Sweet Potato Frites to die for: Feastro the Rolling Bistro food truck

Feastro, the Rolling Bistro

Thurlow and Cordova Street
Vancouver Canada

With Vancouver’s dramatic mountains and iconic Olympic cauldron in the backdrop, the bright purple Feastro food truck is hard to miss. Parked beneath the tall office towers on the corner of Thurlow and Cordova Street, downtown, Feastro, the Rolling Bistro hails from my old stomping ground of the Sunshine Coast. Serving up fresh seafood, incredible sweet potato fries and cold refreshing drinks, this truck is one of the best ones this season.

We took advantage of Vancouver’s sunny and warm weather to eat outside near the water. We left the office before 12 noon, but a long line was already starting to form at Feastro. This place is popular! Thanks to the wonderful weather, and lively music blaring from Feastro’s speakers, the wait in line was actually quite pleasant. Plus, Feastro’s menu is so large for a food cart, that it takes a while to decide what to order. Feastro also features a Fresh Sheet that changes on a weekly basis.

We decided on the Fanny Bay Oysters that were breaded and fried. Due to Feastro’s high customer traffic, we waited quite a while for these oysters, almost 15 minutes.

Now get ready to cringe because this is my story that goes along with these delectable oysters. After our long wait, we were pretty famished, and anxious to taste these fried, plump oysters. We sat down amongst the other customers on the nearby benches. Keep it mind that although sunny, it was a very windy day, and I’m hazy on the exact sequence of events, but I think I must have swatted at the napkin on my lap as the wind blew because in the next second, the back of my hand had hit the plate of oysters and the plate flipped and flew. My pants were covered in sauce and the biggest, plumpest oyster landed with a thud on the floor. We managed to save the other 3 oysters, thank goodness! Now, embarrassing factor aside, how would you, my dear readers apply the 5-second rule at this point? Does it matter that this is outdoors, and the food is on concrete? Does it matter that at least 10 strangers are sitting around you? And lastly, does it matter that it’s a fried oyster? I was too distraught to take a photo of our actual fallen oyster but see below for the sad, oily smear stain on the concrete where it landed.

It made me extra sad to have dropped that oyster after I discovered that they tasted amazing. Crispy on the outside, and moist and succulent on the inside. Even underneath the batter, the oysters tasted fresh and clean. These are definitely comparable to the famed oysters at Rodney’s Oyster House.

Having the sun on our backs, and also watching everyone walk away with glistening cool cups of Strawberry Mango Lemonade slush, we had to order that too. This was one of the items on Feastro’s Fresh Sheet. Prepared right in front of us in a blender next to the order window, the frothy, refreshing drink definitely hit the spot on this warm day. The natural sweetness from the fruit came through, and I could taste the tartness in the strawberries and also felt the hit of sour from the lemon. This was a great, cool combination of sweet and sour with crushed ice.

Feastro is famous for their tacos. We ordered the Prawn and Prosciutto taco.  The prawns in this taco are gigantic, and also cooked perfectly: tender and moist. Their texture was a great contrast to the crisp prosciutto, which was not overly salty but flavourful enough to compliment the sweetness in the prawns. The flavours in the prawns and the prosciutto were further enhanced by the generous dollop of sour cream in this taco.

Our next taco was the Sockeye Salmon, which like the other tacos is served with lettuce, salsa and crispy seasoned onions. The salmon was incredibly moist and flaky, just falling apart at the prick of my fork. The fish tasted very fresh and flavourful. It was too difficult to eat this delicate fish taco with my hands (plus, I am traumatized by my oyster spilling disaster!) so I used a knife and fork to carefully dig into this taco. If you are dedicated to eating tacos as how they should be eaten, folded and held in your hands, then you’ll be happy to know that the taco shell, even thought it’s a soft shell,  is very thick and sturdy. The shells are grilled, making their texture a little firmer and strong enough to hold all the delicious ingredients.

The Sweet Potato Frites are the most incredible fries I have ever tasted. I am not exaggerating. It’s just always shocking to me that gourmet food can be served out of a mobile kitchen like a truck or cart. I have to admit that we only ordered this item because we saw that everyone else was ordering it. We found out soon enough that not only are the fries gorgeous to look at in their deep golden glory with accordion crinkles, all piled high on top of each other in a mound of goodness but they also tasted just as good as they looked.

The fries were very crispy on the outside, even though we waited for a little while before eating them. The fries were crispy to the very last one at the bottom of the pile. Lightly salted on the outside, the fries were sweet on the inside, tasting faintly syrupy in that addictive and comforting way that fries always do to complete a meal or satisfy a guilty pleasure.

Usually opened on weekdays, Feastro is open this Saturday, May 21 from 11 am to 3 pm ish, so make sure you swing by and try their amazing menu!