As part of the Dine Out Vancouver festivities, a new component called “Street Food City” was introduced this year. It’s a gathering of a number of food carts in Vancouver at the Vancouver Art Gallery plaza for just three days during the DOV period. Thankful to have a boss who enjoys food as much as I do, we made a trip down to Street Food City as part of our team building exercise.
After checking out all the food carts, we have decided to try La Brasserie Street. My boss actually has tried it before, but he did recommend this cart and said he would have it again. For me, sadly I haven’t done my part in visiting all the food carts in town, even though my office is close to many of them, so I was happy to give this a try.
La Brasserie Street
La Brasserie Street is a food cart that belongs to La Brasserie on Davie. Its menu is simple. One sandwich, the Brass Chicken Sandwich, and one dessert, its “World’s Best” Butter Tart. Someone may think that the offering is limited and it’s boring. In my opinion, if you want to be successful, all you need is one item on your menu, and this, is exactly that.
Chef taking orders
Food
We each ordered the sandwich combo (sandwich + drink) and a butter tart. Three items come to $10 including tax. Genius! Easy way to manage transactions and an easy up-sell for those who pay with a $10 bill (imagine “would you like to add the ‘World’s Best’ Butter Tart to your meal? Everything will come to a total of $10) – OK maybe that’s not their intent so I’ll take off my marketing hat now.
Brass Chicken Sandwich
The Brass Chicken Sandwich was very good. It has pieces of meat from their famous rotisserie chicken, along with gravy and crispy onion strings. The chicken was a mix of chicken breast and thighs, and some of my chicken came with skin. The meat was moist and flavourful, thanks to the beer brine. The crispy onion strings were awesome. It added a bit of crunchy texture to sandwich. It’s like onion rings on the side but they just add them to your sandwich for you so you only need to carry one thing. In addition, you can also add spicy mustard or grainy Dijon to your sandwich. I chose the grainy Dijon. Personally I didn’t think it did much for me. I would’ve been okay eating the sandwich alone.
Brass Chicken Sandwich with Grainy Dijon
By the way, in case you can’t tell from the picture, the sandwich is huge. I was stuffed by the time I finished my sandwich, so I brought the butter tart back to the office. As my afternoon snack, I reheat my Butter Tart in the toaster-oven for a bit, made it nice and warm, and you can smell the richness in the pastry from miles away! The crust was light and fluffy and buttery, and tart filling was good too. After a few bites it may become too sweet for some, but it was the perfect amount of sugar to push me through the afternoon.
“World’s Best” Butter Tart
Street Food City
I went on the last day of the Street Food City event, and the first and last dry day of the event. Therefore, there was a huge turnout, even though we arrived just shortly after 11:30am. Line-ups varied from cart to cart. Some carts had a longer line because of its popularity, or simply its lengthy process to prepare the food.
Crowd @ Street Food City
A seating area was set up under the tents, with heated lamps all around to keep diners warm on a crisp winter day. Personally I think they should bring this concept back when summer is here. It’s a great way to unite food cart lovers, so just people who love food and/or love to try food carts. It’ll be like the food cart edition of Richmond Night Market or Vancouver Christmas Market. I truly enjoyed seeing the variety of food carts now available in Vancouver and I think we need an avenue to celebrate that.
Tables at Street Food City
Long line up for TacoFino
SUPER long line up for Mom’s Grilled Cheese Truck
Final Thoughts
I would love to have tried other carts too, but I think it’s worth the trip just to have the Brass Chicken Sandwich. It may look ordinary, but the flavour combination worked pretty well and the quality of the sandwich is definitely of good value.
La Brasserie Street
At West Georgia Street & Granville Street, Vancouver
778-989-4883
www.facebook.com/LaBrasserieStreet
VanFoodies.com 
Leave a Reply