Street Food Festival, Puls 5, Zürich

It was a sure thing that I was going to visit the Street Food Festival at the Puls 5. My scouts on Friday evening reported back what I had to try and I rounded up two lovely female assistants to make the most of it. Reviewing the reports of Friday night it was clear that the place was going to be packed. The first taste of that was the line already forming 10 minutes past noon at the Pulled Pork Burger stand of the Renaissance Hotel. According to a handwritten sign tips were being collected for paying for two tables that broke during the staff party… The burger was nice but not sensational, I liked the taste, I thougt it had too much meat and could have been better balanced with some more vegetables, but I liked the textural element of the crunchy onions and the rather colorful bun.
Luckily my game plan with the assitants came together – swarm out to multiple different stands, regroup & assess the loot, repeat. Effectively this cut waiting time to a third. Next on the pulled pork theme (maybe the Central Bar was just a tad too early with their pulled pork sandwiches they stopped serving some time ago) we tried the Panda Buns. While I didn’t quite have the wow experience for example of Momofoku SSam, it was a nicely put together bite, with good balance of acid, crunch and meat. Liked the cidre steak (65 hours) on a piece of bread, was disappointed by the Naan’wich. It felt sad to see all the hard work of making fresh Naan by hand, wasted by a slighlty sour and underwhelming pork belly filling. The Tacos were excellent, liked the Pico de Gallo, Guacamole and the meat. The first real highlight was the Softeis mit Gurken-Kürbiskernöl, a very fresh non-dessert like treat, very much up my alley!.
We continued with a Wagyu Beef Bun, nice – but not sure why Wagyu Beef was needed. One of the weirdest thing I ate was a burger called “The Overlord”, which was a pretty overloaded burger also served with shrimp and scallops. At 20 CHF I thought it was too expensive for what it was did like the meat however, but again – sometimes less is more. At the end we finished with two meatballs served on mashed potatoes and a pineapple salsa. Overall I ate too much, but the key thing here is trying as much as you can. Also an interesting observation is how food trends evolve. Best example was the chinese food truck selling Teigtaschen & Frühlingsrollen. Great thing at a Chilbi in the 1980ties but not up to the masses’ taste anymore.