Restaurant Thursday: The Dining Car food truck

I'm trying to give myself a few theme days of the week, just to help me come up with some ideas for posts. Thursdays this month will be posts about restaurants!

...but this first Restaurant Thursday post is kind of sneaky, because it's about a food truck. Like most major cities these days, Boston has a great food truck scene, for vegans too! I've already written about the Taco Party vegan taco truck, and I've had some things from Clover Food Lab (vegetarian, trucks and storefronts); there are certainly many more options around the Boston area.

Kevin is a beer guy. Like the way there are people who are really into wines, Kevin is into beers. One way I try to get this across to people is to explain what I call his "Beer CSAs." There are a lot of great small craft breweries in the greater Boston area, and a few of them do series where they try an experimental style of beer, which "members" can pay for up front, and then only the "members" get to try the beer. It's a cool way to fund small breweries' new ventures, and, for a beer snob guy like Kevin, it's also a way to be able to try beers that will never be released to the greater public--and may never exist outside of that one limited bottling. Among the breweries we love that do this in the area are Night Shift brewing, Mystic brewing, and Idle Hands brewing.

Night Shift doesn't serve food, but they encourage people to bring food to their bar/pouring room so you can stick around a while. To that end, they have a food truck there many nights of the week. When we've been in the past, it was usually a grilled cheese truck (sigh), but the last time we were there, it was the Dining Car! They don't have vegan meal options, but their signature side dish is Crispy Cauliflower, which is gluten free and vegan without the aioli.

Crispy Cauliflower and Kevin's "beer CSA" pickup

IT WAS DELICIOUS. We split this one little tray but could easily have each had one (or two) to ourselves. The cauliflower is breaded with corn flour, seasoned with salt and pepper, and fried to the perfect level of crispy-but-not-greasy-ness. I didn't miss the aioli at all.

Oh, and for those interested: Night Shift, Mystic, and Idle Hands are all vegan friendly. Sometimes Night Shift will make beers with honey (or oyster shells?!) in them, but they is always clearly labeled as a special beer, so it's easy to tell. Their process itself is vegan.