Feastro the Rolling Bistro

Long before the food cart craze hit Vancouver, the gourmet food truck, where one could find mobile restaurant quality food, was already in existence elsewhere. I had already encountered something similar in San Francisco, where Spencer on the Go was offering gourmet French food. It's been on the Food Network, so it definitely has a following. Now, we have Feastro the Rolling Bistro direct from Sunshine Coast. Setting up its new digs on Thurlow at Cordova, it strives to offer up gourmet food from a catering truck. It is definitely different than most of the other Vancouver street food offerings since it isn'texactly cheap, but the quality of ingredients are high.

With that in mind, I went for Steve's Famous Seafood Chowder which was a rich and creamy concoction consisting of fresh shrimp, scallops, salmon, tuna and oysters served with grilled baguette. The bowl of chowder was so thick with cream and fresh seafood that I could literally stick the spoon in the middle and it would not ever tip over. The thick chowder benefited from the ingredients and had a sweet seafood essence further heightened by plump corn and dill. Although it was not cheap, it was certainly worth the money. I actually didn't hog the whole chowder to myself. I ended up sharing that and a plate of Salmon and Chips with Viv. The salmon was moist and sweet with a crunchy breading that was not greasy. However, the fries were completely oil-logged and not visually appealing. It didn't go down well either. I'm thinking that this may have been a one-off (should've gotten the yam fries instead). Love the subtle tartar sauce though.

Of course we couldn't visit Feastro without one of their tacos. Okay, lemme get this straight first - the tacos here are their twist on the Mexican specialty. Don't expect Al Pastor, Carnitas or my personal favourite, Lengua here. No need to flame them though, they are not a Mexican taco truck and never claim to be. With that in mind, the most interesting one we came across was the Prawn & Grilled Prosciutto Taco. And as the name implies, it consists of the aforementioned ingredients accompanied by organic greens, sour cream, salsa and crispy green onions. I thought the taco was quite pleasant with a nice sweet snap from the prawns and the saltiness from the prosciutto. Despite the appearance of a soft taco, the whole thing held together as we ate it.

Marshmallow decided to go for 2 different tacos, which was a relief for me! Her first was the Sockeye Salmon Taco on a bed of mesclun greens and topped with mango salsa and crispy green onions. She remarked that the salmon was moist and flaky which was complimented by the sweet salsa. A light and refreshing taco. However, I really couldn't get how little actual fish there was in this $8.00 taco. Lastly, her son had the Steak Taco, also on a bed of greens topped with some type of onion marmalade, sour cream and crispy green onions. The boy was sure hungry and attacked it like a neanderthal. Well, it was for the better since the meat was slightly chewy. Other than a grunt of "good", I wasn't sure of the final verdict. However, for the items we did try, they were quite good (fries withstanding). In fact, I can see why they are the "rolling bistro". The food is a cut-above most other cart offerings. With that though, there are higher prices. But I guess you do get what you pay for.

The Good:
- Quality ingredients
- It's pretty gourmet for street food

The Bad:
- Pricey
- Tacos are not very big for the price, especially the fish