Chicken & Rice Guys

I think I have a new favorite food truck! How exciting! I will always love Bon Me and I will continue to get the brown rice bowl with tofu and shitake mushrooms quite frequently. And for $6, it's definitely affordable.

But the Chicken & Rice Guys are even cheaper and has a smaller portion option which is the perfect size for lunch!

They keep things very simple with some saffron rice on the bottom topped with grilled chicken or lamb sausage (or both), lettuce, and a slice of pita. And then you can put your own sauce on with a white yogurt sauce, hot sauce, and BBQ sauce to choose from. Now I've gone here twice in the last two days so I've had the chance to try everything.

The first trip I just got the chicken and put the white sauce on half and hot sauce on the other.

It was delicious! You can choose between a small and large size for $4 and $6 respectively. This is the small size and it was the perfect amount for lunch or a lighter dinner. I was very satisfied afterwards. The chicken was deliciously seasoned and went really well with the white sauce! Now here's a warning that needs to be heeded. The hot sauce is HOT! My friend couldn't even finish his because he put too much hot sauce on it. I like spicy hot things, but this is definitely really really hot! So be careful! I think it's good enough with just the white sauce, but if you need a little kick, don't drown your chicken in it like I did.

The second time I went I decided to go out on a limb and try the lamb sausage. So I got the combo with half chicken and half lamb. The lamb was good, but I think I'll stick with the chicken in the future. It's a little healthier without the extra grease from the sausage. But the lamb definitely tasted amazing with the white sauce!

So if you're looking for cheap, basic food on the go this is worth giving a shot. It's delicious, healthy and very cheap.

Cupcake Week: The Cupcakory

Happy Wednesday! You did it...you made it halfway through the week...it's practically Saturday! (Although I'm not sure if this is a good thing seeing as this is CUPCAKE WEEK! And who wants a week like that to go by quickly? Not I.)

So as I said yesterday...it was very difficult for me to choose between this cupcake place and SWEET cupcakes because they were very close. But they both have the complete opposite problems. SWEET has good cake with mediocre frosting, whereas the second runner up for my best cupcake in Boston has AMAZING frosting and mediocre cake.

Without further ado...The Cupcakory food truck!

One thing I will definitely criticize this truck for though is how boring it is! I mean, come on!!! You're a cupcake food truck! Plain white with green letters is not NEARLY as exciting as it should be.

My mom and I came here the other week when we went to Roxy's at the SoWa Winter Market. We had to wait awhile for them to show up, I mean come on...people totally start eating cupcakes at 11 in the morning! But luckily for them, and for us, and for cupcake week they pulled in just as we started walking to our car. So we waited for them to get set up and were happy to be their first customers.

I was very disappointed with the selection available on the truck. Now I know I just got done saying I was a vanilla kind of girl, but not everyone is. And if you're going to claim that you will have 5-6 rotating flavors available at a time on the truck on your website, then you should have at least 5. At least!

But alas...they only had double vanilla, double chocolate, salted carmel, and Guinness and chocolate. So this limited me to only one option seeing as I don't like chocolate cake. Not good Cupcakory, not good.

Okay, now I'm done complaining. Let's talk about how they tasted!! As I said earlier, the cake was just mediocre. Not the kind of cake that I could eat plain. I needed all the frosting that was available to make sure I had enough in every bite to cover up the blandness of the cake.

Now let's talk about that frosting!! On the menu it is described as a Madagascar Bourbon vanilla buttercream. What is Madagascar vanilla??? And where can I get some? Seriously...I will marry this vanilla bean! This was the best frosting (flavor-wise) that I think I have ever tasted. I'm not sure if it was a buttercream though. My mom didn't like it because it had more of a whipped cream consistency. It wasn't THAT bad, but it was very light (which I don't think is a bad thing, but my mom didn't like it).

I put my cupcake in the fridge for a few hours before I ate it though, and when I took it out the frosting had thickened up a little and was more frostingy (is that a word? I thought so) and ohmygod was it good! I'm not a huge frosting lover. I only like as much as I need to complete the cupcake and then I usually leave the rest behind. I can't just eat gallons of frosting anymore like when I was a kid (okay, maybe last year...) But regardless, I hope I never encounter a giant batch of this frosting because there is not enough willpower in the world to prevent me from inhaling it all!

So yeah...I suppose I can only say so much about how delicious a frosting is so I will stop boring you now. Oh yeah...and they were $3 a piece...pretty standard for their size. Here's the breakdown...


Rating Breakdown (out of 5):

Frosting: 15
Cake: 3
Number of Flavor Options: 2.5
Price: 4
Overall Taste: 4

CUPCAKE WEEK!!!! Kickass Cupcakes

So I guess summer's over? That was fast. So than does that make this real spring now, or have we skipped right into fall? Oh it's supposed to be 70s again next week? Spring it is! But lucky for all of you, I have just the thing to get you through these next five 40 degree days.....

CUPCAKE WEEK! CUPCAKE WEEK!

So remember that time I agreed to find the best pizza in Boston for you? Well, I'm still working on it, but Pizzeria Regina is still massively in the lead.

I have also taken another challenge on...the best cupcake in Boston. Side note: This does not mean that you cannot go out and try every single one of them for yourself. But make sure you let me know how they are, or better yet...bring me along!

So anywho, this week I will review 5 prominent cupcake bakeries (or food trucks) in Boston in order of least favorite to most favorite.

First up: Kickass Cupcakes Food Truck

Now, just because this is first on my list doesn't by any means mean that it was a bad cupcake, it just wasn't the best. The frosting was really good, but the cake part of their cupcakes are really dry and flavorless.

The frosting and fillings of their cupcakes tend to offset this. I got a Cookie Dough cupcake when I went and the giant chunk of cookie dough in the middle definitely made it infinitely better. But in order to be called Boston's best cupcake, you need to be able to eat the cake part without any frosting or fancy fillings.

Cupcakes are $3 a piece on the truck which is pretty standard in the city. They stopped coming to BU last fall, so I haven't seen them in awhile and I've never been to their store in Somerville.

Rating Breakdown (out of 5):
Frosting: 4.5
Cake: 2.5
Number of Flavor Options: 4.5
Price: 4
Overall Taste: 4

Roxy's Grilled Cheese

I don't know whether to be ecstatic about this weather or deadly afraid that the world is going to end any day now. Especially living in Boston...we're gonna be some of the first people to die when all the glaciers melt and flood the continents. Oh well...I guess there's nothing we can do about it but enjoy this gorgeous weather!

And what better way to enjoy great weather than taking to the streets for some good ole food truck food?

I watched Food Network's The Great Food Truck Race all summer and nearly turned into a crazy fangirl the first time I actually saw Roxy's Grilled Cheese on the streets of Boston. I mean, it's practically like running into Johnny Depp on the sidewalk! Well...almost. Speaking of meeting celebrities...I totally saw Tyra Banks at Raleigh-Durham airport this weekend, but these two girls next to me ran up to her and her body guard was like "be quiet..no pictures!" HOW RUDE!

Anywho...back to oozy, melty, gooey grilled cheese! Now, Roxy's comes to BU every weekend and I had tried them before, but I must admit I wasn't blown away. Me and my mom ordered the Mighty Rib Melt and it was good, but not OHMYGOD good. There's a huge difference.

Alas, this weekend as my mom was dropping me back off at school. (If you hadn't noticed, I love when my mom comes to visit because then I have a real excuse to try all these non-dining hall foods...for free). We decided to go to the SOWA winter market to kill sometime. There's a lot more stuff in the summertime, but my favorites When Pigs Fly and Q's Nuts were there! Those deserve their own post another time though.

After our shopping (and filling up on When Pigs Fly bread samples) we decided on Roxy's for lunch. I was surprised there were only 2 food trucks there. There were like 8-10 when I went in the fall. That was another down side, but oh well.

We were going to get the Rookie Melt, but they hadn't gotten their tomato delivery yet, so we eventually decided on the Winter Classic. And man, am I glad we did! It was Vermont cheddar, white bean and eggplant ragout, and an artichoke spread.

The flavors went together perfectly! It seemed like an odd combination to me at first, but anything that contains melted cheese with artichokes is bound to be delicious! You couldn't really taste the beans, but there were a lot in there. And the eggplant added a nice flavor to the entire sandwich.

So I suppose my only complaint about Roxy's now is their variety of sandwiches. I think they should have more changes or a more rotating menu. I remember last fall they had a Mushroom Lovers sandwich, but of course they stopped serving it the week before I went there. With more variety, I would definitely consider returning there for lunch over the summer.

Happy Wednesday everyone and enjoy this great weather! (while you still can!)

A Beautiful Day in Boston with Bon Me

Let's get this out there...I LOVE food trucks! They are adorable and convenient and like little mini restaurant meals for fast food prices. Love! The only thing I don't love is that they aren't on my BU dining plan so I have a little bit of a problem justifying that purchase when I have tons of food I could go get for "free" (or $53,000..whichever way you look at it). However, yesterday I was in a bind and had absolutely no time between 2 pm and 8 pm to grab food and if you know me, I can't last that long!

Luckily, as I'm walking out of a meeting and heading across the street to my next class I see a giant yellow box of wonderfulness!

I've had Bon Me before at the SoWa Open Market and LOVED it and knew that they came on campus almost every night, but like I said..I have trouble justifying it when I already paid for $53,000 food. But I also recently participated in a Social Media Challenge with my PRSSA chapter for Bon Me to come up with successful ways to keep them going strong during the rough winter months. (And my team won...obviously). So you see..I was really just trying to keep them in business during winter. Yay me! I won't mention that it was actually almost 60 degrees yesterday because no one in their right mind would believe that in Boston...in January.

So on to the food... You can choose from a rice bowl, noodle bowl, or a sandwich. They each come filled with assorted veggies, this delicious soy glaze stuff, and your choice of: chicken, pork, or tofu and shitake mushrooms. They also have daily specials and drinks and last night they had this delicious looking Special 8 Treasures Good Luck Bar in honor of the Chinese New Year that looked absolutely amazing! Unfortunately, I have now officially gone one week (and one day) without a single sweet or item of junk food. I know right! What's wrong with me? So anywho, I settled on a brown rice bowl with the tofu and mushroom mixture (which is to die for!) and NO CILANTRO!

It was exactly like I remembered it! I don't know what they put in their sauce but it is perfect! I inhaled this thing! And not just because I was rushing to class. So good, and very reasonably healthy. Yay Bon Me!

So like I said..it was nearly 60 degrees outside yesterday. This is the view out my window.

This was the view 4 days prior.

Yesterday.

Four days prior.

Really Boston? Not that I'm complaining, because as much as I love snow, it's not as fun when I live in the city and have to walk everywhere in it and slip all over the place. And I am loving the warm weather! It's only about 45 today, but hey..I'll take it!

I hope everyone has a wonderful Wednesday and wherever you live, I hope it looks more like yesterday's picture than Saturday's. Ta-ta!