Clover Downtown

Clover has come to Boston!  They've taken over the old Boloco location at 27 School Street and will be having their first full day of operations with a full menu tomorrow.

Me, I paid them a visit a day early on their Pay What You Want Day and enjoyed a nice hot lunch for a donation to The Food Project.

They make their own sodas here.  They let me sample both the Vanilla Soda and the Ginger Soda, and I was surprised to find the Ginger Soda the winner.  It tasted surprisingly just like fresh ginger!

The Blue Oyster Mushroom sandwich was so simple yet quite delicious!  Battered and fried mushrooms, sliced tomatoes, kale, and some kind of spread tucked into one of their round loaves.  And this from a non-fungus lover!

Rosemary Fries are Clover's signature side.  The flavor was good, but I prefer my fries with a surface crisp that these sadly lacked.

Service was cheerful.  Estimated times were listed right on the menu and updated as needed  But the music and ambient noise were a bit loud, so it was a little tough to listen for my name to be called as each item of my order was prepared.

Summer in the City

Tomatoes?  In the winter?

Yes, and not only that.  I, who would wonder just who could be keeping the food trucks in business during these frozen months, I waited in a food truck line for my choice of two tomato sandwiches and a soup or bean/tomato salad.  But it was for a good purpose!  100% of my $5 donation went to the Greater Boston Food Bank, and in return, Clover Food Lab provided lunch, and the first 100 of us went home with a cute box of yummy Cocktail tomatoes grown in Maine by Backyard Farms.

Sure, it wasn't the most organized event (it took me a while to realize that there were two different sandwich lines), and my fingers were quite frozen, but I got the warm fuzzies for participating in this charitable event and left with a satiated tummy.

Backyard Farms Tomatoes for sampling

Maine Tomato Winter Sandwich
(Backyard Farms tomatoes, Deep-fried seaweed & Sriracha mayo)
& tomato pinto bean salad

Event Source Link

Food Truck Recognition

Given that the common consensus of the Boston dining scene is that it is typically rated behind that of other larger metropolitan cities such as New York City, consider my pride and amazement at running across a list where Boston was not only the first of the 7 listed in "These Gourmet Food Trucks Are Worth Following" but the last!  Yes, Boston was well represented with 2 of our terrific food trucks making Reader's Digest's list, despite the relative newness of the whole Food Truck scene in our fair city.

Clover Food Lab, with their yummy Chickpea fritter sandwich

The Chicken and Rice Guys, with their short to the point menu