food favorites is Japa Dog, which has 3 locations on the streets of Vancouver.  One version of the Japa Dog is the Terimayo, an all-beef hot dog smothered in Japanese soy mayo, thick teriyaki sauce, sauteed onions, and a generous sprinkling of nori (seaweed flakes).  There’s also Misomayo, a turkey hot dog dressed with miso-mayo, sesame sauce, and kaiware (bitter daikon sprouts that have a wasabi-hot “kick”), and Orishi, a bratwurst frank loaded with special soy sauce, green onions, and grated daikon.  Wow!

Orishi

For a somewhat less intense, but surely delicious hot dog, there’s the Tandoori Tikka Dog, created by Sam Saleem, who moved to Vancouver from California. His dogs have onions fried in butter covering a chicken or kosher beef sausage with homemade tandoori paste. Sounds pretty good, too.

TandooriTikkaDog

Vancouver 24 hit the streets to “find the top dog” (their pun, not mine).  In addition to the Japa Dog and the Tandoori Tikka Dog, they also included Mr. Tube Steak.  Video below.