FlightHub Takes You On a Tour of Canada's Best Street Food

Canada is known for its diversity – of street food!

MONTREAL, Jan. 27, 2020 /CNW/ - Travel brings the senses alive! Wherever you travel in the world, one of the great pleasures is savouring the local specialties when you're on a break from catching the local sights. Street food is affordable and tasty. Whether it's at a food cart, a stall in a market or a tiny restaurant with a few tables and stools, it feels good to enjoy the same quick pleasures as the local population amid the hustle and bustle, day or night. Let FlightHub take you on a tour of Canada's best Canadian street food!

What makes Canadian street food?

One of the world's younger countries, Canada hasn't had a long history to create a significantly distinctive cuisine, but it does dominate in one domain. As the Canadian flag boasts, the country produces ninety percent of the world's maple syrup. This locally sourced ingredient elevates plenty of well-known dishes adapted the Canadian way.

When you're looking for an authentic street food experience on your travels in Canada, you'll want to discover created-in- Canada comforts like Quebec's poutine or Halifax's donair to tickle your taste buds. Plus, you get to taste what's best about experiencing Canada – its cultural diversity. Each province or territory in the world's second largest country boasts a unique mix of immigrant cultures whose cuisines have been locally adopted.

What's more, eating on the street is bigger than ever, as Canadian cities have recently embraced the food truck phenomenon. City councils ensure that licenses are given out to a representative diversity of cuisines. When you find a cluster of food trucks on the street or at a festival, you'll not only have a selection of the trendy grilled cheese sandwiches and pulled pork creations native to any gentrifying neighbourhood, you'll also get to sample the diversity of the immigrant cuisines of the area.

Hold the Atlantic provinces in your hand

When passing through Canada's Maritime cities and towns, expect to snack on the bounty of the sea, which is best expressed in lobster rolls. They're easy to find wherever you travel in Nova Scotia, New Brunswick and Newfoundland, and they come in a wide variety. Talk to the locals to find which rolls are their favourite!

If you're driving the beautiful Gaspé peninsula in Quebec, you'll want to stop at a "cantine" and practice your French. A lobster roll in Quebec is called a "guedille au homard".

Discover the donair

If you visit Halifax, you must try the city's official food: the donair. Based on another well-known street treat, the Greek pita-wrapped gyro, the donair was invented in the 1970s when a creative cook replaced traditional tzatziki with a sweeter sauce. Donair sauce is made with sweetened condensed milk, vinegar and garlic powder. You'll find donairs not only in donair shops, but also in the local pizza joints, where the sauce may also be used on other creations as well.

Quebec's comfort-food gift to the world: poutine

In the predominantly French-speaking province of Quebec, you'll encounter the hearty poutine wherever you go. In its basic fill-you-up form, it's made with french fries and squeaky cheese curds then smothered in gravy. If you want to push your poutine to another level, order yours topped with Montreal's famous smoked meat. The ultimate in comfort food, you'll find yourself walking the streets a little slower afterward.

Join in on the bagel battle

The great Montreal versus New York City bagel debate requires that you have an opinion in this matter. Boasting a large Jewish community that goes back as long as the Big Apple's, Montreal bagels have evolved over a century to become a denser, sweeter taste experience.

If you want to do right by the locals, get your bagels at the source in the neighbourhood of Mile End. Pick up a dozen sesame or poppy seed bagels fresh from the wood-fired oven at either St. Viateur Bagel or Fairmount Bagel. Get some cream cheese too, then take a stroll around the hipster neighbourhood. Bring the rest back to your hostel, hotel or Airbnb to enjoy later.

Too much to taste in Toronto

The largest and most multicultural of Canadian cities, Toronto is like New York or Chicago, but more polite. As you stroll downtown after a Raptors or Blue Jays game, a concert or musical, you can indulge in a traditional hot dog or other late night snack from a food cart, just like any other metropolis.

With such a diverse multi-cultural landscape, your selection of street food will reflect the neighbourhood you happen to be strolling through. One local legend that's beloved in the metropolis, yet tough to find in other Canadian cities, is the roti. A wrap that comes in West Indian and East Indian variations, prepare to indulge in a spicy curry that ranges from veggie to goat and everywhere in between in a handheld flatbread shell. If you like it hot, you'll have a choice of pepper-based sauces to help you feel the burn.

Prairie perogies and a Canadian cocktail

Perogies were brought to the prairies by the Eastern European immigrants who settled there in the early 19^th century, making perogies the go-to comfort food in the provinces of Manitoba, Saskatchewan and Alberta. Whether Ukrainian, Polish, Russian or Lithuanian, what goes inside these delicious dumplings is an adventure you must explore. You'll find them served up at any social gathering and at plenty of eateries big and small in the cities and towns of the prairies.

A discussion of Canadian culinary creations wouldn't be complete without a nod to the Bloody Caesar cocktail. If you've got time for a drink, check out this menu mystery. Invented in the city of Calgary, it's a spiced concoction of vodka and Clamato juice, garnished with a stick of celery in a glass rimmed with celery salt.

The west coast welcomes cuisines of the world

Eating local in British Columbia means indulging in the glorious tastes of the Pacific Ocean and the cuisines that have crossed the Pacific to settle there. If you're lucky enough to be travelling through a coastal town or touring magical Vancouver Island, you may be able to get salmon or crab fresh off the boat. Also, look for salmon smoked according to local tradition.

In Vancouver, fresh world-class sushi is everywhere. If you want to go all-in west coast in the summertime, you can even order sushi from a beach vendor in the raw at Wreck Beach, the city's famous nude hangout since the Sixties.

Since the eighties, Vancouver has experienced an immigration boom, welcoming new Canadians from Latin America, South and Southeast Asia and particularly China. Over half of the city's residents' first language is a language other than English, meaning roughly half of the cuisines enjoyed in the city come from elsewhere too.

Your selection of comfort cuisines in the city is vaster than ever, but if you want to do as Vancouverites have long done to treat themselves to a taste adventure, head to Chinatown. It's just a quick walk from the downtown core because the first wave of Chinese immigration settled there at around the time the city was established in the late 19^th century. For decades, Vancouverites heading downtown on the weekend for shopping or entertainment have topped off their day or evening by strolling into Chinatown to fill up. Why not follow in their footsteps?

Canada is a vast young country that prides itself on welcoming the world and celebrating diversity, and this is reflected in its comfort foods and street cuisines. Wherever you visit in the country, when it comes to eating on the run, you get to savour both the local and international with every bite.

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SOURCE FlightHub

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