Koi Gourmet - Toronto Food Trucks

The other day at the Stouffville Food Truck Frenzy Festival, I had the opportunity to try out some of the the food at my friend's brand new soft opening of their food truck.  Koi Gourmet Food Truck just opened very recently this past summer and garnered a lot of attention through creative and heavy marketing.  They serve a mixture of poutines, soft tacos and fish and chips at their truck and judging by their line-ups, their initial launch has so far been a complete success.  Now blogging about a good friend's food could be somewhat of a tricky proposition as one says however I told them I am going to be very honest and that was exactly what they wanted.

There were two items that I really wanted to try as I was standing and waiting in line.  The first thing I order was their Chuck Beef Poutine and the other was their signature Nee Nee Pork Belly Taco.  By the time I got there, their fish and chips were already sold out as many of the customers in front of me were buying them up in bulk.  Nevertheless, I was still very content with the purchases that I made that evening.

When it came out of the kitchen food truck, the Nee Nee Pork Belly Taco looked good and I could tell you it tasted very good.  I could see there were some mango slices and large amounts of hot steamy pork belly meat inside their taco.  There were also some green onions, parsley, tea leaves and carrot slices that gave the taco some color also a good vegetarian compliment to the rest of the meaty taco.  Draped with a special sauce, this taco was mouthwatering and tasted absolutely amazing.  Each bite had a bit of a tangy to it due to the presence of the sauce and mango slices inside the taco.  Each bite was full of flavor where one could taste all the sweetness, sourness and saltiness of the taco all at once.  What a particularly liked about it was that each bite had plenty of juices to it as well.  It was not a dry taco by any stretch which made the taco extra special.  The proportions were just perfect, not too many pieces of meat and not too many pieces of vegetable in it.  At $8.00 a taco, one may think it was expensive however I think it was a real steal.  Other food trucks had their sandwiches going for as high as $12 and I can guarantee you it did not have as much substance as this one.

The Chcuk Beef Poutine came out almost near sizzling on our paper bowl.  The one thing that separates these guys from the rest of the competition was that rather than use simple gravy on top of their fries as many of the other stalls that I could see would do, they actually had large chucks of beef and potatoes on top of their fries.  The fact that the plate was super hot allowed the cheese to slowly melt into the fries which made it extra tasty.  No extra salt and peppers were needed and to add a bit of extra color and healthy flavor to it, they added some parsley, carrot slices, green onions and a piece of seaweed to it as well.  This was very filling and at $8.00 per dish, it certainly was well worth the price.

In the end, the food was very, very good. We also tried out a couple of the other food trucks however this one, out of the twenty or so trucks there that evening, was the only one that had that bit of Asian fusion mixed in with their tacos and sandwiches.  Many of the other trucks offered meat sandwiches and poutine that were pretty common and looked pretty common to me. Koi Gourmet's unique brand really showed from the evidence of the long lineup at their food truck.  These guys wanted something different and they certainly put a lot of heart and soul into their food.  If you follow their website and/or their twitter feed you can go and try their food out and their next pit stop.  Friends or no friends, this was a no-doubter.  It was a definite 5 out of 5.

Koi Gourmet
http://torontofoodtrucks.ca/koi-food-truck-toronto