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The death of a Vancouver food-truck operation a cause for grieving in this foodie city

March 9th, 2012 · 28 Comments

The announcement by Coma Food Truck operator Jay Cho that he is winding up operations tomorrow provoked an outpouring of eating and grief this week by his many fans.

Cho is giving up because he didn’t get selected for a permanent spot for the second year in a row. Although he seems to be successful with his mobile permit and would have been automatically renewed for that this year, he says it’s too hard. And, I get the sense, he’s also feeling really rejected.

I wasn’t part of the taste-testing prior to the selection of 12 lucky operators for permanent spots out of the 59 applicants, so I don’t know how his food ranked against them. But I can say that his Korean barbecue tacos were WAY better than what I had at LA food trucks — less salty, with moister meat, and with the spiciness cut by a nice heaping of some kind of Korean cole slaw on top.

My first-ever foray into bibimbap at his truck was also an above average meal. Burp.

Sorry to see you go, Jay. (He’s at 8th and Ash today, according to tweets. If you read this in time, hustle down. And somewhere in Kits tomorrow.) But I’ll be looking for Alessandro Vianello’s new food truck, which he describes in my story.

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