I went to Saxe Point today. That was the good.
Then came the bad, and eventually the ugly.
The bad was my own fault. I forgot to bring food. Stupid. I know better. Blood sugar started doing that little sideways shuffle it does before things get interesting, so I looked for something nearby. A woman I knew from the Highlands once told me about a great little falafel place in Esquimalt. Perfect. I was dying for a falafel. Hadn’t had a proper one since about 2010.
Found the closest place. Food truck. Five minutes away. Fine.
The woman running it was lovely. Really lovely. Kind, friendly, Middle Eastern, middle-aged, all the proper hospitality instincts. “Have you been here before?” “Do you like falafel?” The whole thing. Great service. I ordered one. Ten bucks. Left a two-buck tip.
Then the falafel came.
Except it wasn’t a falafel.
It was a wrap.
I said, “Oh. The picture showed a falafel sandwich. You know, half-moon pita, vegetables, tahini, hot sauce, the whole beautiful mess.”
She said, “No, no, we do it like this. Less messy.”
Right.
I don’t remember asking for less messy. I remember asking for a falafel sandwich.
That’s like going into Waffle House, ordering a waffle, and being handed a panzerotti.
No big deal. I was low, I needed food, and she was nice. I got home, grabbed a drink, and dug in.
Still not a falafel.
Not even close.
This was some kind of fried chickpea material in a wrap with various mystery greens. Maybe romaine. Maybe lawn clippings. I asked for hot sauce. There may have been hot sauce in there, but if so it had entered witness protection. I needed tahini. I needed garlic. I needed that proper deep-fried chickpea thing that makes falafel falafel. That unmistakable flavour. The crunch, the sauce, the vegetables, the mess, the architecture.
This had none of it.
No tomatoes. Maybe pickles. Maybe not. Some green stuff. A rolled pita. Texture without memory. Food designed by a committee afraid of napkins.
And that, to me, is Victoria in a nutshell.
We’ll take something wonderful and make it safer. Blanker. Blander. Tidier. Less drippy. Less garlicky. Less alive. We’ll put training wheels on falafel so nobody has to risk a spot of tahini on their Lululemon.
This was not the worst thing I’ve ever eaten. Not even close. But it wasn’t falafel. It wasn’t even falafel’s distant third cousin, fourth removed. It was chickpea-ish filling in a wrap.
And I’m not against wraps. Wraps have their place. But a wrap, to me, is grown-up baby food. Food for people who don’t want texture, don’t want mess, don’t want sauce running down their wrist, and have never once thought, “Maybe lunch should fight back a little.” Take a damn chance!
The real shame is that food trucks are supposed to be the last bastion of renegade food. That’s where flavour is supposed to live. That’s where the rules are supposed to go to get mugged.
Instead, I got Victoria falafel.
Bland. Tidy. Careful. Wrapped for my protection.
And somewhere, a proper falafel is weeping into its tahini.
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