A Park Full of Trucks

Today, we took a family outing to the Food Truck Festival, being held at the center of UMass Boston's campus. There were 27 trucks parked around the circle, with plenty of food to serve and smiles to give. It was a beautiful day today, and until today, I didn't realize how pretty the campus is, right on the water, which brought a lovely breeze to the event.

There was no way we would make it to every cart, based on the serving sizes that we started with, but I tried to take pictures and notes on my favorites from the day. By far, my favorite bite was from Mei Mei Street Kitchen. There were quite a few options at this truck but I decided to go for the Green Monster ball, a deep-fried spinach and cheddar rice ball, along the lines of the Italian version - arancini. This was a delicious ball of goodness - It was warm and gooey on the inside, and crispy and crunchy on the outside. The best of all worlds, if you ask me, and I now have to find a way to get to their truck in Back Bay, from my office in the Financial District, on a regular basis for lunch. I wonder if they deliver!?

The Lobsta Love Truck was gaining quite a following, and at a rapid rate, so we decided to hop in line before it got ridiculous. There were only three options at this location, so my husband and I decided to each get one thing and share. We opted for the lobster mac n' cheese, which came with giant chunks of lobster claw, as well as the lobster quesadilla, a tortilla stuffed with succulent lobster meat and a biting sauce to top it all off!

There's a couple glimpses of the puppy in these pics - haha! She was looking on with her tongue out, wishing she could have some delicious lobster too! Over at Staff Meal, I had noticed a "truck-made" chorizo on the menu, and that grabbed my attention, so we went over there next. The chorizo was served in a taco, with lime crema, radish and lettuce, and it was delicious!

The Dining Car offered the choice between a Pulled Pork Slider, and Crispy Cauliflower. I don't normally find myself being drawn to anything involving cauliflower, but this was just calling my name for some reason. It definitely did not disappoint. The florets are tossed with their special corn flour coating and then lightly fried. They are then topped with some curry aioli that adds a hint of spice to the dish! Yum!

The final highlight of delicious food at the festival came from Roxy's Grilled Cheese, which despite being famous from The Great Food Truck Race on the Food Network, I have had yet to try. They don't show up in the area that I work very often, and when they do, I've usually already eaten lunch once I find them. I was excited to try their food and so I opted for the The Green Muenster Melt, which contains applewood-smoked bacon, guacamole, and muenster cheese. 

Before we left the festival, but after we decided we were sufficiently full, we had to visit Del's Frozen Lemonade for a refreshing cup of, you guessed it, frozen lemonade! In this heat, that really hit the spot!

Dante!

I had a lovely time with some of my favorite ladies last night! We went out to dinner at a local establishment in the Cambridge area, called Dante. Chef Dante de Magistris's sister restaurant, Il Casale, is in Belmont, and I've been to that one...so I had to try Dante as well. I like them both very much.

We started our evening with a round of cocktails. I had checked out the menu ahead of time, as I always do, and knew exactly which one I wanted. It was called Zecca, and it had lemongrass, apple, vodka and mint. It was a lovely, smooth drink and it wasn't at all too sweet, as you'd think it might be with the apple. The bite of the vodka and the savoriness of the lemongrass flavor really balanced everything out perfectly. (apologies for the pictures - I didn't want to use my flash and disturb the diners around us, so we'll work with what we've got here)

Zecca

We started off with a few sfizi, an Italian version of tapas, or small plates for sharing. At only $5 each, we were able to order a bunch of them without feeling as though we were driving up the bill! We opted for four of them. The Cotechino is a rich sausage, cooked under ash, served with charred fennel. What was so interesting about this dish is that you could smell the ash as soon as the plate was placed on the table, but you didn't get the ashy taste when you took a bite. It was a very interesting use of the senses, to be smelling one thing, and tasting quite another.  The Arancini is a porcini risotto, scamorza, and truffle honey ball that is then fried to perfection. Upon seeing them, I thought they looked a bit over-fried, but I was wrong...they were perfect! The risotto was wonderful and creamy and the middle just oozed with the scamorza, a cheese similar to mozzarella. The Burrata is a buttery "mozzerella" from Apulia, Sicilian oregano and pistacios. If you've never had burrata, you should...because comparing it to mozzarella does it NO justice...it's an incredibly creamy, buttery, deliciousness that just cannot be compared to. :) Lastly, we got the Mascarpone, which is a whipped, roasted hot pepper and mascarpone dip, with baby carrots, fennel and crostini. I think this one was my favorite. It was so delicious, and the baby carrots and radishes were crunchy and amazing. But the fennel...the fennel went so well with the flavors of the dip...I had a hard time when that plate was empty!

Cotechino

Arancini

Burrata

Mascarpone

We ordered two salads, to share between the three of us. The Rughetta is made up of baby arugula, endive, pear mostarda, Pecorino Romano, olio nuovo, and lemon. It was extremely simple, but very flavorful and my favorite of the two salads. The other one is not on the menu online, and I can't remember the exact name of it, but it was heirloom tomatoes, with mozzarella and zucchini blossoms, drizzled with balsamic vinegar. It was extremely tasty, especially since now is the perfect season for those heirloom tomatoes. I just have a soft spot for anything with arugula.

Rughetta

Heirloom Tomatoes

For my entree, I had a small portion of the Gnocchi, made in-house, and tossed with gorgonzola dolce and roasted peaches. (This isn't the one that is on the online menu.) This is an incredible dish! I was so intrigued by the combination of gorgonzola, peaches, and the potato dumplings that I just had to try it and I am so glad that I did. It was the perfect size too! It was a very rich dish so I was happy not to have a ton of it in front of me. I was so satisfied when the plate was cleared.

Gnocchi

We opted for one dessert because we all just needed to finish the meal off with a bite of something sweet. It was very difficult to decide but we finally came to the conclusion that the Fritelle sounded the best. It is Venetian-style fried dough served with four sauces: caramel, chocolate, strawberry and vanilla-ginger. The Vanilla-Ginger sauce made this dish what it was ... I actually could have done without the other three. It was the most unique of the sauces, and went so well with the gooey richness of the hot dough. 

This was...Fritelle.

All in all, we thoroughly enjoyed our meal at Dante, and I will certainly go back! It wasn't overly expensive, it has a lovely atmosphere, and the servers are super-friendly and fun to interact with! It's casual in a fine-dining setting, and I loved every second of it!