On June 7, 2013 a few hundred brave Montrealers weathered the drizzle and headed out to the Sun Life Financial Esplanade at the Olympic Park for the second First Friday of the season. It was our first pilgrimage to take in this gathering of local food trucks and most definitely will not be the last.
We’ve been lucky enough to sample some of Montreal’s most notable food trucks including Grumman’ 78 and Monsieur Crémeux but aside from last year’s Souk at the Just for Laughs festival we haven’t seen them all gathered in one place at one time. While the Souk was an eye-opening and mouth-watering experience, the food truck stakes have drastically increased with the city’s recent legalization of their presence.
While Friday July 5th still feels like ages away (the first Friday of next month), we’re holding on dearly to the memories, both visual and gastronomic, from our recent experience.
Our first stop was a kid-friendly bite at the brand new Chaud Dogs truck. We managed to score the last corn dog with a little help from a foodie friend. The sweetness of the batter was a welcome surprise, as well as the homemade ketchup. We were also privy to sampling the WuTang dog complete with crispy chicken skins as well as the NWA dog with nachos and avocados.
Next, we hit up the new Meatball Montreal truck and were pleased to find a vegetarian option of quinoa meatballs served under a bed of greens with chopped almonds. The P-A & Gargantua truck had a great variety of grilled cheese sandwiches and we opted for the Classic for our littlest foodie who enjoyed it down to the last bite.
With just a bit more room in our bellies, we managed to share the cone fries from Roux as well as a lobster role from Lucille’s.
While the main meal got all of the attention, the waffles from Gaufrabec were certainly tempting as well as the crunchy popcorn-laced, caramel-sauced ice cream from Monsieur Crémeux.
With over 20 food trucks out on the Esplanade there are certainly plenty of new bites for us to try in July. With beer tents and a live DJ on site, now we know to make an entire evening out of it. And while the drizzle may not have been ideal, we know that with a little more sun the lineups would have been lengthy, so we’ll be arriving promptly at 4pm on July 5th to sample some more street food.
