Hogtown Smoke

Solid truck, definitely one of the better in the city, slightly inconsistent with the BBQ options, sometimes are better then other times, take your chances, but I would recommend you give it a try, when its good… its damn good.

I finished a Two Pounds of Poutine ($ 8) — 3 Cheese & Curds, Pulled Pork and Gravy all by myself.
It was that good… Everything the way I like it, especially with the gravy not being over salty. but it might not be a good thing for some other people?
Really 2 lbs? I ate the whole thing all by myself… at least no one was watching!

Currently Sitting Here At Hogtown Smoke In The Beach. Man These Guys Are A Joke. Their Prices Are Honestly ReDiculous. I’ve Been To Ribfest And I Doubt The Ribs Here can Match Any Of The Ribs From The US Vendors. For 4 Bones Of Ribs With 2 Sides Depending In The Ribs You Choose Range From $ 20 – 22 And Each Additional 4 Bones Is An Extra$ 10 So For A Full rack You’re Looking At OveR $ 40. I tried 2 sides the Chili which was really meaty and you could taste the Dos Equis which it is simmered in, beef brisket was Ok, the purple vinegar based coleslaw was WEAK no flavor just tasted like cabbage. I will say their house made bbq sauces were delicious, they were the best part.
Another Restaurant Owner Thinking They Are Better Than What They Are But Then Again People In The Beach Love To Over Pay And Get Ripped Off. The beach seriously lacks good restaurants.
FYI Hogtown My Mother Makes Way Better Beef Ribs And Pork Ribs. Plus My Gf Also Makes Much Better Ribs At Home Low And Slow.
If you want great ribs from a restaurant and smoked chickens head to Stockyards.

This is one of the better tasting food trucks around town. Their pulled pork meat is is tender, moist and seasoned well. The signature pulled pork sandwich is huge! The Brisket Po Boy is also very tasty, with the same pulled pork topped with cheese and sauce that gives it another unique tastes from the signature pork sandwich. On top of the tasty meals, this food truck accepts credit cards!

The smells from their BBQ meats brought me to their truck. I couldn’t help but buy one of their pulled porks sandwiches. Meat was amazing. Loved their mild sauce that they offered. Def pulled everything together. As far as price, I would have to say that the burger is a little expensive considering they are serving me food on a truck. No rent, silverware, or a lot of service (other than taking my order and handing it to me through their side window). It was great to try it out but i dont plan on making the extra effort to find them.

I saw the signs on my way in to work today that the food truck was in Liberty Village and the anticipation was building all morning.
I love a good brisket sandwhich, but alas this was in the bottom couple that I’ve ever had. Bread was burnt and weird textured, meat was tough and lacked smokey flavour, and the horseradish mayo was underwhelming. The portion size was also pretty small for $ 11, as you can go into many brick and mortars and get a much larger sandwich for about the same.
I appreciate the art of smoking, and the challenges of doing this in a food truck environment, and I did enjoy the 100 sauces they had to spice it up, but unfortunately only 2 stars from me.
I just finished it about 10 minutes ago and I’m hungry.

I am not a huge connoisseur of Carolina style pulled pork and have only made it about a half dozen times myself. However, I was really underwhelmed with the pulled pork sandwich from Hogtown. Pulled pork (especially Carolina style) should be tender and full of flavor/​tangy — it wasn’t. The pork was VERY dry, hard and lacking flavor — even after I added ~2 tbsps of the Hogtown Spicy BBQ Sauce. C’mon guys — it is harder to make a bad pulled pork sandwich than it is to make a good one. Which tells me, that the pork I ordered today is likely several days old. Not impressed.

I tried the pulled pork bun. There are lots of pork in it, much more than my expectation. It comes with no sauce. In front of the truck there are so many to choose from. May be a good way to spend time to go through the sauces while waiting. Some of the pulled pork are dried. Basically it is still yummy. Next time I have to put much more sauce on the pork.

Ummm I don’t know, I felt bad giving them 3 stars since it’s more like 3.5 so let us round up… I got two pounds of poutine, with pulled pork and 4 cheeses and gravy. They weren’t salty surprisingly, I find gravy is usually too salty even for me. The fries were aaaamazing — crispy and delicious and perfectly copperish/​golden. The cheese was ok, nothing special. I wasn’t that impressed with the pork — but i’m not a huge pork fan unless my dad makes it so maybe i’m biased? Anyway, it was sort of dry for my taste, but overall it make for a pretty delicious poutine!
There was sooo much pork on it, i’m pretty sure 1lb is the fries+cheese and the other is pork… half and half.

This truck was parked outside City Hall last week and usually I see long line ups for this truck, so I figured I should try it (thankfully the cooler weather meant a shorter line).
The girl behind me enthusiastically recommended the Po Boy sandwich and it was delicious and simple. The meat was juicy and delightfully greasy, which definitely made the meat taste really rich. Admittedly, I didn’t taste too much of the horseradish mayo, but it was all delicious nonetheless. Thank goodness I’m not a vegetarian!

This was one of the more disappointing food truck experiences I’ve had. I ordered the Brisket Po Boy for $ 11 I think, and I don’t think I quite got my money’s worth in terms of food quality. The brisket was tough, and I didn’t really enjoy the rub that was used to marinate the meat and lacked the smoky flavour of a bbq. This is kind of surprising cause I thought brisket was supposed to be one of their signature items. Overall, although the portion was quite satisfying and was enough to make me full, I can order from other food trucks and leave feeling satisfied by both quality AND quantity for less than $ 10. Sadly, I came to the realization that not all food from a food truck would be like those seen on the Food Network. Sigh.

Hogtown Smoke is a food truck servicing the GTA that does various BBQ sandwiches (pulled pork, brisket, chicken). The plus of this truck, is that when you order a meal it comes with a little piece of corn bread, baked beans and coleslaw. With all of these extra add ons you will definitely walk away feeling full. (and this is a problem I have had with some food trucks).
The cons is when it comes to taste, and overall enjoyment. While I liked the cornbread, I did not quite like the BBQ. When I was there I got the slider sampler, so I got sliders for all three kinds of their BBQ sandwiches. The problem with all three sliders was that they were too dry. They have some homemade sauces that you can add on to your sandwich, but you would need to add a lot of the sauce for it to really compensate for the dryness.

My husband is crazy for BBQ brisket and pulled pork, so when I found out about this truck being close to his office, I decided to surprise him with some of the items from this truck for lunch.
1. Beef Brisket Sandwich, which is supposed to be their speciality, was dry, tough and very thickly cut. The flavour was only just ok. The dark bun — intolerable.
2. Pulled pork sandwich, again flavour was just ok, and a better bun, but still not great.
3. ¹⁄₃ rack of rib special. Weird mix of spices that overpowered the ribs and smoke flavour. Didn’t finish these. Beans that came with it had an odd taste, was it the root beer?
At $ 10 each, the prices were fair, but not for the quality of food, and the line ups are crazy.
For now we will stick with Lou Dawgs, which is quite good, especially the juicy beef brisket, as well as convenient being close by and fast.
I admit, watching Food Truck shows on the Food Network had us eager to try some food truck eats, but this experience was a definite miss.

Night two, round three of the TIFF food trucks.
I wrapped up my shenanigans in front of Bloor Cinema with the Brisket Po Boy. I can’t say I’ve tried enough Po Boy sandwiches to really compare but being what they are this one was pretty straightforward. It was simple yet effective. The rich smoked flavour in the meat shone through the bun like the sun breaking through the clouds after a rain storm. Also, there was cheese, and a nice amount of it, and it was good.
Great job.

This food truck is a hit with me. Here is why.
We had a work function where Hogtown catered. As someone who has visited BBQ in Texas, I can safely say this has become my number 2 spot for best bbq in Toronto. FYI there isn’t a number 3.
I didn’t see the prices, but when you have some pretty good bbq, cost really doesn’t matter (re: smoking meats for endless hours, knowledge of good wood to use, offset smoker etc.) I ordered the brisket, but here is the trick, don’t get it in a sandwich, just the meat. The brisket had a delicious crust (no cayenne, A+), however it was a bit dry on the edges. The middle was moist and flavourful if you got some. Nice and light smoke flavour, it could use more, but it’s all in the art.
The cornbread was kinda whatever, more like mini corn muffins, purple slaw had little to no flavour and the root beer beans were way too sweet for my taste. I really think they should drop the sandwiches and just get a side of white wonder bread and meat, texas style. A pickle too.
4 stars for bbq in toronto, however in the grand scheme of world bbq it would’ve been a ³⁄₅.

After walking up and down the row of food trucks at the CNE, S and I came to a consensus to try the ever so tempting grilled cheese sandwich with pulled pork, peppers and carmelized onions. At a price of $ 9, it was definitely pricey but we thought it would be worth it, given the line up the truck had (all the other ones looked pretty stale), and seeing the sandwiches come out really did smell and look hearty.
The guys on the truck were super friendly, and open to letting us take photos of them with the giant pork they were planning to shred to pieces. They have been on numerous TV shows and were prepping for their next big gig the next day so I’m sure they did not want to disappoint the visitors there that day either.
After about 10 minutes of waiting, we got our sandwich and parked on a bench, excited to dive into our sandwich… What looked and smelled out of this world did not deliver on the taste. The cheese was too overpowering and the spread of pulled pork was not consistent, let alone, was a very small portion of pork throughout. With the peppers and carmelized onions, there was too much stuff happening and not enough delivery of pork goodness.
Deeply saddened, we felt a little ripped off, especially with all the bacon’ed and large food items in the CNE food building selling at a lesser cost, and a bigger portion.
Guess the big hype of the food trucks is really taking over!

This is the «cool kid» of food trucks. I don’t 100% know if that’s good or not, but I think it is. Loud music and lots of laughter and smiles from the staff (in the midst of long lines and heat) were nice, but maybe they could cut down on the jokes just a tad and reduce the wait for food post-​order from 20 minutes to 10? This is fast food without the «fast.» And for 13 dollars, this sh*t better be good, and those odd ingredients (Root beer smoked beans? Mango jalapeño patron sauce?) better not be a gimmick to mask mediocre food…
They weren’t. This place is pretty solid! The brisket was smoky and a bit sweet, juicy and not too fatty. It was served on a foccacia-​type bun — non-​traditional as someone may have remarked early, but I don’t feel like I needed something heavier on this hot day. The sauce I chose was delicious. The slaw was colourful though a little sweet, and the beans… I’d give them a «good» as well, plus a point for uniqueness. That little cornbread circle was yummmmmy. I got my sandwich without cheese, but I don’t think I missed much by avoiding those Kraft shavings (and I noticed that they are also using Dempster’s bread for Grilled Cheese?)
Pricey, but not bad value for what you get — certainly a nice-​sized portion.
Best ever? Probably not. Good? yes.
3.5 stars… rounding up to 4 because they are the cool kid.

Maybe picking what could prove to be the hottest day of the year wasn’t the best choice lunch breaks to trek across the city’s cement core in search of pork satisfaction. But whatever, I wanted smoked meat and I was determined to get it. Once we got down to Front and Bay, today’s locale for foodtruckery, Hogtown Smoke was competing with Per Se for my business. Hogtown had a large group lingering either waiting in line to order or to pick up their grub. I went with the numbers because I had in fact gone down there for Hogtown and despite my mounting hunger, I was willing to wait.
I got the Sliders three ways: pulled pork, brisket and patron infused chicken (with slaw, beans and cornbread). I’m not entirely sure how long it took to get my order but standing out on the pavement with the roar of the generators, heavy construction across the street, with the sun beating down on my sweaty back, it seemed like a really long time… somewhere in the vicinity of 15 – 20 minutes which seemed unreasonable.
Once I dug in (in the cool embrace of air conditioning) I was pleased though. The chicken was really flavourful, especially with the mango patron bbq sauce, the pork was good but seemed a little dry, I don’t think I put enough sauce on it. The brisket, with the slaw on the sandwich was solid. However, none of the three blew me away. Were my expectations too high? I would have preferred something more «bready» in the bun department, the francese roll seemed like a mismatch in texture. The purple coleslaw was tangy and crunchy but wasn’t a huge stand out but when is it ever? The little muffin of cornbread was nice, I took to dunking bits of it in bbq sauce. The beans were awesome! I’d go back with a soup bowl in hand to partake in those again.
There was definitely no Barque, or Phil’s BBQ quality going on here, but I think they may still be trying to figure out their formula. Mobile food has unique challenges, I’m sure, and since the trend is still developing here, I’ll be patient, and be a supportive customer when these folks truck into my parts of town. I might be more inclined to go with the shorter line though, as I’ve been learning that a long line doesn’t necessarily mean a quality experience. Sheep no more!

A mobile smokery… interesting concept (though with the CO2 emissions from the truck and the smoke that’s produced from 16+ hrs of smoking, it may not be the greenest thing out there :)). I’m a huge BBQ fan and love food trucks, so you can imagine my excitement here.
Hogtown smoke recently opened up and made a trip up to Markham (yes, far, far away) for an event over the weekend and I had the chance to try their beef brisket sandwich.
While the sandwich was good, I’ll have to admit I’ve had better. And for $ 13 a pop, it’s pricey; especially when Caplansky’s Truck was serving up a good brisket sandwich of their own for $ 7 two trucks down.
The portions were small, but my biggest complaint is actually the bread they used. A square focaccia looking holey-​bread, it was bland with a weird texture. It didn’t contribute anything to the sandwich; if anything it took away from the meat itself. I would have much preferred a different type of bread, even a regular old burger bun would have been better. Or maybe try toasting up that cardboard.
The horseradish sauce and BBQ sauces were good, and after discarding the bread I enjoyed the meat itself which was moist (though small portioned for $ 13).
The small sides of beans were pretty good, but the coleslaw was average.
Other sites seem to indicate that they’re typically at Queen and Jarvis, though I’d think
will have them listed soon and they’re on twitter:
for more updates
The food truck craze is in full flight all around North America, and I love the fact that it’s coming to Toronto as well, but just ’cause food trucks are a novelty here in TO doesn’t mean you get an automatic thumbs up — you need some good grub and reasonable prices (how a sandwich at a food truck can cost more than a gourmet sandwich at a brick and mortar is beyond me), and sadly, Hogtown Smoke doesn’t provide either.