Original Souvlaki from a Food Truck....Er...Trailer at Ottawa Street Eats

For August 1st, I received an invitation from TW Events to attend the first ever Ottawa Street Eats festival.

Basically the Ottawa Street Eats festival, located at the Aviation & Space Museum, was an assortment of the Ottawa area's food trucks accompanied by interesting special event only food stands and craft breweries.   Before the event, I reviewed who would be attending the festival to get a feel for who would be there and which food and drinks I would have.

There was quite the collection to choose from with everything from Asian to Greek to Hot Dogs & Fries, heck there was even Brewbar's awesome caffeinated beverages available.  Lots to choose from to be paired by some of Ottawa's best craft beers.

Ottawa Street Eats Banner

After arriving at the Aviation and Space Museum on OC Transpo and easily finding the Ottawa Street Eats festival, I reviewed my selection of food trucks to confirm my original first choice, The Original Souvlaki food trailer. I had my heart set on having a traditional souvlaki platter with either pork or chicken souvlaki, rice, potatoes and salad accompanied by tzatziki sauce.

The Original Souvlaki Trailer

With not many festival attendees having arrived yet, I was able to order.

Souvlaki Platter

The Order: 1 Souvlaki Platter.

The Souvlaki platter was $10.00, not bad overall and, like Jimmy the Greek, only had one skewer.  Hmmm, seems to be a theme, less Souvlaki than the traditional two skewers found in the Toronto area.  I paid for the plate and left to find an outdoor table at the festival.

The Souvlaki itself was not bad from a food truck, but not gourmet either.  Just plain straight up Souvlaki served on a skewer displayed with all the usual food offerings like any Greek fast food location.  Nothing gourmet but nothing terrible either.  Just regular straight up Greek style Pork Souvlaki.

The Pita bread was a nice touch.  Add a Tzatziki sauce with it, and the odd vegetable, it was delicious!

The rice was a little to be desired, it was dry and slightly overcooked.  This was probably because for speed of service in assembling orders the rice needs to be cooked and held to be served. The rice, thus, can't be served up fresh as perhaps a regular restaurant might on a per order basis.

Overall, the Original Souvlaki food trailer is a welcome addition to the Ottawa food scene.  Since the Ottawa Street Eats festival, the trailer has secured a permanent home at 680 Bank Street next to Kunstadt Sports in the Glebe.  A little fine tuning of the rice and this new addition will be a welcome addition to the Glebe.

Ottawa Streets Eats festival was an enjoyable experience once inside.  A variety of food trucks complimented the craft beers of such Ottawa area breweries like Kichesippi Beer, Mill Street, Whitewater Brewing Company, and many more.

Brewbar

The final best piece of the festival was Brewbar, the portable coffee bar that appears at many of Ottawa's events.  With the skilled hands of Paul Klutchert at the coffee bar, I enjoyed a creamy Latte to go.  The Latte provided a fine end to a great day out investigating this interesting, yet tasteful, hopefully yearly event.

2008 Aurora Street Sale

Today brought the annual Aurora Street Sale, also known as "the World's Longest Street Sale on the World's Longest Street." Again the event was a success as thousands crowded Yonge Street in Aurora from Murray Drive to Wellington Street.

One of the things I learned, from the Powerstream booth, was how to calculate how much it will cost you to operate something on your hydro bill. An example of this would be:

1. Multiply the watts displayed on your appliance by the number of hours it operates per year to get watt-hours.

2. Divide by 1,000 to get kilowatt-hours (kWh)

3. Multiply by $0.10 to get the estimated cost in dollars.

So for example, a sixty watt lightbulb operating eight hours a day everyday would cost $17.52 a year to keep lit. This is especially important when calculating how much a thirteen watt bulb CFL equivalent would do if it replaced the sixty watt lightbulb ($3.80).

The only downfall to this years street sale was the overcast skies which are quite evident in this year's pictures:

Looking South from Wellington Street

Looking North in Aurora's Downtown

Delayne Drive rockin'in front of Aurora United Church

Looking South from Tyler Street

Looking North from near Church Street

Looking North from Murray Drive

Heritage Day in Richmond Hill

This afternoon I grabbed my camera and headed down to Richmond Hill, Ontario to check out the towns "Heritage Fair." Here I thought their historic downtown Richmond Hill buildings would be open to be toured and maybe a small bazaar on the street. The fair was located on Yonge Street between Major Mackenzie Drive and Crosby Avenue.

Well I was partially right, only St. Matthews United Church (pictured below) was open for historical tours. In fact the church was charging $3.00 for the tour. That I thought was a little much, so I didn't bother entering even though every time I go past the church on the bus I wonder what the inside was like. However, at least the people outside the church were dressed in Victorian style dress.

What other "heritage" was there? Nothing really historical in nature, but there was plenty of bands playing and children singing. Other than that, the Heritage fair looked like Aurora's Street Sale except on a much smaller scale. Vendors were featuring everything from selling jewelry to trying to interest you in day camps and environmentally friendly car rentals. These vendors were not organized very well. In some places the vendors were located along the curb sides while just further up the road the vendors were set up in the middle of the street. At least at the Aurora Street sale all the vendors were along the curbs.

To say the least, I was little dissapointed with Heritage Day in Richmond Hill. But at least it was a nice day to venture out in the sun. Now, here are the pictures....

Richmond Hill United Church

Looking North on Yonge Street from near the M.L. McConaghy Seniors' Centre

Looking North from near the corner of Yonge & Centre Streets.

2007 Aurora Street Sale

Ever year Aurora hosts an annual street sale on Yonge Street through the heart of town.

In fact, in the street sale's innaugeral year in 1996 it held the world's record for being the world's longest street sale. To add more intrique, it has been called, in the past, "The World's Longest Street Sale on the World's Longest Street" because the sale takes place on Yonge Street which holds the record for being the world longest street.

This year, like last year, I took my digital camera on my adventure to check out this years street festival and here is some of what I saw:

Looking south from the corner of Tyler Street at the masses.

Looking South on Yonge Street in Downtown Aurora from the corner of Yonge & Wellington Streets.

Looking North at the street sale from the corner of Yonge Street & Murray Drive

An added feature to this year's street sale! A soap box derby along Cousins Drive!

For even more pictures of this years and last years street sale visit my Aurora photo gallery.

The World's Longest Street Sale on the World's Longest Street!

I was out and about today with my digital camera in Aurora, Ontario. This weekend is the annual street sale in Aurora. When it started way back when this particular street sale was aiming to become the world's longest street sale ever! That particular street sale did in fact make the record book. So Aurora's claim to fame (among other things) is it has held the World's Longest Street Sale on the World's Longest Street.

World's Longest Street? That would be Yonge Street which starts at Lake Ontario in Toronto and goes north and then west to Rainy River, Ontario.

So here are a couple of pictures I took of Aurora's annual street sale:

Looking north from near Yonge & Mosely Streets

Looking south from Yonge & Mosley Streets

Looking South from Yonge & Wellington Streets.

For more photos of Aurora and this street sale click here.

More Street fairs

This is a "continuance" from an earlier post on street fairs in New York City.

I went out to Lexington Avenue and 42nd Street (Grand Central Station area) to visit the Lexington Avenue Street fair. I've noticed, after going to a couple of New York City Street fairs in both Manhattan and Brooklyn that there are some common elements to all New York City street fairs:

1. Quite a few lemonade stands.
2. At least one massage area.
3. Always hot dogs, shish kabob and other flame cooked food being sold.

Anyway, here is a look at the Lexington Avenue Street festival that took place on Lexington Avenue between 34th & 42nd streets:

A look down Lexington Avenue from 42nd Steet at the Lexington Avenue Street fair.

A look down Lexington Avenue from 41st Street

A look up Lexington Avenue from 34th Street

Street Fairs in NYC

One thing New York City is not very well known is its numerous street fairs. Aurora, Ontario, Canada may be home to the World's Longest Street fair in the world, but New York City has the highest number of street fairs in the world. You should check out the calender of street fairs to see what I mean. There are at least two or three street fairs in the city every weekend from beginning of may to end of August.

I did a quick walk through of the street fair in Brooklyn Heights today on Court Street between Atlantic Avenue and Montague Streets. Perhaps the biggest problem with this street fair is there are too many "French Crepe" production stalls as well as massages. This street fair is only really 5 blocks long and I was offered massages at least once every block. Apparently the people in this section of Brooklyn are really up tight!

Anyway, here are the pictures I took of the Brooklyn Heights Street fair:

Brooklyn Heights Street Fair

Brooklyn Heights Street Fair.

Brooklyn Heights Street Fair