Deadbeetz Food Truck

Address: Behind the Save On Foods Memorial Arena
Phone: (250) 889-8500
Website: http://www.deadbeetz.com/
Price: ~$10 per sandwichy thing
Notes: A quirky food truck serving up fresh(ly undead) food. Cash only.

Deadbeetz food truck has been on my radar for a while now.  The woman behind the cart, Chef Karrie Hill, did a lot of crowd fundraising to help get her truck up and running, using both an Indiegogo campaign and a micro loan from Community Micro Lending. Initially I thought her food was going to be just vegetarian, but since launching I realized that she has several things on the menu that are meat-centric! Best of both worlds, I say! The menu is appropriately small - just a handful of tasty, unique items that she changes up regularly. The standard side seems to be sticking around, however: beet and yam chips with a spicy aioli.

Her truck can usually be found parked behind the Save On Foods arena in a little cluster of food carts that has emerged there (her partners at the time of writing this included regulars such as Tacofino and Dognation), although she has also been joining her fellow food truck vendors at some of the festivals to dish out food to hungry masses there.

Side note: check in on Friday July 26th when Chef Karrie joins city Councillor Lisa Helps and myself to talk about the politics of our emerging Food Truck scene on the Food Nerd Podcast.

Food:
July 17, 2013

After hearing Karrie describe her cashew burger on the podcast recording in the morning I convinced my coworker to stop by the food cart stop before we headed off to our meeting downtown. The vegetarian burger patty is made with chickpeas and cashews, and the texture is very light and fluffy and makes no attempt to replicate the texture of meat. In some ways it kind of reminded me of hummus, although far less garlicky! The fresh salsa and what she described as "saanich sauce" as toppings were a nice combination of toppings. I got the beet & yam chips on the side and was surprised to discover I liked them just as much standalone as I did with the dip. That being said, I found the aioli to be a bit salty for my taste. 

June 19, 2013

After watching the twitter feed from Deadbeetz slowly move from fundraising to looking for space to being open for business I was stoked to check out the truck when I was downtown visiting the Public Market early on a Wednesday morning. I snuck in an early lunch just as they opened and opted for the butter paneer. It was very creamy without being too heavy or dense, and the flavour profile was very mild. I asked her if she was using coconut milk because I couldn't place the pleasant texture, but it turned out to be fat free yogurt! I actually think I preferred the lightness to the typically heavy and extra creamy butter chicken. The paneer was also an excellent substitution for chicken! I didn't miss the meat one bit. IANAV but if that's how the other half live it isn't so bad... 

Service:
July 17, 2013
My food came up quickly, and the service was friendly as could be. One thing I love about food trucks is the connection to chefs - as I was leaving, Karrie asked me for feedback on my food. It's great both from a consumer perspective, but I also have to think that it gives chefs and opportunity to get real time feedback from their diners, something that must be so lacking in the kitchen!

June 19, 2013
I can't really say too much about today since we had recorded the podcast episode that morning, so my cover was blown! Still, my food came up just as quickly as last time despite it being peak lunch hour.