We love food and we were intrigued by the promise of “the biggest food truck festival in Canada,” so we decided to take a detour on our way to a family party to check it out and were happy we did!
The Columbia StrEAT Food Truck Festival is an annual event held in downtown New West from 4-10pm. During this time a stretch of about 7 blocks down Columbia Street is invaded by food trucks, live entertainment and tons of people.
Besides food there were many activities to take in including vendor booths with games/prizes, a beer garden, a giant screen playing the live Tragically Hip concert, an artisan market, live music, a chalk stop sidewalk and Maille’s mustard pop up tent where you could sample and test making your own mustard. But the best thing was the entire event was free to attend!
We enjoyed wandering through the artisan market inside the Anvil Centre and sampled some great local products including gin, vodka, wine and beer!
We hadn’t planned on buying anything but couldn’t resist picking up a few bottles to take home plus some fancy soap for our daughter.
Someone told me later that they had a secure package drop off so you didn’t have to carry your loot around – what a great idea!
There were lots of different food choices as a total of 90 food trucks were advertised. Now, we didn’t count to verify but let’s just say there was something for everyone including gluten free and vegan options. The usual favourite food trucks were there like Roaming Dragon, Fliptop Filipino Fusion, Vij’s and Johnny’s Pops and plenty more.
We had heard good things about Tacofino so we patiently stood in what ended up being the longest food truck line up! I ordered their famous fish taco and my husband had their new walking taco. I enjoyed the fish taco because the batter was crispy and the sauce was full of flavour but it was a little hard to eat.
Next time I’m going to try the Nice Vice Cream non-dairy treats.
With so many of the food truck options, live entertainment and the artisan market I would highly recommend attending this event. We’ll come back again next year with a big appetite, more time and good walking shoes.
Review by: Cindy Smith
Photos by: Ron Smith