Mike Scorgie, the “mad” in Nomad, used to run Edmonton-Rectangle Records but decided it was time to spin something other than records. Fast forward to culinary training at NAIT and most recently tutelage under Ben Chalmers (formerly of Jack’s Grill, and now sous chef at Corso32), the innovative Scorgie is now spinning the wheels of a big black food truck around Edmonton.
That’s good news for eaters looking for something out of the ordinary.
On Friday I caught the Nomad parked just south of Jasper on 102 Street. The hot ticket that day was a merguez sausage (a recipe courtesy of Mike’s chef friend Alexei Bolderiff who works at Lit) served with a pistachioed couscous salad for $7.50. Great salad: full of crunch and the perfect balance of sweet and savoury. Loved this, but seriously folks, let’s talk about that sausage: this merguez was a beauty, made from exquisitely seasoned Alberta lamb. My only complaint was that I could’ve used more (well, maybe not used…more like wanted), but there was none to be had. Nomad was sold out in one hour.
I perused Twitter to see what Nomad has cooked up in the past, and I like what I found:
smoked and pulled pork with apple and fennel slaw, vegetarian chili, porchetta with smoked tomato and arugula salad, smoked tomato chowder with grilled cheese crouton, cheek bacon (yowza), chorizo chili and corn bread, southern peach chicken, and…house-made chorizo chili with lime crema and pickled succotash and a serving of agave glazed cornbread. That’s some kind of street food, folks. And to sweeten the deal, they offer a refreshing blackstrap molasses chilled tea for $2.
