By Camille Erika R. Sarte | Business World Online
A new weekday, late-night food market that opened in Makati aims to evolve into a food truck festival similar to those held in San Franciso and Los Angeles.
“A lot of people are doing food trucks now,” said food blogger and co-organizer Anton Diaz.
During the recent launch of Distrito, as the “moving market” is called, Mr. Diaz predicted that in the next three months, 10 food trucks would be added to the current roster of three. “It’s starting to get big [here],” he said.
At present, the Makati night market consists of Guactruck, a “design-focused” food truck serving Filipino-Mexican dishes; the Cream Truck by Fruits in Ice Cream; and Mio Gelati Mobile, which offers home-made Italian ice cream. Aside from these three food trucks, there are food stalls and a handful of product vendors.
Food trucks have been a social experience for food enthusiasts in the United States for the past few years and its popularity continues to rise as seen by the increase of food truck festivals hosted by different cities.
“We want to do a moving market that we can set up anywhere,” said Mr. Diaz, who explained that the concept is to highlight the specialty of each big city.
Distrito, for example, celebrates “uniquely established Makati restaurants” such as Villa Cafe, a Kapampangan restaurant that features dishes by chefs Sau del Rosario and Jam Melchor.
Focusing on Makati’s best, explained Mr. Diaz, is what distinguishes Distrito from Mercato, the food market in Bonifacio Global City, also organized by his group. Both food markets, however, share common vendors (Auntie May’s, an establishment famous for its escargot, is one of them).
Cuisine aside, Mr. Diaz said that his inspiration was really the food truck itself. As a matter of fact, he’s been doing a series on food trucks on his blog, Awesome Planet (www.ourawesomeplanet.com).
Located in the open parking lot bounded by Amorsolo and Legazpi streets, Distrito is open Wednesday to Friday, from 9 p.m. to 3 a.m. The food market will be in Makati until the end of December before moving to another location, which, as of this writing, is still under wraps. Mr. Diaz did reveal that his group plans to go around Makati and eventually end up in Santa Ana Park.
“We really want to do a food truck festival, bring all trucks together and bring a different experience to different places,” he said.
http://www.bworldonline.com/content.php?section=Arts&Leisure&title=Movable-feasts&id=42467
