Hola Amigos, welcome to the culinary stylings of Adam Hynam-Smith and his Gastronomo Vagabundo food wagon.
Niagara is just the latest destination for the culinary food truck trend to stop at. Food trucks have been around forever. Ever since the invention of the wheel, man has learned to roll his food around and then sell it to his fellow man on the street. These days you mostly find burgers, dogs and fries as well as other simple street fare, like say ice cream; but lately the trend is to cook more culinary-type foods out of these grease kitchens on wheels, minus the grease and add fresh, more healthy fare … Gone are the burgers, dogs, onion rings and piles of poutine, welcome, in this case, to the gourmet taco.
Before you shout out, “I’ve had tacos out of a wagon before”, keep in mind that the taco is merely the vehicle to get the food to your mouth – and this is not your usual taco. Tonight, Flat Rock Cellars brings another first to Canadian wineries.
Before you shout out, “I’ve had tacos out of a wagon before”, keep in mind that the taco is merely the vehicle to get the food to your mouth – and this is not your usual taco. Tonight, Flat Rock Cellars brings another first to Canadian wineries.
“Innovation is always important to me,” says Flat Rock owner Ed Madronich. Ed equates the gourmet food truck trend to the way we used to “do” theatre. Theatre used to be an event: you dressed up, went out fore dinner and took in the show – it was an event, an almost black-tie-type of affair. But today we dress down: shorts, jeans, t-shirts and polos complete with sandals on our feet and yet we “are getting more and more demanding of our food – local, fresh ingredients – but we don’t want to get all dressed up to enjoy it.”
In steps Aussie Adam, with his Canadian counterpart Tamara (they met in Barcelona of all places), and together they have created the first culinary wagon on wheels in Canada and Flat Rock is proud to host them each and every weekend throughout the summer.
Tonight was the official launch of “Gastronomo Vagabundo”, which Adam describes as “Really good food in a non-pretentious way.” And he’s right about that. On his ever changing menu (which on some days changes hourly depending on what’s growing in the Flat Rock vegetable garden) we sampled the Flat Rock Garden Fresh Salad, complete with a thing called a Mouse Melon (sourced from Tree & Twig Heirloom Vegetable Farm), it’s the size of a marble, looks like a watermelon but tasted like a cucumber. A Bangkok Dangerous Taco: with homemade authentic Thai coconut Red Curry marinated beef short rib. A Don Caprese Taco: this one has a Canadian twist on a Italian-Asian dish, tempura dipped and friend mozzarella cheese; and for dessert: Jordan peaches and tropical fruit with a sweet chili salt dip (it smells fishy due to the ground up shrimp, sounds odd but it is really very delicious).
All these dishes were paired with Flat Rock whites: two Rieslings, a Twisted and the 2007 Chardonnay … I also got a taste of the 2008 Gravity Pinot Noir, which is tasting better than ever.
To experience the new wave of food for yourself, head to Flat Rock on the weekends this summer, for casual South East Asian influenced dining, all served up in a casual atmosphere (how else do you describe the taco) … no jacket (or tie) required.
1 comment:
A gourmet food truck? Wow, I would love to sample that sometime!
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