Guerrilla Kitchen at Cambridge Food Park
"Pop-ups" and street food are big news at the moment, and like any food fashion, some of it's the grossly overrated shibboleth of the beard-stroking poseurs, and some of it's genuinely fantastic.
Cambridge Food Park is happily by and large composed of the latter. It's a kind of meta pop-up, a pop-up of pop-ups, if you will. If you won't, it's a rotating selection of local food vans and vendors, serving lunch on Thursdays and Fridays.
I nipped down for lunch today, and had some fantastic char siu bao from Guerrilla Kitchen.
These were freshly-steamed, and served with a simple selection of fillings: pork belly, chicken, tofu, or tongue.I opted for pork belly and chicken, and I need to go back for the other two. The chicken had some spice to it, and was served with edamame beans and peanuts, plus a sprinkle of shredded leaves and spring onions.
The pork belly was gently flavoured with the char siu marinade, then cooked super tender with gooey skin, and finished on a hot griddle for a rich sticky finish. The cucumber is a nice fresh contrast. The buns themselves are soft and ever so slightly sweet. I'm not a bao connoisseur, but they make great fast food, and these seem to be well-executed and very tasty indeed.
It's good, and if you're looking for lunch you should definitely nip down to Food Park. It's a rotating selection, and you can sign up for a newsletter or follow them on Twitter for notifications of which food vendors will be there when. Steak and Honour is a regular, as is Fired Up Pizza .
Other offerings include fancy hot dogs, Afro-Caribbean, cupcakes, coffee, and of course the splendid Inder's Kitchen.
There's some seating, though not masses, but it frees up pretty quickly. Some of the vans can have a bit of a queue, so you may need to be patient if it's busy, but I didn't see anybody waiting all that long. No, it's a pretty slick setup, and a really good use of what's basically a vacant lot on a construction site.It's just a pity there's nowhere to get a glass of wine or a beer. Someone should add that.