Sample global street food as the Love Food Festival rolls into Abu Dhabi and Al Ain

Seize a rare chance to sample street-style grub from the United States, United Kingdom and Singapore, plus local favourites at the Love Food Festival’s second edition.

Visitors to the Love Food Festival have plenty of options to sample street food from around the world – it will also feature live cooking demonstrations, films and a children’s play area. Courtesy Love Food Festival
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The annual Love Food Festival returns to the capital this weekend, and for its second edition, organisers have gathered some of the best street-food vendors from the United Kingdom, the United States and Singapore to sling food alongside notable local options.

The festival, which will be held in Al Ain this weekend and Abu Dhabi next weekend, offers visitors a chance to eat their way around three continents.

According to the Street Food Institute, 2.5 billion people tuck into street food globally each day, but the culture – and the reasons chefs are attracted to that world – vary in every country.

We talked to street-food traders from four countries – who will be at the festival – for insiders’ views of street food and what attracts them to the industry.

America

Eric Silverstein launched his food truck, The Peached Tortilla, in Austin, Texas, in 2009. He has become renowned for dishing up comfort food using flavours from his childhood, when he grew up in Japan, and his travels through Asia.

His signature dishes are bahn mi, barbecue brisket and pad Thai tacos.

“These are the perfect fusion of Asian and southern flavours,” says Silverstein. He recommends visitors to the Love Food Festival try his tacos, which are made with pad Thai sauce, chilli garlic-marinated chicken, bean sprouts, fresh coriander, green onions and peanuts.

Street food is beloved around the globe, says Silverstein, and he is not at all surprised by the growth of street-food concepts in the UAE.

“I think it’s the price point, accessibility and flavours,” he says. “People who eat street food understand the experience is actually eating on the street. I think people genuinely want to connect with food and, by eliminating the front of the house, you can do that with street food.”

Eric Silverstein, the founder of The Peached Tortilla. Courtesy Inked Fingers Photography

A food truck was not Silverstein’s original dream, however.

“Opening a restaurant is obviously not cheap,” he says. “If I was going to chase my restaurant dream, it was going to start in a food truck.”

This is not an unusual path for chefs in the United States, who are striking out on their own for the first time.

“Street food is mainstream now,” says Silverstein. “In the US, street food is a new part of the equation for how to get to owning your own restaurant.”

It certainly worked for him. While he continues to operate his food truck, Silverstein opened his first bricks-and-mortar restaurant in 2014.

“At the end of the day, it comes down to the food,” he says. “Unlike a restaurant, where hospitality and ambience matter, street food is all about how tasty your food is.”

Singapore

Not everyone gets into the street-food scene with the aim of eventually opening a restaurant.

Shen Tan is from a family of foodies, so it is in her blood – but before she started slinging food on the street – she was the events director at Forbes Asia.

“I wanted to try my hand at food,” she says. “So I left my job and started a hawker stall at Maxwell Market [in Singapore] selling nasi lemak.”

Singaporean chef Shen Tan. Courtesy Shen Tan

After doing this for two years, Tan ran a modern bistro called The Wok and Barrel. Then she was culinary director for an events company, followed by a stint as executive chef at Ujong at Raffles Hotel. Now, she whips up modern Singaporean bites at Revolution Coffee.

The street-food scene in Singapore is steeped in history. Hawkers have been selling food on the street since the 1800s.

“A lot of our Singaporean food heritage is based on street-food dishes that were created as an evolution decades ago,” says Tan.

“Singapore is a very vibrant scene with many platforms for street food.”

Tan, who likes to push boundaries and explore new flavour combinations, stood out from the hawker crowd, thanks to her twist on nasi lemak – a fragrant coconut rice dish.

“It is steamed twice and uses 10 ingredients just for the rice,” she says. “I also make two chillies that are made from scratch, one of which is a coffee sambal.”

During Love Food Festival, Tan says guests should try her grilled chicken laksa sandwich, her modern interpretation of laksa – a spiced, coconut-broth noodle dish. She says she has remained true to her signature style throughout her culinary journey.

“It’s simple rustic cooking with a concentration of south east Asian flavours, herb and spices – robust and big on flavours,” she adds.

United Kingdom

While some use street food to break into the culinary world, British chef Douglas Robertson-Ritchie used it as a way out of bricks-and-mortar restaurants.

“I was a chef in London for a few years,” he says.

“But I wasn’t cut out for restaurant work. I need to keep moving, need to meet new people all the time. That’s what you get from street food.”

His truck, Crabbieshack, is styled after the traditional crab shacks at the harbour in his hometown of Folkestone in south east England.

It trades year round at markets and music festivals, and is a star on London’s street food scene, thanks to its signature soft-shell crab burgers with pickled cucumbers, chilli, coriander and wasabi mayonnaise (there are prawn burgers and crab fries on the menu, too). There is little waste in the kitchen.

“We try to use the whole beast, be it lobster, crab, prawns or fish,” says Robertson-Ritchie.

“Boiling up bones to make punchy reductions for our sauce; then whipping it into a burger.”

In 2014, just seven months after its launch, Crabbieshack won an award for the best street food in London.

“I just love trying to make the best, most delicious food I possibly can,” says Robertson-Ritchie. “I never stop learning.”

This attitude has helped him remain at the forefront of London’s competitive street-food culture.

“We’re all vying for a few spaces on the street, so we have to evolve our menus constantly,” he says.

As the appetite for street food in London continues to grow, traders need to stay at the top of their game. “Lots of [street food] traders are going into bricks-and-mortar restaurants, and new, exciting traders are popping up all the time to take their place,” says Robertson-Ritchie.

“There are loads of new street-food companies starting up with new takes on the classics. Competition is fierce.”

He also has a prediction for the next big trend in London’s street food.

“Vegan is going large,” he says. “Vegan junk food. All the filth you get from a cheeseburger or deep-fried chicken, but without harming any animals. It’s guilt-free eating.”

Local offerings

If it is guilt-free eating you are after, steer well clear of BurgerItch. This UAE-based food truck has carved a place for itself in the country’s burgeoning street food scene, thanks to its signature burgers.

Its doughnut burger, for example, has two beef patties stuffed between two Krispy Kreme doughnuts.

There is also the “Itch” – four patties, cheddar cheese, beef bacon, onion rings, homemade pickles, plus the signature “Itch” sauce.

BurgerItch is from a culinary company called The Foodsters, which was started by a group of food-loving friends.

BurgerItch is a UAE-based food truck. Courtesy BurgerItch

The Foodsters are also behind food trucks, The Shebi, Shmokins and Chicken and Co. They will launch a new Mexican concept in the next two weeks. Foodsters’s founder Reema Shetty says the UAE was ready for the street-food movement to take off.

“Food is a very big part of our culture here,” says Shetty.

“For eight months a year, we enjoy the best weather anyone can ask for. It is only natural that food trucks would do well.”

New trucks continue to pop up across the country.

“We are loving it,” says Shetty. “Finally there is an opportunity for local talent to be exposed. The food-truck business gets real talent out to real people. It’s where creativity meets customer, where the environment is just right and people are willing to try it.”

Other notable features

In addition to the vendors, Love Food Festival will feature cookery demonstrations, workshops with chefs, a tea and cake feature, live music, a play area for children and food-related films in an outdoor theatre.

Al Ain

February 9 to 11, Cricket Club, Al Ain Equestrian, Shooting and Golf Club.

Abu Dhabi

February 16 to 18, Umm Al Emarat Park.

• For more details and to buy tickets – Dh35 in advance, Dh45 at the event – visit www.lovefoodfestival.ae

sjohnson@thenational.ae