How to use Street Food to add dynamism and excitement to your event
Expectations for creativity in food are sky high these days, partly due to the rise of experiential pop up restaurants & street food vendors expanding our taste buds, combined with the role of social media in capturing beautiful and innovative food concepts.
An inspiring food menu is a chance to add depth to your event and link it to a theme or inspire your guests with creativity. If you’re looking to move beyond serving traditional catering, street food is a great way to provide a variety of taste and visual experiences that will give your guests plenty to talk about and remember long after the washing up is done.
Street food vendors are the first to offer the latest food trends, from jian bings (sort of pancake/burrito) to gourmet ice cream sandwiches; there is something to excite everyone with endless worldly variations from Middle Eastern, Thai, Mexican, Greek – this is a real chance to indulge your taste buds.
There are a range of benefits for offering street food at your event. Here’s our round up of what can be achieved.
Endless variety
Street food can offer dishes from all over the world so your guests can try a variety of flavours and concepts and broaden their experience. Giving your guests more choice of cuisine means that you can satisfy everyone’s taste buds and dietary requirements as well as offering unique experiences tailored to your event. You can feature one cuisine only or you could offer a range; pancakes on sticks, fish tacos, ice-cream from wooden buckets churned by hand, chapatti wraps, Hawaiian pokes (marinated raw seafood), crab burgers, haggis toasties – the list is endless!
Bringing everyone together
One of the most popular aspects of street food is the ability for guests to move from one food stall to another, experiencing the food but also flowing around the venue and talking to different guests. Long gone are the headaches of table planning or getting guests to rotate between courses associated with a traditional seated dinner! By setting up different food stations guests can circulate around the venue interacting with each other and the variety of food will give everyone plenty to talk about. A little freedom for your guests when it comes to eating delivers a more relaxed and care free approach to hosting an event. Just be careful to make sure that you’re serving food that’s easy to eat and you have plenty of poseur tables for guests to put down their drinks.
Flexible pricing
Street food is very flexible and can be scaled up or down from inexpensive dining to a big budget affair, depending on the brief. The important thing is to have a consistent creative thread running through the food taking guests on a journey such as taking guests to a different country with Indian Street Food Stalls. Creative touches can transform the simplest of menus – think about using a few unusual ingredients along with how the food is displayed, prepared and served in dinky containers. Tailor it to suit the cuisine e.g. pretty bento boxes for Chinese food, mini stainless steel dishes for Indian delights, fish dishes inside scallop shells.
Delivering an experience
Street food can be cooked fresh for guests and watching your food being made right in front of you is entertainment in itself. Guests will have the chance to see just how fresh the food is and how their meal is being made. Street food can offer recipes and dishes that people haven’t experienced before; whether they’re local or from far and wide, street food cooks are bound to offer something a little different to your guests and excite them with something new.
Styled to fit any event
One of the things we love most about street food is the opportunity to get creative with the presentation. We’ve served street food from a huge range of units from wooden stalls, vintage vans, bicycle carts to steel drums. The consistency of styling throughout an event is so important as it’s these little touches that guests love. From the invitation, to the menu, to the set dressing; the innovative catering units are a really fun element to add to the styling of your event with a range of opportunities available such as wood fires on wheels, trolleys dressed in garlands and hand painted caravans.
Access all areas
Wherever your event is being held, a range of mobile units providing street food means you should be able to cater anywhere which is great if you’re holding an event at an unusual venue or looking at providing outside catering. Street food can be served straight from the traders themselves – from chef to guest – with no middleman so no need for lots of catering staff. This allows guests to interact with the person who cooked their meal and embraces the true experience of street food.
At Evolve we regular share news about latest venues, styles and events on our social media. Follow us at @evolveevents.
To get more ideas or help on your event talk to the team on 020 7610 2808 or email info@evolve-events.com