Clover Food Truck in Dewey Square

Despite feeling under the weather yesterday, I headed over to Dewey Square with my friend Alicia to finally check out the Clover Food Truck.  We had both heard such wonderful things about it and wanted to try out their lunch menu.  Dewey Square, which is near South Station, was bustling when we arrived with a farmers market and a local children's rock band playing. 

Alicia and I patiently waited in line and we knew that the food had to be good for people to wait in the sweltering summer heat!

As we got closer, we read the menu and with some advice from Ayr, one of the wonderful masterminds behind the Clover Food Lab, Alicia and I both settled on the soy BLT sandwich.  When Ayr said that Mayor Menino enjoyed his first soy BLT so much (after much skepticism) that he came back for another one the next day, I knew that was the sandwich for me.

We gave our order to Enzo and waited patiently for our sandwiches as they were prepared made to order.

And the sandwiches were worth the wait! The bread was soft and chewy and held delicious ripe slices of tomato, crisp lettuce, and soy tempeh "bacon", along with a creamy vegetarian mayo. 

Clover Food Truck is obviously a big hit with vegetarians and vegans alike (they can make most orders vegan friendly) but as a meat eater, I was also duly impressed.  The sandwich was really filling and hit the spot.

Despite my poor red nose from all of my sniffles, I was glad that I made the trek to Dewey Square.  Alicia and I already were scoping out other items we'd like to try, including their surf and turf salad and the rosemary fries!

Have you checked out Clover Food Truck? If so, what do you recommend we try next?

Clover Food Lab has trucks in two locations:  Clover MIT, 20 Carleton Street, Cambridge (near Kendall MBTA stop) and Clover Dewey Square, Summer and Atlantic Street, Boston (near South Station).

VH1's 2010 Do Something Awards

Taking a break from my usual food-related blog posts, I wanted to share some interesting information that I received from VH1 recently.  Apparently, our beloved city, Boston, MA has been nominated under the 2010 Do Something Awards: City category!  

If you're like me, you probably have never heard about the Do Something Awards so when I did some research I found out the following.  DoSomething.org and VH1 have partnered to present The Do Something Awards to honor young people's commitment to social change.  The main award is given to one of five nominees, aged 25 and under, who represent the pivotal "do-ers" in their field cause, or issue.  The winner will receive a $100,000 grant for his or her cause during the live VH1 broadcast of the ceremony.

DoSomething.org is one of the largest organizations in the US that helps youth rock causes they care about. A driving force in creating a culture of volunteerism, DoSomething.org is on track to get two million young people involved by 2011. By utilizing the web, television, mobile, and pop culture, DoSomething.org inspires, empowers and celebrates a generation of doers: young people who recognize the need to do something, believe in their ability to get it done, and take action. 

In addition, the DoSomething Awards are also presenting awards in other categories, including some cities in the country.  VH1 and DoSomething have nominated Boston because of the city’s commitment to transforming children’s lives through innovative education. There are an additional four cities in the running to win under the same category.  I voted for Boston this morning and you can do the same by visiting the website here.

To learn more about the Do Something Awards, you can visit here and don't forget to vote for Boston as the 2010 Do Something City!  The 2010 Do Something Awards will air live on Monday, July 19 at 9/8c on VH1.

Weekend Re-Cap in Washington D.C. with Horses and Wine

This past weekend, I flew down to Washington D.C. to visit one of my best friends from law school.  I flew in late Friday night and back to Boston early this morning.  It was an absolute scorcher down in D.C. this past weekend and I'm a bit exhausted but here is a recap of some of the weekend's highlights:


In addition to my friend A being an attorney extraordinaire, she is also a former professional horse rider.  Even though I have known her for over seven years, this was the first time I have actually seen her compete and I was impressed!

After the horse show in Gettysburg, Pennsylvania, we drove back to A's place and headed out to Georgetown for some dinner.  We decided to head to Bodega for Spanish tapas.  We sat out on the patio and indulged in delicious mojitos and sangria, which helped us cool down from the heat.  It was too dark for photos but the food was really divine, especially the marinated house olives and Basque peppers, Catalonian tomato bread with Manchego cheese, and the seared diver scallops with sauteed fava beans.

On Sunday, A organized a wine bus tour in Maryland with some of her co-workers.  We had a great time at the Swing'n Blues Wine Festival at Linganore Winecellars at Berrywine Plantations.  We tasted a lot of different types of wine but most were way too sweet for me!

But we did manage to find some shade to drink a few bottles of wine and enjoy the new hats we purchased, along with some fried oysters!

Then we were onto Black Ankle Vineyards, which I absolutely fell in love with.

They have about 22 acres of grapes and they have a strong focus on local and sustainable wines.  Their tasting room was really incredible and made with the vineyard's hay and compressed grape vines.  Cool, right?

I liked the wine here a lot better, especially their 2007 Leaf Stone Syrah.  I was severely tempted to buy a bottle but decided against it to avoid having to check my luggage on the way home.

After a long bus ride back to D.C., A and I headed back to Georgetown to have dinner at Pizzeria Paradiso with another friend. They had an extensive beer selection but after a long day of wine, heat and sun - all I wanted was some water and some pizza.  Their slogan is "Eat Your Pizza" and they didn't have to ask me twice!  The three of us split the Insalata Italiana, which had mixed greens with marinated artichokes, white beans, sundried tomatoes and Parmesan cheese.  And I had the Quattro Formaggi pizza, which had Pecorino, Fontina, Gorgonzola and Mozzarella (with parsley and garlic).  And those leftover slices also made a great breakfast at the airport this morning!

All in all, it was a fantastic weekend and I was glad to see one of my best friends.  I can't wait to head home today to get a good night's sleep and I am looking forward to another one of my pals coming to visit this weekend!

How was your weekend?

Wild Mushroom Agnolotti with Garlic Scape Pesto

A few weeks ago, I received a free coupon from FoodBuzz and Buitoni to try out Buitoni Riserva refrigerated pasta.  Since I haven't had much of a chance to cook dinner this past week with lots of after-work and blogger activities, I was really looking forward to using my coupon last night to cook a hearty pasta dinner.

On my way home, I stopped by DeLuca's Market and discovered that they only had one kind of the Buitoni Riserva pasta - Wild Mushroom Agnolotti.  But since I love mushrooms, I was pretty happy with this selection.

When I got home, I immediately put a pot of water to boil with a few pinches of salt.  While the water was boiling, I got to work on the rest of the pasta dish.  Last week, I received a delivery of garlic scapes from my farmers market delivery service.  After reading this recipe on Local in Season, I knew that I wanted to make a garlic scape pesto.

First, I washed a half bunch of garlic scapes.

I chopped them up (discarding any of the yellow parts) and placed them into the food processor.

I pulsed the garlic scapes so that they were broken down and then I added about a half cup of raw shelled walnuts.

I pulsed some more and then added some Parmesan cheese, salt, pepper and olive oil to taste.  It is hard to quantify how much I put in because I would pulse, taste and add some more of any of the four ingredients based on flavor and consistency.

The garlic scape pesto had a beautiful color and as a garlic lover, I was definitely enthralled by the sharp garlic flavor.

When the water had started boiling, I gently placed the half-moon shaped pasta into the pot with a small drizzle of olive oil to keep the pasta from sticking.  This pasta cooks very quickly and was done after just five minutes.  While the pasta was cooking, I prepared my final ingredient for the pasta and chopped up some leftover sundried tomatoes.

I topped the agnolotti with the garlic scape pesto, sundried tomatoes, Parmesan cheese and a drizzle of olive oil.

The pasta was divine.  The agnolotti was filled with a rich blend of Portobello and Crimini mushrooms.  Although this pasta would be great with a cream-based or brown butter sage sauce in the winter, as a summer dish, I loved how perfectly it went with the garlic scape pesto.  The sharpness of the pesto and the sundried tomatoes cut into the richness of the pasta in the most wonderful way.

What summer pasta dishes have you been enjoying lately?

East Coast Grill's Canned Beer Dinner

If you have read my previous blog posts about East Coast Grill (which can be found here or here), you know that I'm a huge fan of this restaurant.  I love it so much that I even brought B to this restaurant on Valentine's Day for brunch!  So when B and I heard that East Coast Grill was having a special menu on Monday night to celebrate 75 years of canned beer, we quickly made reservations.  You see, my close friends tease me about my strange love for Pabst Blue Ribbon tall boys.  I was drinking PBR way before it became the hipster drink that it is today, which is something I'm not sure if I should brag about or be very embarrassed about.  Either way, after participating in Monday night's tweet-up, we headed over to Inman Square for what turned out to be another fabulous dinner.

To start, we ordered some drinks.  B ordered Dale's Pale Ale.

And I ordered a beer cocktail called the Amstel Cure with Amstel Light, Domain Canton (a delicious ginger liquor) and limeade.  I was skeptical about a beer cocktail but our server talked me into it and I was glad I made this choice.  I love anything ginger and the ginger flavor went well with the tart limeade.

We snacked on their addictive spicy house pickled vegetables and perused the menu.

Since we wanted to try a few different things and there were only two entrees on the special canned beer menu (which consisted of food cooked with canned beers and food that goes well with canned beers), we decided to order a bunch of different appetizers to share.

First up was the Huge Texas Beef Bone with tangy mustard sauce, hot pepper jelly and crispy slaw.  With my aversion to eating meat on bone, this was definitely one of B's selections and he cut me off some of the rib to try.  The meat was tender but the highlight for me was the tangy mustard sauce.

At our host's suggestion, we also ordered the Grilled Homemade Andouille Sausage with Banana Pepper Relish and Grilled Cornbread.  This was definitely one of my favorite dishes and even though the photo doesn't show it well (it is hiding behind the lemon wedge), that banana pepper relish was out of this world!

Since B ordered the beef bone dish for himself, I of course ordered the Fried Wellfleet Oyster Po'boy with Tabasco Remoulade and more of the house pickles.  Although the remoulade didn't really have the kick I wanted, the oysters were fried perfectly crispy and came on the most delicious buttery roll.  Even though B isn't the biggest fan of shellfish, he couldn't resist sampling these delightful fried oysters!

And finally, off of the regular menu, we ordered the Chipotle Glazed Chicken Livers with Sweet and Sour Bacon Greens and Fried Onions.  I was infatuated with this dish because the rich chicken livers had a surprising sweet and spicy flavor from the chipotle glaze.  The richness was cut by the bacon greens and the crispy fried onions.  I am so glad that this is a regular menu item because I definitely will order this again!

Every dish was so wonderful and we were both so glad that we made a point to check out this canned beer menu.  I have never had a bad meal at East Coast Grill and Monday night was no except.  I love the casual and relaxed dining environment along with the friendly and attentive service.  Oh, and even though I didn't get a PBR that night, I did manage to snap a shot of their PBR pinata.  Maybe I need to find one of these for my next party?

East Coast Grill is located at 1271 Cambridge Street, Cambridge, MA in Inman Square.

Melting Pot's Fondue of Foodies Tweetup

Although I've been writing on this blog since 2008, I've only recently joined the world of Twitter in the past year.  Although Twitter can often be overwhelming with information (and perhaps a bit distracting at times), I've exchanged a lot of useful information about cooking, restaurants, fashion, celebrity gossip and local events from Twitter.  Overall, I find Twitter to be a really great forum to share ideas with people with similar interests and to interact with my blog readers on a more personal level.  The strange thing about Twitter, however, is that there are some individuals that I "tweet" with on a regular basis yet I have never actually met them in person!

Last night, however, I was lucky enough to be invited to the Melting Pot's tweetup, which got a lot of fantastic local food tweeters in the same room.  I got to see some of my favorite food bloggers but I also got to meet some people that I have shared many tweets with but haven't had the opportunity to meet until last night!  Throughout the evening, we chatted about our jobs, our blogs, and some of our favorite restaurants.  We also got to indulge in some delicious fondue treats provided by the Melting Pot.  This included a variety of cheese fondues, including a spinach artichoke cheese, fiesta cheese, Wisconsin trio cheese and traditional Swiss cheese fondue (as pictured below).

Each cheese fondue was accompanied by bread, celery, carrots and tortilla chips to dip with. 

There were also dessert fondue options and my favorite was definitely the melted milk chocolate with chopped peanuts. Although the strawberries, graham cracker crusted marshmallows, and brownies were all great to dip in the dessert fondues, I think the Rice Krispie treats provided the best texture.

In addition to the house white and red sangria and local Nantucket Triple 8 blueberry vodka, I was really excited to try out Apfel Eis from Harvard's Still River Winery.  I spoke with Margot, one of Still River Winery's proprietors, and she told me all about this fantastic local apple ice wine.  I learned that there are over eighty apples in each small dessert wine bottle and despite its sweetness, there is absolutely no sugar added to the wine. 

The wine was absolutely refreshing and at Margot's invitation, I am definitely going to make a visit there this fall to learn more about their wine pressing process and of course, wine tasting!

Overall, I had a great time meeting some new people, along with catching up with some familiar faces such as Michelle and Alicia.  These two lovely ladies have some really personal and inviting food blogs and I urge you to check them out.

I want to thank the lovely folks at the Melting Pot for getting such a great group of local food writers together to indulge in some cheesy and chocolate goodness.  In addition to generously hosting this event, the Melting Pot also provided a gift certificate which makes a return visit something to look forward to.

The Melting Pot has multiple locations throughout the country and three locations in Massachusetts.  Their Boston location can be found at the Park Plaza Hotel at 75 Arlington Street, Boston, MA.

Service Misses at Mumbai Chopstix

After spending most of Saturday on the golf course, I was looking forward to a low-key date night with B.  We decided to head over to Mumbai Chopstix on Newbury Street to enjoy their outdoor patio seating.  B and I were lucky enough to attend one of Mumbai Chopstix's sneak preview parties in April but we haven't had a chance to head back since then.

We arrived around 7:30 PM and the patio was full but a few tables were paying their bill and leaving.  The outdoor hostess asked if we minded waiting a few minutes so that they could clear and set a table for us.  We overheard our hostess tell the busboy that we were waiting for a table.  We patiently waited but were puzzled as the busboy chose to clear all of the four-seat tables first (even though there were no waiting parties for those tables) and eventually cleared the two-seat table for us after the hostess reminded him again that she had guests waiting.  This was the beginning of a series of service mistakes throughout the night.

B and I decided to order a few of their appetizers in lieu of entrees so that we could try out as many different menu items as possible.  To start, we ordered our drinks.  I chose a glass of their only plum wine on the menu and it came in a gorgeous glass.

B ordered one of his favorite beers - a Flying Horse Royal Lager.  Our server told us that beer glasses weren't available right now but that he would return with one as soon as possible.  B never received a beer glass that evening.

We ordered several different appetizers, such as the lachew cauliflower.  This was a tasty dish that contained fried cauliflowers tossed in a spicy chili sauce.  This was definitely a favorite.

The duck samosas were less appealing.  They were way too dry and the accompanying sauce was cloyingly sweet.

But this cold spicy vegetable noodle dish topped with pickled cucumbers and watermelon was definitely a success.  My only suggestion for the restaurant would be to cube the watermelon instead of providing long strips, which will definitely help continue the spicy and sweet flavor combination of the dish.  

And finally came the fried okra, which was perfectly crispy but definitely needed some kind of dipping sauce with it.  Each table is actually provided a small dish of three dipping sauces but our server failed to provide one for us.  We asked him if we could have some dipping sauces and he said that he would bring some but then proceeded to provide one for another table that was still perusing their menu and then explained what each sauce was to them.  When he was done, as an afterthought, he brought our dipping sauces over and provided no explanation whatsoever.  It was completely bizarre.

In addition, when our plates were brought to our table, we asked for chopsticks and waited patiently for our server to bring them.  When we realized that our food would turn cold by the time he returned, we began using our forks and knives.  After some delay, our server eventually brought chopsticks over with no explanation or apology as to what took so long.

When our meal was over, our server proceeded to stack all the dirty dishes at my place setting in front of me and then left it in front of me while he proceeded to talk to us about their dessert menu.  B and I were both so ready to get out of there and I strangely wasn't in the mood for dessert with a stack of dirty dishes in front of me.

Our server's attitude could probably be best summarized when he provided the complimentary bento box of sesame candies with our check.  This is what we received - no joke.

Based on the presentation with the dirty crumbs, it looked as if this was some previous table's box that he just re-used.  Neither one of us touched a candy, hastily paid the check, and left.

I was really disappointed with my dining experience at Mumbai Chopstix.  While the food had some highlights, the poor service just overshadowed the entire evening.  I must admit that it will take me a very long time to return back to Mumbai Chopstix after so many misses that evening.

Mumbai Chopstix is located at 254 Newbury Street, Boston, MA.

Slow Cooker Braised Short Ribs

On Sunday, B and I decided to make braised short ribs.  We received two pounds (bone-in) of short ribs from Stillman's Farm via our farmers market delivery on Friday and we were excited to put the short ribs to use right away.

B found this simple recipe online to braise the short ribs using a slow cooker and I thought this would be the perfect way to cook our short ribs until they were tender.  Although the recipe used a lot of different ingredients, it was still fairly simple and straightforward.

First, B tossed the short ribs in a bag with flour, salt and pepper.  Don't you love the action shot?

When the short ribs had a nice coating, B gave the short ribs a nice sear in a pan with melted butter.  When the short ribs had browned, B placed them in the slow cooker while we worked on our liquid components.  I put B on stirring duty while I prepared the ingredients.  Reading down the recipe, I first started out by chopping up a cup of white onion.

I added one cup of beef stock to the onions and B got going on heating these two ingredients on the stove.  The recipe called for beef broth but I had a box of beef stock open in the refrigerator and I didn't want it to go to waste.

I then measured out three-quarter cup of red wine vinegar, which was added to the pan.

Next I measured out a three-quarter cup of brown sugar.  I filled the measuring cup but I didn't pack it.

I also measured out a quarter cup of Sriracha chili sauce.  Nothing will wake you up like working with spicy chili sauce first thing on a Sunday morning!

I also measured out two tablespoons of ketchup and Worcestershire sauce, along with a generous teaspoon of chili powder.

And finally, we used our garlic press to add four minced cloves of garlic to the pan.  The recipe only calls for two tablespoons but I love garlic and I always add more to any recipe where I can.

When all of the ingredients were in the pan, B kept stirring until the liquid ingredients came to a boil.

B poured the sauce over the short ribs in the slow cooker.  Since the liquid ingredients didn't cover the short ribs, B coated each side of the short ribs in the sauce but ultimately put the short ribs bone-side up to ensure that most of the meat would cook nicely in the juices.

We put the slow cooker on for nine hours but ended up taking the short ribs out in about eight hours when our horseradish cheddar mashed potatoes and fresh corn on the cob were both ready.  The meat was so tender that it fell clean off the bone.  We used the remaining sauce as a gravy for both the short ribs and the mashed potatoes and found it to be intoxicatedly spicy.

I would definitely call our first attempt at slow cooker braised short ribs a huge success and they made excellent leftovers for lunch the next day!

Speaking of horseradish cheddar mashed potatoes, have you entered by Cabot Cheese giveaway?