I ate street meat today, and it wasn’t 2:16 a.m. Recently, a few of those gourmet food trucks that people were really into about 2 years ago finally rolled their way into Boston, and most recently City Hall Plaza. For you 9-5ing Bostonians, news of this rolling restaurant probably makes your stomach grumble. With the tragic lunch options available to all of us in the Financial District/Downtown X-ing/Gov’t Center areas, we don’t care where it comes from, we have 15 minutes to get it and please make it taste good.
Lunch Lowdown
A new place will open up and my co-workers and I will eat there so often that the mere smell of their cuisine makes our stomach turn. A few examples of lunch joints that are no longer options because of the smell of their food:
• Boloco – This place is not Chipotle.
• Cosi – I’ve had enough of the free bread scrap bowl.
Then there is the long list of places that eventually learned my name and wanted to get to know me better – some would say they considered me a “regular”. I haven’t returned to any of these. I also have a place that insists on calling me “Rihanna” and begging me to sing “Umbrella” every time I’m waiting for my gosh darn salad. There’s also a Mexican joint in an alley that gives away free hard candy that I can only stomach once a month, and the guy that works the kebab cart on Washington Street that really likes my red winter jacket. Oh, and I can’t forget about the really nice guy that calls mayonnaise “juice” and even when I asked for “no juice” he is determined to put it on my sandwich.
I love the new spots that open up in the same locations where the last “great idea” failed. How many “healthy burger” places can 10 blocks handle? Should $11 salads really be served in Chinese to-go containers? I mean really people.
I think wistfully of a time long-ago when I would shop on my lunch hour, or sit at a table that didn’t have my computer on it. Those days are over kids. Glorious lunch hours like that come with job descriptions with the words “entry-level in it.
So today, like every day, I joined the rest of the workforce on the hunt for a midday meal. The crowd milling about the food truck parking lot was hopeful. Wishing for a winner, hoping they could come back again on Monday. Was this driving dive an end to our lunch misadventures? Well, we gave it a shot. I really wanted something from the Clover Food Lab truck but their big sandwich today was the Soy BLT and a BLT without a pork product is a complete waste of calories. So instead, I got myself a Mango salad with chicken off one of the Asian trucks – it was only $5! Let’s just hope these trucks roll out of town before the scent of their foodie fumes makes me nauseous.
And no, I will never bring lunch. Are you crazy?
