13.5 / 20 How we score Indian $ $$$ It was about a decade ago that WA’s food truck movement started gaining traction. We used social media to stalk the movements of new-wave food trucks that weren’t Mr Whippy.
We queued at Food Truck Rumble, a festival at the Perth Cultural Centre organised by food blogger Ai-Ling Truong. We got high on the romantic notion that these mobile kitchens were bringing lesser-known dishes and cuisines to the people, one underserviced neighbourhood at a time. Only that wasn’t always the case.
While there were some food trucks breaking new ground – I think here of operators such as Haitian chef Vital Syverin, owner of Soul Provider food truck, who repped Southern American and Caribbean food culture – many were cooking dishes already well established in WA’s dining scene. Frequently, the versions served from these mobile kitchens was no better than what established restaurants were already cooking. I have no such complaints, however, about the offering at Chaap Junction: a food truck that, since July, has been setting up at Bentley’s Hillview Park to serve chaap and other vegetarian Indian dishes gleaned primarily from the country’s north.
Made from soya bean and wheat, chaap is a mock meat often associated with the teeming metropolis of Delhi where it’s typically served in rich gravy sauces. I’m pretty confident in writing that Chaap Junction’s Pargat Singh – a one-time truck driver and chef who has run restaurants and cafes i.