Nals and Kells were on Vancouver Island for Kells’s family stuff in early September.

We ate at Red Fish Blue Fish Food Truck in Victoria, BC.

We ordered: tempura battered Fish n Chips (Halibut) and a Tacone (albacore tuna). Halibut tasted good but a bit soggy. Tacone was delightful with perfectly seared tuna. Tortilla was a bit sticky. Maybe if it was warmed, it would’ve been better.

Kells had been here before with The Mr. He enjoyed the Halibut & chips as well.

Recommendation

We’d probably come here again… if we were in the area, and hungry. The setting was gorgeous. And we’ll be sure to have ice cream bars from Rogers Chocolates!

This is a special ed of Food Truck Reviews.

We started off with Things to Do in Portland. We will continue today with a summary of our food tour.

Farm Boy Drive In

A sleepy eatery in an odd duck corner of Olympia. Here the corn dogs are crispy fresh, the official certificate of The Daughters of American Revolution has made an impression (literally & figuratively) on the wall and where a visible minority is rarely seen. Staff were nice. Corn dog was corny tasty. And, we had that feeling that a climactic horror movie scene was about to unfold.  We made sure not to overstay¹.

Lompoc Tavern

Is right around the corner from Pecularium. Large airy tavern with a terrace, and lots of nooks and crannies to squirrel away into. We had beef burger sliders (delicious) and Southwest Chicken salad (lovely spicy dry rub on grilled chicken that crisped up real good under the hot loving grill. And, this fit in quite nicely with the greens and other healthy crap. With numma nums dressing².)

Lima Peruvian Restaurant

We’ve never had Peruvian food so this was a delight. We ordered Ají de Gallina . This is a Creole⁴ dish consisting of shredded strips of chicken cooked in a creamy sauce. Sauce contains ají⁵ and milk. It is accompanied by potatoes, white rice, hard-boiled egg and olives3. To Mr. Nals and I, this dish sounded very different from anything we’ve tried. It had a rich mouthfeel, but wasn’t overwhelmed with a fatty taste. It was smooth creamy perfection with different bites of chicken, potato or egg inside. Also had some wine to give it complexity. Fair warning: this dish was not made to feast your eyes.

Our next dish Bisteck a la Chorillana is described as “Fried steak smothered with sauteed onions & tomatoes served with rice and fried potatoes.” This dish had more pungeant flavour so it was a great contrast to the chicken dish. Smoky grilled flavour, acidic, delicious.

San Francisco Mexicana Tienda
Facebook and Menu

We didn’t take pictures but in the deli section, we ordered Taquitos and Tostado. Amazing fresh ingredients, crispy, flavourful. It is so worth it to come here just to eat, nevermind their glorious market area where you can buy groceries, snacks, hot sauces and drinks.

Food Pods

…are a convenient gathering of food trucks in parts of downtown Portland. The Mr and I visited 2 of them.

Phat Blue Buddha

We got the Korean Beef & Rice. The meat was tender, flavourful. The whole dish was perfection. The chef-owner is super friendly and apparently spent some time in B.C.

Don Jalapeno Mexican Food

Mmm delicious Tacos. Tender tasty meat, crispy fresh veg and tortilla were magnificent! And reasonably priced so you can try a few different ones without breaking the bank.

These are just a few places that we tried in Portland, Oregon in August.

Have you tried any of these places?

Footnotes
1 A bit of artistic license. But don’t they say art imitates life?
2 In Amur’ca, the portions and salads are very different from Vancouver’s. Ask for dressing on the side unless you like globs of gloop.
3 You may have noticed that Lima’s menu does not list this dish. I remembered the name of the dish and so I went off-roading on The Google. I found a description on Adventure Life.
4 Creoles in Peru? Yessuh!
5 WTF is a Scoville unit?

This post is based on the Carnaval del Sol, which is a spicy festival for the Latin Americas.

.   .  . L  a s t   year we tried

This year we tr i e d .  .   .

Cubana BBQ

These guys were not ready at 1 pm when we came by. I probably waited an hour for the food.  They had lots of staff, who were all working hard.  But they didn’t communicate with the crowd. Cubano sandwich was good but maybe had a quarter cup of protein for a huge hoagie-sized bun. We ordered beef for our other dish, and this was the size of a deck of cards. (Others ordered chicken which was an entire leg. It barely fit in the box!) Beef was a bit tough. But both dishes were tasty.

Portions were disappointingly small.  I don’t think this place was worth the wait.  Next time, I will go when there is no line up, and defo order the pollos!

Mi Casa Mexicana

We ordered the tamale (jalapeno & cheese), cochinita pibil and pambazo. We’ve had tamales before but not like these ones. As we sat down, a woman excitedly asked us where we got the “authentic Mexican food”. Simply fantastic food! You must try.

Find Mi Casa Mexicana

Cocadas Coconut Smoothies & More… (Venezuela)

Festival Review

Nals and the Mr have gone the last few years. We are pleased to see that the Carnaval has gotten bigger and better organized (from its grassroots in Trout Lake).

Last year, the weather was hot AF and the main stage was right in the middle of the eating area.  It was hard to sit and chat, as the music was blaring.

Footnotes

1 aka yuka, manioc, Brazilian arrowroot. Mmm this is also a staple of Fijians. Read more

For more info on food trucks:
This NPO helps the food truck industry.
This app helps folks to locate a particular food truck on any given day.

Mr. Nals & I decided to venture out for Canada Day. As we were hungry for lunch, we decided to try TLC Poutine and The Frying Pan.

TLC Poutine

They’ve got a few different kinds of … you guessed it: poutine! Poutine originated in our very own Quebec. Traditionally, it is a plate of hot potato fries topped with squeaky cheese curds and hot gravy.

And paying a non-homage to our fine-frogger friends on C-Day, we decided to get The El Mexicano. It’s got the usual suspects: seasoned ground beef, sour cream, tomatoes and cheese. It was hot, crispy and tasty. Other topper options are Montreal Smoked Meat, BBQ, etc.
The acronym TLC is not for the compassion phrase or the movie or the musical group… it stands for Tin Lizzy Confessions. They’ve got a range of trucks that feature various things like Donut Glazed Grilled Cheese, Fhat Dawgs & Wiggle Chips and Fish & Chicks & Poutine.

→ Find them here.

Festivals and events are an awesome one-stop exposure to a variety of food trucks.
But, the selection diminishes when you weed out the mundane lemonade, hot dog and potato tornados… as such, the food line ups for the non-mundane were crazy long.

So we left for greener pastures and stumbled upon the FRYING PAN, a few blocks away³.

We ordered the Crazy Burger. This is a big juicy piece of fried chicken (white meat) on a soft bun with shredded, dressed cabbage. This is the “crazy” spicy burger which has a burn that comes a bit late to the show, and lingers . It was delicious, crispy and hot. Delightful.
If you like spicy food, you will find this burger at a medium scoval² level. That is, you feel the burn but it’s not ear-popping-get-me-some-cold-ass-milk-!²

Staff was friendly. Totally appreciate that it’s made-to-order but it would’ve been awesome to know that we would have to wait >20 minutes for our order.
→ Find them here FB or on IG @theFryingPan604

Conclusion

We’d probably try the TLC Poutine truck again… but dang there are so many other trucks out here!
We’d absolutely visit The Frying Pan again. We’d also love to try their Korean BBQ rice bowl, hand squeezed organic¹ lemonade and yuzu tea.

Leave us a comment below.

Which food trucks have you tried?

Which ones would you like to see us review?

Footnotes
¹ In theory, organic is good. Organic to N&K means grown like we would in our own backyards – outside with little-to-no pesticides, and minimal chemical processing. We like the idea of “organic” because the only junk that we want is in our trunks. Legally, organic has different meanings so make sure you check out that legal whatnot.
²Scoval units measure the heat levels in a particular pepper. And though milk sounds odd, something neutralizes the heat. (That’s why raita accompanies Indian food and sour cream accompanies Mexican food.)
³An idea for those food truck owners who don’t get into a festival or event… just park outside, a few blocks out, but on the potential route of pedestrians.