Do you love food? Do you Instagram your every meal? Are you fascinated by the notion of chocolate-covered crickets and beer cupcakes? If so, then you are a foodie, and there is an event this weekend tailor-made for you.

Ottawa’s Foodie Challenge takes place on Saturday, May 25. For the admission price of $50, it’s a full day of palate-experimentation that’s sure to get your taste buds tingling.

It all starts at 9 a.m. at the Domicile Developments Sales Centre (222 Beechwood Ave.) with a breakfast provided by Art-is-in Bakery. After that, expect the unexpected.

OFC co-founder Carolynn Lacasse says some challenges will be harder than others — and thanks Domicile Developments for helping to grow this annual event. Photo by Miv Fournier.

Foodie Challenge cards will be given to every team of two entered. Teams have until 5 p.m. to complete as many challenges on the list as possible. We talked to event organizer Carolynn Lacasse about what participants can expect this year.

“Blind beer tasting, knife skill workshops, and food truck locating are some hints of check points on this year’s clue list,” says Lacasse. “A special component of the challenge is connecting our city’s food fanatics with restauranteurs, chefs, and owners they might not normally meet on a regular visit.”

Lacasse adds that she and event co-founder Larissa Beznaczuk-Smyrnew wanted to bring foodies and industry professional together to shine the spotlight on hunger in the region.

No cheating! All challenges must be photographed and submitted at the end of the day, at which time points will be totaled to determine the winning team.

The victors will rejoice their foodie feat when announcements are made at the closing ceremonies, which wil be held at Urban Element (424 Parkdale Ave.).

And if all of that intrigue, competition, and glory doesn’t spark your interest enough to get out there and taste the deliciousness that abounds in this city, know that all proceeds go to the Ottawa Food Bank. (Oh, and participants also receive an issue of Ottawa Magazine’s Eating and Drinking Guide!)

— Karen Ladouceur

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You've seen dark and milk chocolate but what's that above the white chocolate? That's blond, an entirely new category of chocolate created by Valrhona.

First there was milk, dark, and white chocolate. Now there is blond.

Invented and launched recently by Valrhona — one of the top chocolate companies in France — blond chocolate, dubbed Dulcey, began its life as a happy accident.

The story has the ring of a fairy tale: the head chef at Valrhona’s chocolate school, Frédéric Bau, put some white chocolate in a bain-marie to melt it, and then forgot about it.

Ten hours later, he followed the beautiful aroma back to the kitchen where it had taken on the characteristics of caramelized milk. It developed a gorgeous blond colour and an unusual toasty flavour that lingers on the tongue.

“The taste of Dulcey has an emotional dimension that makes it a very unique chocolate,” says Quentin Chapuis of Valrhona Canada. “It reminds a lot of people of the butter biscuits they ate when they were kids.”

Valrhona first rolled out the product by getting it into the hands of some of Canada’s top pastry chefs, including the chef at Maison Boulud in Montreal, Thomas Haas in Vancouver, and Nadège Nourian, a fourth-generation pastry chef with two shops in Toronto.

Adored by those I spoke to who have already experimented with it in pastries, truffles, and other baked desserts, it offers pastry chefs and chocolatiers a new level of seasonality to their menus. They say customers tend to crave dark chocolate desserts more in the winter, but in the summer they like their sweets to be lighter (and milk chocolate is often dismissed as too sweet). Blond chocolate fits the bill and also happens to pair well with fruits.

I first sampled Dulcey at a funky new chocolate shop in San Francisco where it was sold in bars in which the creamy caramelized chocolate was combined with raspberries and pralines. Divine. One bite and I knew I had tasted something completely new. I sent a tweet to Vancouver chocolate expert Eagranie Yuh. It said: “I bought a bar of something ‪@craftsmanwolves called blond chocolate. It’s fantastic — but what is it?”

Now I know. And I’m hooked. Now you know, too.

I’m happy to report that Valrhona’s Dulcey is already available in Ottawa at the following stores:

La Bottega, 64 George St.

Grace in the Kitchen, 442 Hazeldean Rd. (professional size, sold in bulk)

International Cheese, 40 Byward Market

It can also be purchased online.

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EAT: Ottawa’s most exciting new food businesses and best restaurants

New and Noteworthy
Fifteen of the tastiest new additions to the city’s simmering culinary landscape
By Shawna Wagman

Restaurants
Our authoritative guide to dining in the city features 100 must-try restaurants
By Anne DesBrisay

Must-Try 
Sandwiches, doughnuts, bar snacks, pickles and preserves, bread

Pouring a pint at Brasseurs du Temps

DRINK: Wines and craft beers to suit every event on your social calendar

Wine
David Lawrason selects 60 bottles to suit all occasions. Includes: A Prince Edward County Wine Tour; sparkling wines; sipping whites; barbecue reds; Euro classics; New World classics; cellar keepers

Beer
A guide to local craft breweries. Plus! Ten Ontario beers to try right now
By Travis Persaud

Photography by Christian Lalonde - Photolux Commercial Studio

SHOP: Where to head for gourmet groceries and top-notch gadgets

Food shops
Tempting the palate with the city’s top gourmet grocers, delis, butchers, bakeries, and more
By Cindy Deachman

Focus on: fair fish, vegan, gluten-free

Kitchen Stores: Where to find everything a committed home cook needs

The post ON NEWSSTANDS: Sneak peek at the contents page of the Ottawa Magazine Eating & Drinking Guide appeared first on Ottawa Magazine.

Merlot has become the great forgotten red grape since being mercilessly panned in Sideways. David Lawrason believes there may be a resurrection in the offing

Illustration by Kyle Brownrigg

Once a wine hits mainstream success, it tends to fall out of favour with wine critics, sommeliers, and even some winemakers themselves. This has been the fate of merlot, one of the world’s most widely planted red grapes.

When mellow merlot became so widely popular in the 1990s, the wine opiners began to look down their collective noses at it (it happened to chardonnay too).

This gave rise to a famous line in the 2004 Academy Award-nominated movie Sideways in which the lead actor threatens to leave a restaurant if his companion orders “a fucking merlot.”

Since that low blow, merlot has wallowed, bruised and dejected, in the shadow of pinot noir (the star of the same film) and, to some degree, syrah. Merlot is still out there on the shelves (so someone is buying it), but wine pundits continue to ignore it.

I have decided to break the silence after finding myself actually enjoying merlot of late. To me, a good merlot is a mid-weight, middle-of-the-road red — not too light, not too heavy. The aroma is generous but not too intense, with ripe red fruit — raspberry, perhaps — and a bit of warmed fruit compote. It should also have a dried herb-tobacco note in the shadows. Ideally, the wood has been nicely digested by fruit, offering echoes of spice, smoke, and vanillin. The texture should be fairly soft but not soupy, the tannins gentle, the alcohol subsumed. And when the wine is of excellent quality, the flavours should stay focused and travel long into the finish. It’s a wine that can fit easily into casual situations but at times soar to great heights.

Here is a global selection of excellent and/or good-value merlots. Those who are geographers may notice that many come from regions near 40 degrees latitude, both north and south, the world’s temperate zones. Let’s call it merlot of Middle Earth.

Jackson-Triggs 2010 Black Series Merlot
$13.95  • Niagara Peninsula, Ontario  • 87 points

This is a fragrant, well-made merlot from the best Niagara vintage yet for this grape variety. There’s no great depth or complexity, but the blackberry, tea, fennel, and light cedary-smoky scents are spot-on and mindful of bordeaux. It’s mid-weight and fairly fleshy, with a dry, twiggy, and warm finish. Best now to 2016. LCBO 109959.

Les Jamelles 2011 Merlot
$12.95  •  Languedoc, France  •  87 points

One of the better inexpensive merlots from the sunny south of France, this style was created in the 1990s to compete with merlot success in California. It captures the essential raspberry jam and tea flavours in a typically mid-weight, soft, and agreeable style but with a bit more fruit and less earth than many French merlots on the market at this price. LCBO 245324.

Concilio 2010 Merlot
$12.95  •  Trentino, Italy  •  86 points

Northeast Italy has long been a haven for light, usually unoaked merlot. This example from the higher altitudes in Trentino is fresh, fragrant, juicy, and charming, with raspberry, currants, leafiness, and earthiness. It’s light but has some creaminess and substance, finishing with pleasant firmness and bitterness. Chill lightly. LCBO 293506.

Cono Sur 2011 Bicicleta Merlot
$9.95  •  Central Valley, Chile  •  86 points

Merlot was once confused botanically with carménère. This one packs in considerable complexity, depth, and nicely focused merlot character for the money. The nose is generous, with toasty tobacco and licorice notes around the raspberry fruit. Expect a slightly meaty finish. LCBO 457176.

Oyster Bay 2011 Merlot
$18.95  •  New Zealand  •  86 points
This is the largest-selling merlot from New Zealand in a challenging vintage that makes it leaner than in other years. It has a reserved nose, with typical berry floral and tea aromas, plus considerable oak. It’s mid-weight, fairly gentle, fresh, and spicy, with some tartness and tannic grit. LCBO 692343.

This story appears in the April edition of Ottawa Magazine. Buy the magazine on newsstands in April, or order your online edition.

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"What had started out as a careful, cost-cutting approach to The Table's buffet turned into a full-steam-ahead and damn the weigh scale attack on its hot and cold offerings"

By Anne DesBrisay

Unpitted olives, as much as I craved them right then, right there, I walked right on by. I figured they’d weigh me down and spike the bill. Instead, I headed for the baby spinach salad. Light and breezy stuff.

And then I dabbled with a bit of kale and swiss chard (heavier greens, to be sure, but worth their weight in gold). The organic tofu fritters beckoned — mostly for the vegan, gluten-free onion chutney that made them seem edible — and so did the cornmeal crumble with rosemary and roasted parsnips and all that crusty-gooey cheesey goodness on top.

A bit further along The Table‘s offerings was the pan of roasted vegies — mostly onions, charred peppers, and purple skinned eggplant — and on they came. The all-veggie jambalaya promised a bit of heat (and delivered) so that was scooped, and from the cold section, an arame seaweed salad (vegan/g-f) with snow pea shoots. Finally, a healthy dollop of the g-f house hummus. No bread though.

What had started out as a careful, cost-cutting approach to The Table’s buffet turned into a full-steam-ahead and damn the weigh scale attack on its hot and cold offerings.

For regulars of weighted buffets, I’m sure you get accustomed to what a $15 plate looks like. For me, as I approached the scale with my mound, I had no idea if my plate would amount to an $8 lunch or a $28 lunch. And that’s a bit worrisome. As it turned out, I was charged $18: a bit more than I’d usually spend at a cafeteria like place, but I have few complaints about the food. It was all pretty tasty stuff. Some things I thought needed salt, and some could have used a punch more flavour, but otherwise, this was a filling lunch that felt pretty wholesome.

Cost: varies, but averages $13-$20 per plate.

Hours: Open Monday to Friday, 11 a.m. – 9 p.m.; Saturday and Sunday, 11:30 a.m. to 9 p.m.

The Table, 1230 Wellington St. W., 613-729-5973.

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Shep Ysselstein, the owner and operator of Gunn's Hill Artisan Cheese has partnered with Beau's to make a beer washed-rind cheese that will change with the seasons .

I guess the monks in the Middle Ages knew something that many of us are just starting to figure out: beer and cheese taste great together.

Back in the day, artisan monks brewed beer and made cheese in monasteries for their communities. Typically washed rind cheeses are bathed in saltwater brine; the washing helps break down the curd from the outside. It’s fun to imagine the day the monks discovered that they could use beer to wash the rinds of cheese during the aging process to influence the texture, aroma, and flavour of the cheese.

Flash-forward to today, to a small cheese plant near Woodstock Ontario, where the next chapter in the history of beer washed-rind cheese is being written.

There, 30-year-old Shep Ysselstein, of Gunn’s Hill Artisan Cheese (located on his family’s third-generation dairy farm nestled in the rolling hills of Gunn’s Hill Rd. in Oxford County, Ontario — the Dairy Capital of Canada), has been working over the past few months to create a cheese using Vankleek Hill’s beloved brew, Beau’s.

Beau's Beaver River--it's spring seasonal beer will be featured on the first batch of the new cheese that will be unveiled at the Great Canadian Cheese Festival

Ysselstein admits most small-scale cheesmakers don’t bother with washed-rind varieties because the process is laborious; it’s all done by hand. “We wash it every day and keep it moist so that more bacteria grows and the cheese gets more of the beer flavour.”

For Steve Beauchesne, Beau’s co-founder, the partnership is an opportunity to help more people make the connection. “Not enough people are onto the beer and cheese pairing yet and it’s one of the most exciting things about beer right now.”

The test batch began with Gunn’s Hill Oxford’s Harvest cheese, a semi-soft mild and creamy cheese washed with Beau’s Bog Water. For the next batch, Ysselstein switched to Beaver River, Beau’s award-winning IPA, described by Beauchesne as a relatively bitter beer with a nice caramel malty backbone and hop aroma. “Shep wanted a beer with a bold enough character — the flavours need to be bold enough to transfer over.” The idea is that Ysselstein will work with each of Beau’s seasonal beers — Festivale in the summer, for instance — creating a truly seasonal cheese.

Georgs Kolesnikovs, the engine behind what has become the largest cheese show in Canada — The Great Canadian Cheese Festival — says this is big news in the world of artisan cheesemaking: it’s the first collaboration between an Ontario cheesemaker and an Ontario beer maker. He is delighted that the yet-to-be-named cheese will be unveiled at the festival on June 1 and 2.

The cheese will then be released at Farm Boy stores across the city in conjunction with craft beer week (June 16th), but the first place to get a taste will be at the Cheese Festival in Picton.

Kolesnikovs can’t help himself from gushing about the young cheesemaker who “came out of nowhere” and is already winning awards for his Alpine-style cheese. He recently took top honours in the firm cheese category in the annual Dairy Farmers of Canada Canadian Cheese Grand Prix.

Ysselstein has only been at it for a year and a half. He took cheesemaking classes at the University of Guelph and then the University of Vermont before going to upstate New York to work at a small cheese factory for three months. From there was given the opportunity to make cheese in Switzerland using techniques passed down for centuries, where cows are sent from the valley up into the mountains and milked morning and night.

Now, running his own artisan cheese plant, he is freed from the task of milking (the milk comes from his parents’ farm, where cows roam outside in the summertime) to concentrate on making great cheese. He appears to genuinely love it. The fact that he has to bring beer to work every day now is just a bonus.

Details: The yet-to-be named Beau’s beer washed cheese will be available for sampling at the third annual The Great Canadian Cheese Festival: June 1 and 2; 11 a.m. – 4 p.m.; Crystal Palace at the Picton Fairgrounds in Picton, Ontario, in the heart of  Prince Edward County.

Tickets: Tickets can be purchased in advance online. Cost is $40 for a one day pass; $55 for a two-day pass. 

The post CRAFT BEER + ARTISAN CHEESE: Beau’s partners with Gunn’s Hill Artisan Cheese to create a new beer-washed rind cheese — just in time for the Great Canadian Cheese Festival appeared first on Ottawa Magazine.

Amber Westfall offers both plant walks and workshops through her company The Wild Garden

By Anne DesBrisay

Walking in the weeds inWindsor Park

Amber Westfall is a weed eater. An hour in her instructive company and I was too — now unable to amble through an urban greenspace without salivating at the prospect of all those edibles underfoot.

Armed with a Hori Hori, a very cool Japanese knife/digging tool, and an encyclopaedic knowledge of the urban backyard’s bounty, Westfall led a “Jane’s Walk” last week through Windsor Park. We were a group of maybe 20, keen to hear about urban foraging — what are the weeds we walk on daily that can be used as food and medicine. It was very cool.

Garlic mustard can be eaten raw, lightly sautéed or made into a garlic mustard pesto

Here’s what I learned. Garlic mustard with its kidney shaped leaves is entirely edible and can’t be overharvested. It’s an invasive species with a chemical in its roots that discourages native plants. So with this one, you can go wild harvesting with the Hori Hori. Best taken in early spring, when the plant is young and tender, you can eat it raw, or lightly sautéed or you can make a garlic mustard pesto with it as Amber does.

In amongst the garlic mustard if we looked closely, were fiddleheads. From the ostrich ferns, discernible due to the deep groove in their celery shaped stalk, fiddleheads are the tightly curled sprouts of very early ferns — the smaller the better — typically found right now in deep shady forests.

Boil fiddleheads, then fry them up with lots of butter and salt

Respectful harvesting is required to protect next year’s population. Best to boil them – never eat them raw – and then fry them up with lots of butter and salt.

In the same patch of shaded green were raspberry bushes. Most of us wait another month or two for the berries to come. Amber loves the leaves harvested before flowering in early June. Raspberry leaf is high in magnesium, potassium, iron, and b-vitamins and makes a marvellous tea. Long recognized as of benefit to women in pregnancy, birth, and beyond, you can use the leaves freshly plucked, or dry them out completely for a cuppa later on.

Fifty feet away was a patch of stinging nettles. We learned how to “grasp the nettle” before the nettle grasps you: its formic acid can produce a rash, welts, and a nasty prickly burning sensation. Amber went right in, crushing the hairs before they did any damage. Cooked or dried, it loses its sting. Great in soups, loaded with iron, nettles are a non native weed you can pick pretty freely. And if it does get you before you get it, no worries. Growing nearby, you will find likely find the ridged, bell shaped plantain leaf. Pick it, crush it, spit on it and rub it on the sting. Gone.

Nettles are great in soup and loaded with iron

And I’m sorry to have to tell you that you are probably too late for this tip. The flower of the young budding maple tree is entirely edible. Plucked and put into salads they are not just terribly pretty, but filled with sweet nectar. Who knew? The great Canadian tree that keeps on giving…

If you’re keen to learn more, Amber Westfall offers lots of green walks.

You can find her here: www.thewildgarden.ca.

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The new Little Italy burger joint takes the Five Guys burger experience up a notch

Happy National Burger Month!

What — you didn’t mark your calendar?

Okay, technically it’s an American holiday, but I bet there are plenty of people in the National Capital Region who would be willing to join in the festivities. We do love a burger.

It’s no surprise to see new burger joints popping up like crazy, even as we gear up for the invasion of a new fleet of food trucks to help diversify the world of fast-food eating in this city. The burger trend is indeed mushrooming (mmmm, mushrooms are great on burgers) and shows no signs of burning out. Ottawa’s own burger chain, The Works, at 19 locations and counting, has apparently had about 600 franchise requests from across Canada. Holy cow!

I wish I could find some local statistics on our burger consumption habits, but I suspect we’re in line with the results of a recent foodservice consultancy survey of more than 2,250 online US and Canadian consumer: it revealed that 91% of people that responded said they eat a burger at least once a month, and 44% said they consume burgers at least once a week. The report claims: “burgers are one of the hottest trends on today’s dining scene.”

Again, no surprises there.

I had TWO burgers last week. Both of them were from the new Little Italy gem, Beech St. Burger.

The charming eat-in/take-out shop was formerly called Danni Panini. The amiable owner (Danni?) is still behind the bar, but he replaced the diner-style breakfasts and Italian deli meat sandwich shop with a classic American-style no-frills burger joint. And while business hasn’t quite picked up to what it was (presumably we eat more sandwiches than burgers per week), he seems pleased to be bringing something new to the neighbourhood.

Chatting while he cooked, he told me he had originally planned to go with a charcoal grill but then realized that all of the tastiest burgers he tried were made on a griddle. He says he uses fresh local beef for the patties — nothing but pure meat. It’s what I’ll call “meat forward” — in other words, it’s a burger that’s about the taste of the meat, not the toppings (only the basics on offer here). There’s no brand name-dropping going on, but it’s delightfully apparent that the meat is treated with respect.

I’m guessing one of Beech St.’s inspirations is the mega-franchise Five Guys Burgers and Fries because it’s practically a clone — and slightly better. Buns are still industrial-squishy, cheese is processed and orange, and each patty is flattened with a heavy press so it cooks evenly and gets a fantastic sear on the surface. There is no pink left in the centre of the patty (it’s not trying to be that kind of burger) but it remained juicy, properly seasoned and the flavour was really good.

Also Five Guys-esque is the way a regular burger (here it’s called Beech Size) is actually two patties, while a single burger is called Baby Size. Both rings and fries are excellent: crisp, hot, and solid. There’ a black bean veggie burger on the menu for, well, you know.

Cost: Beech St. cheeseburger $7.75; fries $2.50; rings $3.25

Hours: Sunday to Thursday, 11 a.m. to 9 p.m.; Friday and Saturday, 11 a.m. to 11 p.m.

Beech St. Burger, 40 Beech St., 613-237-1641.

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As a first-time attendee of Bon Appetit, I appreciated the relaxed and hospitable ambiance of the food and wine show that took place on Tuesday evening. It was a stark contrast to the intensity of other endless-grazing events like Gold Medal Plates in which the chefs are competing to create the best dishes of the night.

The ox tongue pastrami was brined for 2 weeks, smoked for 16 hours and steamed for 3 hours; topped with Juniper Farms sauerkraut, Gruyere sauce, Russian dressing on Rideau Bakery ry

Not just a welcome relief from bun-centric slider overload, this dish hit all the right notes: fresh, crunchy, spicy and light. I didn't want it to end.

Still, I couldn’t help but to rank some of my favourites bites of the night:

GOLD: It’s a tie between…

Les Fougeres‘ tandoori-spiced grain-fed mini chicken burger served on spring salad with fresh herbs and peanuts (left)

…and Social’s ox tongue Reuben on rye (right).

SILVER: Coconut Curry Shrimp on tropical slaw prepared by Chef Carlton of Island Spiced.

Chef Carlton's shrimp featured his Island Spiced Citrus Rub and his Coconut Curry Sauce, sold in gourmet and natural food stores across the city.

BRONZE: It’s a Matter of Cake “Xposed” Peanut Butter Crunch cake. Matthew Somer might be Ottawa’s next great cake baker.

Peanut Butter Crunch: oatmeal cake, peanut oil soak, peanut butter crunch, peanut butter cookie crumb, and peanut butter icing. Otherwise known as: my next birthday cake.

Lunch's owner, Tim Van Dyke stands in front of his freshly-painted food truck which made its impressive debut at the 17th annual Bon Appetit

Honourable mention goes to:

• The Smoque Shack for the delicious finger-licking good ribs and creating such an amusing display of people in cocktail attire wrestling with bones and faces full of sticky barbecue sauce.

• Brut Cantina Sociale for the guinea fowl pot pie that tasted like grandma made it. It was nice to put a face to Chef Jonathan Harris, who recently took the reins from Danny Mongeon.

• The handsome new Lunch truck! I enjoyed the open-faced porchetta sandwich featuring Bootleg porchetta, but it was the eye-catching new food truck (at left) — which owner Tim Van Dyke had to drive out to Ernst & Young Centre in first gear — that had everyone talking. That gorgeous hand-painted retro lettering looks good enough to eat.

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Farmer Rosemary Kralik is using crowdfunding to save her farm from foreclosure

Crowdfunding — the popular method of online fundraising for startups — is becoming the next major financial model for entrepreneurs. Kickstarter is the biggest platform, but there are dozens of clones, imitators, and innovators helping little guys get the cash they need for everything from the making of indie films and funny T-shirts to self-publishing novels and creating a line of hats for cats.

But what about helping a young chef pay for his new food cart or helping a lone farmer buy enough hay for a herd of yak to last until the pasture grows?

Yes, there’s crowdfunding for that.

WHO: ROSEMARY KRALIK, farmer, Tiraislin Farm

GOAL: $26,000

CROWDFUNDING: GO FUND ME

When Oz Kafe chef Jamie Stunt won the Canadian Culinary Championships with a dish featuring succulent yak meat from Ottawa Valley’s Tiraislin Farm, the nation’s culinary elite were introduced to the extraordinary work of 68-year-old farmer, Rosemary Kralik.

Known to her customers at the Ottawa Farmer’s Market affectionately as “The Yak Lady”, Kralik lovingly raises Tibetan yak among dozens of other species free to roam on her property. In order to pay the bills, Kralik has increasingly had to rely on her artistic talent — painting and drawing, creating portraits of animals and humans on commission — after a series of unexpected events over the last few months threatened the survival of her farm. There was drought, rising costs of hay, vet bills for an injured dog, and tractor repair costs.

On April 29, she followed some friends’ advice and began to explore the prospect of crowdfunding. She set up a page on GoFundMe and asked for donations of any size. She also offered to do a portrait sketch in exchange for a $500 donation or a portrait in oil paint for $1,000. But for someone as self-sufficient as Kralik, asking for help doesn’t come naturally. At first she refrained from sharing her campaign page with her friends by email and on Facebook.

The first donation came in for $25 from a friend with an apology for the small amount. Next, there were two donations from strangers and then one from a woman in Toronto who teaches Tibetan students. Her total after the first week was still under $500 but Kralik is thrilled, insisting that every little bit helps.

“It’s paralyzing,” she says, “But I know if I can just get though this rough spot, I’ll be ok.”

Tarak Hassan has been really surprised that half of the people who have helped fund the purchase of his food cart have been strangers.

WHO: TAREK HASSAN, chef, Gongfu Bao cart

GOAL: $15,000

CROWDFUNDING: INDIEGOGO

When Tarek Hassan won one of the City’s coveted street food permits to operate a food cart, he needed investors. He consulted with his sister Robin, who works in digital marketing, to develop a fundraising strategy. At the beginning of April, he signed onto Indiegogo and created a crowdfunding campaign for his cart, Gongfu Bao.

He wanted to raise $15,000 to pay for the cost of the cart itself, figuring he would need another $8,000-$10,000 on top of that to start up the business — an amount he could get from family and friends. He wanted the nature of his campaign to represent one singular achievable goal: “Let’s all get together and pay for the cart,” he says.

He wanted potential customers for his Asian-style steamed buns, to feel they could get some compelling value for money, so he created some unique perks (moving away from the idea of just giving away buns) and drawing attention to his background as a restaurant cook and caterer.

Within weeks, there were dozens of funders who signed up for various perks including a discount card, lunch for two at the cart, and a catered 4-course dinner — each paying from $10 up to $200. Participating in social media and adding new perks is all part of the game of getting people to actually put down their money, he says, “You have to feed it.”

Now, with less than 2 weeks left of his campaign, he has raised $4,500 thanks to 70 individual funders, many of whom are strangers to Hassan. He seems delighted: “You get all of this buy-in before I even had the means to cook anything!”

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