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SOMBA K'E/YELLOWKNIFE
Red seal chef and certified chef de cuisine Mark Plouffe is the latest culinary entrepreneur to enter the city's growing food truck market.

Mark Plouffe, a red seal chef with 35 years of professional cooking experience, opened his MARKco food truck business in front of the Greenstone Building last week. Plouffe specializes in international street food. - Daron Letts/NNSL photo

MARKco, an homage to famed world traveler and merchant Marco Polo, is the name of his new food truck business, which served its first customers while parked in front of the Greenstone Building on July 22.

The theme of his ever-changing menu is international street food.

"There's a few static items, like a burger and there's a sausage on there, but then I've done a fish taco, a pulled-pork bahn mi, which is like a Vietnamese sub, and a caprese panini – it seems to be quite popular," Plouffe said, while taking a break from prepping for Thursday's lunch shift.

Other dishes have included bri LT, which featured deep fried bri, lettuce and tomato on a kaiser bun, and deep fried white fish on Indian nan bread with lemon. He is preparing some dishes inspired by Louisiana cuisine, as well.

"It's a mix of foods from around the world," he said, adding he hopes customers will remember each culinary experience he puts on the plate. "I want to have bold flavours and have people really taste what we're doing – big flavours that stand out."

Plouffe bought the vehicle, a 1990 Chevy Freightliner delivery truck refitted with a brand new frier, stove, fridges and griddle, from a Calgary company earlier this summer. He hired designer Janet Pacey to create the decals for the truck.

"I've been thinking about this for awhile and this past spring I decided to go ahead and do it," said Plouffe, who has cooked professionally for 35 years. He ran the kitchen at the Explorer Hotel when he moved North 22 years ago and he has taught cooking at St. Patrick High School for the past eight years.

This spring, Plouffe's dream of starting up a food truck was inspired during a March break field trip to Los Angeles and San Francisco with some of his students. The class toured a small cheese factory, sampled numerous restaurants, and toured a food market and had breakfast with Food Network celebrity chef Bob Blumer, a.k.a. The Surreal Gourmet, in his home.

Plouffe has help from five employees, four of which work with him each day. Jessica Kruger, Trevor Wright, Alwyn Palonganak, Kathleen Gordon and David Brinston are all former students of Plouffe's St. Pat's cooking class.

The team sets up in the morning, begins prep before 10 a.m., then parks the truck downtown to get ready to open at 11:30 a.m.

"All that work lets us open for about two hours and then pretty much everything is gone," Plouffe said, adding he may open one day a week in Kam Lake in response to requests from several customers.

"We have fun," Plouffe said. "You can be creative, get a good idea and go for it."

As for what's on tomorrow's menu, Plouffe isn't sure, yet.

"Another idea is going to come along and we'll see what happens," Plouffe said.

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