Passers-by stop at a chipwagon at Bank and Argyle streets. The city has promised residents more options after approving 20 new street food locations for next summer.
Hotdogs and sausages topped with mustard and relish and garnished with onions. Salty fries soaked in vinegar or covered in gravy and slowly melting cheese curds.
A new municipal street food selection panel wants these classic street eats swapped for “healthy, innovative and diverse food options,” according to an October report from the Community and Protective Services committee. But healthier alternatives can’t take the heat of the street food industry.
Literally.
The chip trucks that line Bank Street are too small and too hot to handle much beyond hotdogs, sausages, and fries, says street food vendor Bao Linh. He would know. Fifteen years in the business and despite his Vietnamese roots, his Bank Street chip truck has remained staunchly in line with street eats tradition.
“If you have a chip truck, the best thing to do, you sell poutine, hotdogs, fries, hamburgers,” says Linh.
Because when it comes to cooking in a truck, size matters.
Permit holders asked for larger trucks, according to the report, and on Oct. 24 their wish was granted.
City council amended the business licensing bylaw that mandated a truck’s exterior had to be one metre wide or less, increasing the maximum width to 1.2 metres on a case-by-case basis says Philip Powell, manager of licensing, permits and markets for the city.
This extra space gives trucks more cooking and refrigeration room, says Powell, which are vital to healthier choices.
Linh’s truck has a propane-powered fridge he says works for foods that will be cooked, like hotdogs and sausages, but not for much else.
“So if you carry milk, it’s no good,” Linh says. “The temperature is not cold enough to protect milk.”
While vendors are happy with the new size, not all are fans of the new selection panel.
The panel of five represents the Ottawa Hotel, Motel and Restaurant Association, the Canadian Culinary Foundation (Ottawa Branch), Savour Ottawa, Just Food, and the Ottawa Board of Health. It will evaluate vendors’ menus when they apply for a new space and have the final say on any menu changes.
Linh refused to comment on the city influencing what vendors sell, but vendor Terry Scanlon was more vocal. A near-permanent fixture on the corner of Bank Street and Laurier Avenue for 30 years, Scanlon told councillors the idea of a panel dictating what vendors could sell concerned him.
But for some, healthier street eats in Centretown sounds pretty good, panel-dictated or not.
Avid sushi fan Zineb Adref says hotdogs are the first things that come to mind when someone says street food. But she’s not a fan, and she’d like to see a little more variety.
“Sushi, I guess, more vegetarian meals,” she said. “Anything other than hotdogs.”
Dayvid Ahmadi would also like to see healthier options on the menu.
But, he says, he’s not sure how street vendors could prepare something like shawarma in a chip truck. And Adref has her doubts that healthier street foods will become as popular as the infamous street meats.
Vendors interested in changing the face of Ottawa’s street eats, one menu at a time, have until Dec. 15 to apply for one of the 20 new spaces the city council approved last month.