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http://www.wickedlocal.com/cambridge/news/x94505088/Food-Truck-Festival-rolls-into-Kendall-June-8#axzz2TDlBXxsv

The Brookline-based Paris Creperie truck will join a festival of more than 20 food trucks in Kendall Square in June. Photo courtesy Food Truck Festivals of New England.

The latest innovation for Cambridge’s Kendall Square is a festival for food trucks.

More than 20 trucks offering everything from gourmet grilled cheese to brown sugar-marinated hot dogs will roll into Kendall Square on June 8 from 11 a.m. to 5 p.m.

The festival is the first in Kendall Square by Food Truck Festivals of New England and will be held along Broadway and Third Street.

Admission wristbands are $7 by ordering in advance online and $10 at the festival. A dollar of each ticket goes to the MIT Sean Collier Memorial Fund.

Some of the food trucks participating in the festival are: Area 4, Taco Party, Captain Marden’s Cod Squad, Chubby Chickpea Mobile and The Sweet Truck by Flour Girls Baking Co.

The festival will kick off the 2013 Food Truck Festivals of New England season, which includes a total of six festivals in New England.

For a full list of food trucks or to buy tickets, visit the Food Trucks of New England website.

http://www.boston.com/yourtown/news/cambridge/2013/05/food_truck_festival_coming_to.html

Clover is coming to Brookline Village, above.

Clover Food Lab, which started as a single vegetarian food truck near MIT, is popping up brick-and-mortar locations as fast as you can say “chickpea.” The company is also growing its fleet of food trucks.

Ayr Muir, founder and CEO, is signing yet another lease today, April 15, to open a takeout outpost at 10 Harvard Street in Brookline Village. This will be Clover’s third location, with three more on the docket. The Brookline Village location adds to a growing contingent of locally sourced, quick-serve independents in the neighborhood, which is already home to Cutty’s,Olecito tacos, and Koo Koo Café, not to mention El Centro Dos, slated to open before May. The Brookline Village Clover aims to launch in the next month or so and will be takeout only, with maybe a bench or two, since the space is so small (about 800 square feet, Muir tells us).

Clover is also scheduled to open its first suburban location at 100 Burlington Mall Road in Burlington at the end of May or later this spring. It will have upwards of 50 seats and be the “next-generation, new-and-better Clover,” says Muir. It will feature reach-in refrigerators where guests can see what the staff is reaching in for. (Clover does not have freezers; its inventory is that fresh.)

Muir says the opening of another location at 354 Newbury Street has been pending for nearly a year, stalled by the licensing and permitting process. A third location at 10 Cambridge Center in Kendall Square, at the Google building entrance, is likely to open later this summer or fall, says Muir.

Clover Food Lab started as a food truck at Kendall Square/MIT in October 2008. Muir has been blogging along the way, giving the company its foundation – transparency – with simplicity, carefulness and speed as its main ingredients.

There are two Clovers in Cambridge. It has more than a half dozen food trucks, with its newest locations at the Aquarium T stop and the North End. An Alewife truck is slated to open in May.

http://blog.zagat.com/2013/04/clover-food-lab-green-and-growing.html

What’s New

The Riverfront Mobile Food Program has concluded for the 2012 season. Thanks to participating vendors The Taco Truck, Ocean Ave Pops Cruiser, C-Cups Cupcakes and Silk Road BBQ for a great year of food along the river!

Dates and locations for the 2013 season are to be determined. However, interested vendors may still contact us or submit an application to be considered in the future. Information about the 2012 program may be downloaded below.

• Program Information and Requirements
• Download Application Form

Background

In spring 2011, the Cambridge Community Development Department published theCambridge Riverfront Plan: Reconnecting People to the Water. This plan provides a vision for how the Charles River can become an even better resource by providing a richer and more valuable experience for the Cambridge community. One of the study recommendations that grew from community feedback was to support the availability of fresh food and beverages along the riverfront as an amenity for current visitors and to draw new visitors.

In recent years, mobile food trucks and carts have become increasingly popular across the country. They provide opportunities for aspiring restaurateurs to develop new food concepts at relatively low cost and to bring them to a variety of locations where there may be an unmet demand for freshly prepared food. The Cambridge Riverfront is a desirable place to support mobile food because it attracts many users at various times, but provides few nearby options for freshly prepared food.

In 2011 and 2012, the City of Cambridge began inviting applications from qualified Mobile Food Vendors to sell freshly-prepared food and beverages on designated City streets adjacent to parks along the Charles River. Public parking spaces were made available to approved, permitted and licensed mobile food and beverage vendors on Sundays during Riverbend Park closures. Check back to this site or contact us for information about participating in 2013.

For More Information

For more Information, please send an email to mobilefood@cambridgema.gov or contact Chris Basler at 617/349-4601.

http://www.cambridgema.gov/CDD/econdev/smallbusiness/foodtrucks.aspx

Photo of the Hood Cream Soup Boutique courtesty of HP Hood.

 Bisque buffs and soup lovers may want to be on the lookout in Harvard Square Thursday; that’s when the HP Hood Soup Boutique is scheduled to be on the scene, dishing up soups that make creative use of Hood cream.

This soup boutique is on wheels — not to put too fine a point on it, the boutique is a food truck officially titled the Soup Boutique, Inspired by Hood Cream — a.k.a. the Hood Cream Soup Boutique. The Hood food truck/boutique has been out and about this week, with stops in Boston and a stop planned in Portland, Maine.

At each stop, Hood, the Lynnfield-based dairy brand, said it will be offering soup samples that use Hood Cream as an ingredient.

“Each stop will offer two soup selections – one original recipe created by a leading local chef based in that stop’s city, and one classic Hood soup recipe prepared by Chef Jonathan Dunn of Lavishly Dunn Catering,” a Hood media advisory said.

Thursday’s menu calls for a soup du jour whipped up by chef Eric Gregory of Harvard Square’s Grafton Street Pub & Grill at 1230 Massachusetts Ave., the advisory said. In this case, Gregory’s soup features cheddar, ale, and bacon among its ingredients. (Whew! We’ll have our ale on the side, please.) As for Dunn, his soup is an artistic mix of butternut squash and sweet potatoes.

Plans call for free samples of these offerings to be ladled out between 11 a.m. and 2 p.m. today in front of the Grafton Street Pub, Hood said

As for Friday, the soup boutique is scheduled to make a stop in Government Center with chef Chris Coombs of Deuxave/dBar doing the honors.

http://www.boston.com/businessupdates/2012/11/29/hood-soup-boutique-food-truck-will-dishing-free-samples-harvard-square/MPr6epww5341JKOo74AvYJ/story.html

The Hungry Hungry Husky, which re-opens today, sports a new, internationally inspired look. Photo by Mary Knox Merrill.

There is designer food; then there is the designer food truck.

Northeastern’s version of the latter, which first arrived on campus this fall, will re-open today sporting a new internationally inspired exterior and a revamped menu shaped by input from student diners.

Northeastern University Dining Services will host a re-launch celebration between 11 a.m. and 2 p.m. on Snell Quad. The first 100 customers will receive a free shirt with their order. Eight customers will receive $50 in Truck Bucks (equivalent to five complimentary meal passes), and “bounce-back” coupons — which give diners $1 back for each purchase of $4, and $2 back with each purchase of $6 — will be given away all day Wednesday. And all diners get a free package of mini macaroons with their order today.

In short, more than enough incentive to get students, faculty and staff to venture out on a raw February day to check out the design touches, starting with the color of the truck: Northeastern Red, naturally. The truck’s name, Hungry Hungry Husky—based on the children’s game “Hungry Hungry Hippo”—also adorns both sides of the vehicle, along with the official “H3” logo in a shade of aqua blue.

But the featured design element is a bow to Northeastern’s stature as a global university: the word “Hungry” written out in 15 languages, including English, Spanish, French, Japanese, Russian, Italian, Thai, Chinese, Finnish, Arabic, German, Hindi, Swahili, Hebrew, and Portuguese.

The food truck offers lunchtime options to customers in Snell Quad who want to forego the hustle and bustle of Rebecca’s Café and the dining options in the Curry Student Center. On Thursday, Friday and Saturday nights, “H3” serves up quick and tasty, late-night treats in Centennial Common.

The new menu includes items specifically requested by students, such as an all-new buffalo chicken sandwich and a macaroni and cheese sandwich, a popular item that was previously available only on Fridays. Other lunchtime items include adobe and Thai-inspired tacos; chicken, beef and shrimp flavored rice bowls; hot dogs; falafel; and four French fry options. The late-night menu includes chicken tenders, chicken wings, a breakfast wrap with eggs, bacon, peppers and onions, and both beef and veggie burgers.

The truck’s name was the result of a naming contest launched in September. The winning name came in from seven separate entries from students Amanda Atherton, Erin William Gilligan, Hailey Koop, Ronald Patrick Landayan, Miki Onwudinjo, Kathleen Cancio and Forrest Peralta.

H3 accepts cash, credit and Husky dollars during daytime hours; during late-night hours, only electronic forms of payment are accepted. Follow NUDining on Facebook and Twitter for regular updates about the truck’s location and menu options.

http://www.northeastern.edu/news/stories/2012/02/h3.html