Chef Ryan Page
I just read an astounding statistic: According to the Food and Agriculture Organization, roughly 2.5 billion people eat street food every day! Granted this is worldwide but that is a lot of finger food.
Street food’s origins go back to Greece. Evidence of street food vendors was discovered during the excavation of Pompeii.
From Togo to Vietnam, street food constitutes up to 40% of the daily diet of consumers in the world. Simple yet exotic flavours make up these increasingly popular dishes, like the ones served right here in Montreal in a pub off the island.
Welcome to McKibbin’s Irish Pub in Vaudreuil. Owners Nick Pichereau and Sean O’Connell have turned pub food on its ears with the acquisition of one very funny, smart, hard-working chef named Ryan Page, sometimes referred to as the Comic Chef.
Chef Page is a street-food enthusiast much like one of his idols, Anthony Bourdain. Chef Page embraces the style, the flavours, the spices and interesting combinations of culture and country. His mentor and friend Chef Christof, who is the head chef at McKibbin’s, gave Page the go-ahead to explore different types of cooking during Page’s lunch shift. It was with this blessing that Chef Page dove into experimenting and indulging his senses with what is now called Street Food Tuesdays at McKibbin’s Vaudreuil.
Tasty dishes from all around the world are served up every Tuesday during lunch at the pub. Chef Page uses his imagination and skill to come up with some delicacies such as gilled calamari and mixed
Savour the flavours from around the world
greens; spicy Asian sweet potato fries with teriyaki and sriracha mayo, sesame seeds, green onions and jalapenos; inverted nacho rolls; and, for dessert, deep fried Oreos and Fudgie-Os with whipped cream and chocolate sauce.
Forget about your diet when you go for lunch on Tuesdays. You might have missed the tempura shrimp or the beef sliders but if you’re lucky they might just make another appearance on the menu in the future. I could go on but I don’t want to tease you with some of the other amazing dishes that have been served up during Street Food Tuesdays.
Although the street food is not served out of a truck or on the street, it still has that classic street-food taste. A taste of nations, a wondrous palette of food awaits from around the world.
Sometimes we find ourselves having a difficult day. What a comfort it is to discover a place where you can sit back and relax and enjoy a meal and perhaps one of the pub’s specialty pints. Food for many, including yours truly, is something that when offered to us is a gift. Chef Page’s gift is his desire to please even the most finicky customer and to keep those that already love his cooking coming back again and again.
I think McKibbin’s Vaudreuil is on to something here and hopefully those of you who love to try new things will discover that on Street Food Tuesdays in Vaudreuil if you stop in at McKibbin’s Irish Pub your palette may take you to some very exotic places around the world. If so, enjoy the ride!
Image Credits
Photos by Martha Farley. All rights reserved.
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