Food Truck Eats, the ongoing series of wildly popular and successful events celebrating Toronto's burgeoning gourmet street food culture, proudly presents its inaugural awards ceremony: 'AwesTRUCK 2012'.
On Sunday, September 9th, from 2 pm until 8 pm, the Evergreen Brickworks' Holcim Gallery will sizzle as Southern Ontario street food's hottest talents gather to recognize their culinary creativity, celebrate the revolutionary spirit of Canada's street food scene, and find out who has the most awesome food truck!
Opening the days festivities, James Cunningham, the face of Food Network's popular Eat St. program 'AwesTRUCK 2012's will welcome guests who'll join a who's who of national media-types, food industry influencers and social-media savvy food lovers to chow down on a line-up of the tastiest curbside cuisine from across the golden horseshoe. And once the smoke clears and the grills cool, guests and vendors will join forces as the DJs from Toronto's famous monthly "Going Steady" and "Chronologic" events provide the soundtrack for a blow-out block party as the silverware gets handed out.
Food Truck Eats and the Ontario Food Truck Association are guided by the following principles:
- To educate Toronto on the variety of street food options. To show that it can be more than just burgers and hotdogs.
- To allow the gourmet food truck operators to build healthy relationships with local space owners, chefs and restaurants for future food truck installations.
- To celebrate the diversity of food in Toronto/Ontario.
- For a better picture of how Food Truck Eats has changed Ontario street food in the past year, click here to view our food truck infographic.
Pay Chen
Pay Chen is a TV host, writer and producer with a healthy appetite. Her TV career has taken her from OMNI-TV to Treehouse TV, CityTV, Breakfast Television and others. Also a food columnist, Pay loves exploring new places to feed her face. Raised in Nova Scotia, she will eat almost anything that comes from the ocean except the garbage people have dumped there. An early supporter of food trucks and street food, Pay is thrilled to be a part of AwesTRUCK 2012. She is also an Instagram and Twitter addict who posts photos of her food but not many of her lattes. She has never said or tweeted, "Om nom nom nom."Follow @PayChen
Bonita Mok
By day, Bonita works in marketing in the publishing industry, and brings with her brand management, event planning and marketing, publicity, advertising, and graphic design experience. By night, she can be found either eating her way around the city or experimenting with new recipes in her kitchen. She is the publisher of the food blog Bon Eats.
Richard Sigesmund
Health care professional by trade, food blogger, home brewer and photographer by night; Richard makes one really boring superhero. If biking across Belgium in search of the world's best beer is a superpower, then Richard deserves a cape or, in the very least, a monocle. Along with his wife Robin Sharp, Richard posts about Toronto's best eats and drinks on their food blog. Years removed from running an independent record label, Richard has learned that food is music for the soul and begs for Toronto chefs to continue to compose for years to come. You can usually find Richard lamenting Toronto's lack of availability of lambic sours or hashing out a recipe for his next home-brewed beer.
Robin Sharp
Robin Sharp acquired a used 110mm film camera at the age of 5 and used it to photograph the people and places she loved. She has never stopped taking pictures, and has been shooting professionally for 6 years. When she's not using her camera to photograph families and weddings, she enjoys photographing and blogging about her favourite meals in Toronto and abroad. She loves craft beer and fish tacos.sharp-photo.com
iflookscouldfill.com
Joel Solish
Joel Solish is a tastemaker, striving to make people want and crave, learn and grow, and most importantly to eat and drink the very best their local food systems have to offer. Joel is actively involved, in a hands-on capacity, in the movement to promote local and sustainably raised food through many ongoing projects. With over 10 years as an expert in marketing and reputation management in the hospitality and tourism markets, he is always being contracted out as a hired gun and working hands on in the trenches. Joel also runs a series of food events called the Death Row Meals, featuring pop-up restaurants, winemakers evenings, and customised home dining experiences. Follow Joel's many food adventures on his popular food blog communityfoodist.com
Michelle Jobin
As a child, Michelle was always the one to be found looking for the right photo op (i.e. photobombing others' snapshots), commandeering the mic at her dad's company Christmas parties or from emcee's at weddings. Given that, it's not at all surprising that she has now spent almost a decade working in television - as a host, reporter, weather specialist, and producer. (Apparently that whole "look at me, look at me" thing did not fade with adulthood.) From interviewing celebs on the red carpet at TIFF, to anchoring live news broadcasts, driving really fast cars to breaking down the national forecast, Michelle's work has been featured across Canada and internationally, on networks including Global Television, MTV, and The Weather Network. She loves food as much as she loves attention, apparently, which led her to hosting and producing two seasons of Toronto Dining - where she showcased over 200 restaurants in Toronto while and tasting their chefs' finest work. Her dedication to fitness was a necessary counterbalance to these enviable workplace hazards. She has also written articles about her love of food, fashion, and other good things in life for several online publications. Michelle is a huge fan of Ontario's food trucks and is thrilled to be presenting awards to their best, brightest and tastiest.
Renee Navarro
Renee Navarro is a Toronto-based photographer/office monkey. She loves hugs, beer, bacon and food trucks.
Vanessa Toye
Vanessa loves tasty experiences and how they bring people together. She thinks sharing a meal with strangers on a curb or huddled over a stubby red plastic stool along the side of the road is a splendid way of spending any part of the day. When she's not eating her way around town, she's occasionally writing about it and her new life in Industrial Design on her personal blog tongueandcheek.ca