Torta Boyz
298 Preston St. (in the parking lot),
instagram.com/tortaboyz.ot
Open:
Wednesday to Sunday 3 p.m. till they run out of food
Prices:
sandwiches $15 and $16, fries $10 to $14
You don’t have to be a teenager chomping at the bit to go outside during a seemingly interminable lockdown to enjoy a trip to the Torta Boyz food truck. But it certainly doesn’t hurt.
Last week, my son, who is just shy of turning 18, brimmed with optimism after we placed our orders at the month-old business. We stood in the big Preston Street parking lot that the food truck calls home, my lanky teen alternately practicing his basketball moves or singing along with the Drake tune playing on the Torta Boyz sound system. Around us were other Torta Boyz fans, lounging near their cars and more than adequately distanced while waiting for their orders.
As the soundtrack changed from hip hop to Latin pop, my son said something along the lines of: “I like the vibe here. If the food is as good as the vibe, it’s going to be very good.”
While he hadn’t yet reached the age or majority, he’s always been an astute judge of ambience and victuals, from humble street food to fine dining plates. And his instincts were right about Torta Boyz. A few minutes later, we were sinking our teeth into Mexican sandwiches that were as vibrantly flavoured and complexly tasty as they were massive. We also had some heavily garnished fries that I would pick 100 times out of 100 over the best poutine out there.
The food truck’s menu is compact, consisting of just two whopping sandwiches on toasted crusty buns (or tortas, as they are called in Mexico) and three kinds of fries. We had to wait a bit between ordering and digging in, but I think the delay spoke to the care taken and the from-scratch approach inside the truck.
Of the two sandwiches, the carne asada ($16) made with toothsome slices of striploin steak, avocado, a lightly fermented slaw called curtido, chimichurri and chipotle mayo, was our winner by a nose. The tinga de pollo sandwich ($15) made with stewed chicken, avocado, black beans, iceberg lettuce, a tomato crema and cotija cheese, was not bad at all, and delivered a big spicy punch. But we both found the chicken was not as forward in our bites as the steak had been, and that perhaps the chicken and the beans were competing for attention.
Asada fries, if Wikipedia is to be believed, actually originated in San Diego, rather than Mexico. But we won’t hold that against the fries or the boys, because what the truck doled out was delicious in a fully loaded way. Of the three options, we went for the fries topped with shredded beef brisket ($14) that had been braised with smoky morita chiles and a pasilla chile salsa. The hefty beef mixed with the givens of the truck’s asada fries — guacamole, pico de gallo, cilantro, onions and cheese — to form a daunting and vivid topping. The fries thankfully held their own against the accompaniments because of their impeccable crispness.
The boys also make fries topped with grilled chicken and habanero salsa, plus fries with fried cauliflower and salsa. The latter is the sole vegetarian-friendly pick at the truck, at least for now.
My son and I agreed that a fine pairing with the food was Squirt, the grapefruit-based Southwestern U.S. soft drink. The truck also offers more usual beverages and Mexican Coca Cola, or “Mexicoke,” which is made with cane sugar instead of high-fructose corn syrup, in case that sways the choice of Coke enthusiasts.
We have Luis Guerra and Moudy Husseini, who are very well caricatured in the Torta Boyz logo, to thank for these takeout treats.
The boys, if men in their early 30s can be called that, are life-long friends who grew up together in Ottawa. They went on to manage their respective restaurants — Husseini ran KS on the Keys in South Keys while Guerra managed Campechano Taquería in Toronto — before the pandemic left them out of work.
They resolved to open Torta Boyz. Initially it was going to be a ghost kitchen, but then the truck became available. Either way, “we’ve been wanting to do this since high school,” Husseini says.
If Instagram is your measuring stick, Torta Boyz is a big hit right out of the gate, with more than 2,500 followers. The boys just shrug when asked how they accumulated such a following.
They do acknowledge that they’ve been generating long line-ups, especially on weekends, and that at peak hours they limit orders to two tortas per person to keep the line moving. Also, they routinely sell out of items and close early, rather than at 9 p.m., when they run out. Consider yourself warned.