Toronto "A la Cart" - Take One

This edition of Path Lunch Reviews takes us above ground.

Because I have deadline-related issues and am only capable of getting work done when it ABSOLUTELY MUST BE DONE, I spent Monday of the long weekend at work. 8 pm rolled around, and I experienced the frustration of being downtown on a holiday with none of my usual evening standbys open.

But then I remembered that the launch of Toronto's new non-hot dog food carts was taking place this very Victoria day! I had high hopes that my dinner would be saved by the biryani cart at the east side of Nathan Phillips Square. I've been irrationally excited about the launch of the new food carts, though somewhat confused by their geographic distribution (famed food write Naomi Duguid shares my confusion - and has some other problems with the "A la Cart" program as well: http://www.thestar.com/article/634699). For one thing, I love eating outside (though it violates a main tenet of PATH eating), and the $5 price tag appeals to me, as loyal path lunch reviews readers will know I have some problems following a lunch budget. Also, there is so much good street food to be had in the world, yet somehow our only options in Toronto thus far have been hot-dog after hot-dog shaped food. I hate hot-dogs. Here was our big chance....

Sadly, my first non-hot dog food cart meal in Toronto was a serious disappointment.* It may have been that I arrived at the very end of the day, as the owner of the shiny new cart with the flashy "A la Cart" logo was wrapping up shop, or it may have been that there were some opening day wrinkles to iron out. In any case, my only choice was biryani with rice (various websites had promised me "biryani and salsa karahi, served with pita, chapati, naan or rice") . What I got was a couple of pieces of pretty bland chicken in some cold and very greasy rice, with none of the minted yogurt I had also read about with great anticipation. I'm not a huge rice fan to begin with, but this was pretty gross. Nonetheless, I was hungry, and scarfed a fair bit of it down. Ten minutes later, I was not feeling great.

I'm holding off on posting a rating for the Nathan Phillip's Square east food cart - I'm hoping my crappy dinner was an anomaly, and that the food cart located closest to my office pulls it together so that I can fulfill my romantic street food fantasies without disappointment. We'll see. I'm going to give my stomach a break and check out the Nathan Phillip's Square west food cart later this week - review to follow.

* I frequently eat outside at Wednesday's summer market in Nathan Phillips Square, enjoying the roast corn, sweet potatoes, and peameal bacon sandwiches. I'm not sure why these perfectly awesome food stands don't count as "food carts", nor do I understand why they can't set up permanent shop in the downtown core for the summer. Especially given how happy it would make me. Clearly there are some "rules" or "laws" out there about mobile versus more permanently stationed food stands. Someone should explain them to me.

EDIT: It appears I misread the description for this stand in The Star - apparently Biryani IS a rice based dish. I thought it was meat that I could eat with naan or chapati. While I don't like rice, I do like bread. Anyway, my meal was still gross. The biryani did not look anything like these nice looking Biryani(s) - http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Biryani