Food truck scores a wood-fired pizza oven

Taking the notion of ''fire in the belly'' to another level, food-truck veteran Michael Ibrahim, who has owned and operated the Soul Kitchen food vans for the past 10 years, has set up the Soul Kitchen Woodfired Pizza Truck. Claiming status as the first Melbourne food truck with a wood-fired oven inside, the custom build took close to a year. Ibrahim's partner Paul McCormack says there are ''loads of wood-fired ovens on the back of trucks with staff working on the outside [but] we are actually inside the truck working on the inside''. Ibrahim and McCormack designed the truck's requirements and it has been operating on the streets for the last three weeks, primarily at the Soul Kitchen truck site outside the Arts Centre. The pizzas are made with hand-stretched dough that has proved for 15 hours: ''While we don't say we do Napoli-style pizza, we utilise as many of their techniques and ingredients as possible out of our truck.'' There are eight pizzas on offer; you can find out where the truck will be at facebook.com/soulkitchenwoodfiredpizzatruck and wherethetruck.at.

Hilary McNevin