Mcslimj "that's MC as in emcee, not mick" B.'s Profile

Solid if unextraordinary Greek-American diner with a broad three-meal menu.

Every region of America has cheap-eats specialties it can be proud of. On this score, Boston boasts great range in traditional cuisines from all over the world. It's not hard to find terrific family-run places serving fine Salvadoran, Portuguese, Tibetan, Haitian, and Taiwanese fare, made mostly by ex-pats for fellow ex-pats, and hence not dumbed-down too much for American palates. But for some reason, New Jersey seems to have gotten all the great diners. The diner -- that hallowed bastion of old-time Americana, the predecessor to modern fast-food joints -- is simply not one of our long suits. In this relatively weak field, Robinwood Café & Grille, a Jamaica Plain diner, executes solidly on the standbys.

Take a classic breakfast plate like the Centre Street ($9): two eggs, ham, bacon or sausage, home fries, toast, and two pancakes. The eggs are properly cooked, the ham well-grilled if a bit on the deli-thin side, the potatoes copious if not particularly crisp or well-seasoned, the pancakes plate-size and dense. (You can request pure maple syrup, which is recommended.) It's workmanlike, substantial. Breakfast sandwiches -- like sausage, egg, and cheese ($3.50) on an oversize grilled bagel -- are tasty, fast, and portable, with a welcome bit of grease.

At lunch, the Robinwood Burger ($8, plus 50 cents for cheese) tops a good bun with eight ounces of beef cooked to the proper internal temperature, plus lettuce, tomato, and onion; a bit of cole slaw flanks a big pile of fries with a crisp sprayed-on coating. Sandwiches ($5-$6) include well-stuffed if unremarkable subs, wraps, and panini, from chicken salad to eggplant parm. Entrées include meatloaf ($13), a generous slab accompanied by suspiciously smooth mashed potatoes and previously frozen broccoli, though the meat is dry enough to need the accompanying gloopy brown gravy. Sirloin tips ($12) are more successful: a sweet-marinated fistful of grilled flap steak chunks with sautéed onions and green peppers, plus mounds of rice and fries. The deep fryer turns out heart-straining platters like the Robinwood Sampler ($10): chicken wings, chicken tenders, mozzarella sticks, fries, and onion rings.

Beverages include good filter coffee ($1.80), fountain sodas ($2), fruit juices ($2.50), and frappes (listed as "milk shakes," $4) made on an old-timey spindle mixer. The room is modern, spacious, bright, and spotlessly clean, with somewhat leisurely and unfailingly friendly service -- there's a genuine-seeming sweetness when a server calls you "honey." Occupying a middle stratum between our crummier greasy spoons and pricier, gourmet pseudo-diners, the Robinwood does what it does: hoe the well-worn Greek-American diner furrow with adequate skill and respectable value. In these parts, that's about as much as a diner patron can ask for.

Traditional Iranian food in a tidy storefront setting, more casual at lunch than dinner, and high quality all around: a great budget-priced intro to the joys of Persian cuisine.

A food-nerd friend of mine recently remarked, "The flavors of Persian food are subtle; nothing hits me with a 'Wow!' or 'Kapow!', but everything is tasty and comforting." I'd go further, calling it a highly underrated cuisine, doubtless in part because of that subtlety. Boston is fortunate to boast a number of worthy budget-priced Persian restaurants, among which Jasmine Taste of Persia, located in a stretch of Watertown thick with indie restaurants and Armenian bakeries/grocers, has to rate highly.

For starters, a large appetizer combination platter ($10) offers a choice of three dishes that include old Middle Eastern friends like creamy, fresh-tasting hummus, and typically Iranian dishes like torshii, housemade pickled vegetables, and kashk bademjan, a warm, coarse puree of eggplant, onions, and mint topped with a dollop of kashk, a sort of Persian sour cream, plus a stack of warm pita for scooping. Aash reshteh ($5), Persian noodle soup, is thick with fresh greens, vegetables, legumes, and aromatics, and substantial enough to make a light meal. The sandwiches that fly from the takeout counter at lunch are similarly hefty, like a chicken shawarma roll-up ($7), pita rolled around a generous amount of marinated grilled chicken breast sliced into chunks, bulked out with lettuce, tomatoes, onion, and tahini. Well-proportioned salads are fresh, uncomplicated affairs, like the shirazi ($5) of chopped cucumbers, tomatoes, raw onion, and mint, simply dressed in olive oil and lemon juice.

Entrées are big enough for two meals for modest eaters, built around piles of seasoned rice adorned with nicely charred grilled onions, tomatoes, and green peppers. To this filling centerpiece, lamb soltani ($20) adds two large skewers, one of perfectly cooked kebabs of marinated lamb, another of beef kubideh, which resembles a well-spiced beef meatball stretched out like a 14-inch casing-less sausage. Adas polo ($15) replaces the more simply seasoned rice of the kebab and kubideh plates with a fragrant pilaf of basmati, lentils, golden raisins, and sautéed onions, faintly tangy with yogurt, crowned with two groaning skewers of gorgeously saffron-tinted chicken-breast kebabs.

Drink options include cardamom-accented black Persian tea ($1.50) and doogh ($3), a savory, lassi-like yogurt drink, as well as American soft drinks and bottled juices ($2). The sunny, 24-seat dining room is prettily decorated with Persian textiles, atmospheric with recorded Iranian folk music, and comfortable with unstintingly friendly service. For newcomers, Persian food combines familiar ingredients and techniques with an array of seasonings, spices, and herbs that many Westerners will find tantalizingly novel. Jasmine Taste of Persia offers a hearty, frugal introduction to the pleasures of this unsung cuisine.

A step down from the real traditional Thai restaurants that I prefer, but better than the highly-Westernized Thai joints that seem to be the rule in Boston.

Thai food in Boston tends to fall into either of two camps. The first is typified by very traditional places like S & I Thai and Dok Bua: frequented by Thai ex-pats, these restaurants have lots of Thai-language names on the menu, and feature the bracing, unmuted flavors of chilies, green peppercorns, galangal, fish sauce, and shrimp paste. The other might best be described as Thai-American: their clientele favors chicken satay and pad thai from safe, same-y menus, many cheap ingredient substitutions (e.g., green peas for Thai baby eggplant, curries from a can), and few arresting flavors. Tamarind House falls somewhere in the middle, not quite offering the street-food ferociousness of my traditional favorites, but still pleasing with the bright but milder flavors of Thai home cooking.

A good example is gaprow gai krob ($12), a stir-fry of bell peppers, onions, and chunks of chicken with well-crisped skin, the whole covered with a blanket of lightly dry-fried, still-vivid-green Thai basil. That last touch pushes the dish from ordinary to gorgeous and delicious. Yum talay ($14) is a very simple seafood salad with a dressing of rice vinegar, lime juice, sugar, and dried chilie. But it's loaded with fresh-tasting scallops, squid, shrimp, and lightly fried fish fillets brightened with red bell pepper and red onion, a perfect summer dish.

Spicy eggplant ($11) shows the generous heft of most entrées here, a mound of ground chicken and sliced Japanese eggplant in a mildly fiery brown sauce, punched up with some fermented black beans and copious Thai basil. Green curry with pork ($10) offers the green-on-green-on-green flavors of bell pepper, green beans, and Thai basil in the coconut-milk-softened curry sauce, with slices of Thai melon for mildly bitter contrast and tender slices of pork loin. The rarely seen Northern Thai dish of salmon haw moak ($14) is an airy, delectable, soufflé-like fish mousse, steamed in a banana leaf and served with a mild coconut-milk curry with vegetables.

Noodle dishes include a creditable pad woonsen ($7/lunch, $9/dinner), slippery, transparent mung-bean noodles stir-fried with shrimp, peas, choy, and mushrooms, and khao soi ($7), Northern-style egg noodles with chicken and Thai radish in a thin yellow curry, garnished with crisp-fried noodles. Drink options include vanilla-scented Thai tea ($2/hot, $2.50/iced with sweetened condensed milk) and bottles of Chang ($3), a fizzy, refreshing Thai lager.

Service is typically friendly in a pleasantly sunny, lime-sherbet-colored room. Tamarind House perhaps shows too restrained a hand with its cuisine's boldest flavors, but it's a useful step up from the bowdlerized meekness of the suburban Thai run-of-the-mill. Call it a Triple-A Thai joint in a town with too few major-league ones.

Cool, versatile neighborhood Jamaican place with good cheap food and occasional entertainment.

Traveling all over Boston to research budget-priced restaurants is great fun, but sometimes leaves me feeling envious. When I find a family-run place that seems to serve as an anchor for neighborhood life -- serving three meals a day, doing a brisk takeout business, offering live music, DJs, and poetry readings a few nights a month -- I think, "Damn, wish my neighborhood had a place like this." Such is Lorenz Island Kuisine, which I would find charming even if it didn't offer the kind of hearty, terrific, traditional Jamaican fare it does.

The obvious care in the cooking starts with house-made Jamaican patties ($4), fried turnovers of minced chicken, minced beef, or mixed vegetables, seasoned with turmeric, sweet spices, modest capsicum fire, and far less grease than most. Curry goat ($11) stews chunks of bone-in meat in a glossy, ebony gravy with some Raj-style yellow curry: it's gorgeous, rich, and includes a side of lightly sautéed cabbage. Ackee and saltfish ($13), another Jamaican standby, offers sautéed salt-cod fillets in garlic/black-pepper sauce with onions, tomatoes, peppers, and a fierce, lingering background note of Scotch bonnet chilies. It's dotted with ackee, the bland, custardy, purportedly nutritious yellow arils (seed coatings) of a tropical fruit. Sides like callaloo ($4), grassy-tasting stewed amaranth greens, and channa ($3), a dryish but otherwise Punjabi-like preparation of curried chickpeas, are worthy additions. Jerk chicken ($9) features two hefty bone-in thighs in a mild dry rub, juicily roasted and made memorable with a superb house-made jerk sauce, tangy with tamarind and searing with Scotch bonnets. All entrées add heft with a side of white rice or rice mixed with a few pinto beans. The fine johnnycake ($1), a fried wheat-dough roll with the internal layering of a croissant and a faintly sweet glaze, is an excellent way to further extend a stew.

Drink options include very good Jamaican sodas ($2) in flavors like grapefruit and ginger beer, bottled beers ($6) including the crisp Jamaican lager Red Stripe, and Stone's Ginger Wine ($8/glass), a sweet fortified wine made from dried currants and punched up with sinus-clearing ginger (best over ice). The short dessert list includes the owner's mom's dreamy Jamaican fruit cake ($5), a gorgeous slice of dark spice cake loaded with minced dried fruits, crowned by quality buttercream frosting. With a friendly, slow-moving vibe and a lot of beautifully done, cooked-to-order fare, Lorenz Island Kuisine feels about as comfortable as a warm Caribbean breeze. It's the paragon of a neighborhood place, and worth the trip if Codman Square isn't your neighborhood.

Looks like a garden-variety sub shop, delivers casual Italian-American fare with extraordinary craft and care. The kind of obscure, off-the-track gem that food nerds live for.

I've long relied on a network of tipsters to uncover exciting budget-priced restaurants. Friends, family, colleagues, and a few trusted amateurs on Chowhound and Yelp have led me to hundreds of great finds. Thanks to Twitter and Facebook, I'm now also connected to thousands of Boston restaurant cooks, bartenders, servers, managers, and suppliers. Think they might have some great cheap-eats tips? You bet they do. For instance, I'd never have stumbled across Victor's Italian Restaurant, a tiny joint in a residential corner of Saugus, without a nod from Anthony Caturano, chef/owner of the North End's estimable Prezza.

Victor's focuses on classic pastas and sandwiches in the genre I call Jersey Italian-American, with roots in Campania and Sicily but a century of adaptation on these shores. Ninety percent of such places are forgettable, but Victor's rises above the dull morass with exceptional care. After one bite of the veal-parm sub ($8), a big sandwich served on a quality roll with a housemade tomato sugo and melted parmigiana and mozzarella, I marveled, "Good god, this actually tastes like veal!"

Turns out that Victor's pounds, breads, and sautés its cutlets to order, as it does for the similarly wonderful and staggering Essex ($7.99), chicken-breast cutlets with eggplant, sauce, and cheese, and for a half-dozen other cutlet-based sandwiches ($7-$9). The rest of the menu consists of pasta dishes likewise made to order, and big enough to feed two modest eaters, especially with the complimentary soft Italian bread. The fine, smooth red sauce, with its accents of dried herbs and good oil, appears on many of these, like spaghetti with meatballs ($9), featuring two fantastic, fist-sized pork/veal polpetti, a dish that could hardly be simpler or better. For the marinara-averse, chicken Romano ($12) tops those great breast cutlets with ham, fresh button mushrooms, and mozzarella in a just-sweet-enough Marsala sauce over a mound of linguine or ziti.

Shrimp fra diavolo over linguine ($14) boasts nine shelled, extra-large shrimp, though the sauce, bolstered with sliced onions, is tame even ordered "hot"; add red-pepper flakes for more heat. On weekends, linguine with clams ($12) accents ten perfectly fresh littlenecks with a wonderful white-wine, garlic, and butter sauce. Drink options include a few canned American sodas and bottled water. The sunny room is dominated by the open kitchen, just three four-tops with plastic checkered tablecloths; many customers do takeout. With its attractive prices, extraordinary freshness, and the super-friendly service of a genuine family venture, Victor's is a minor revelation -- a worthy Italian-American trattoria masquerading as an ordinary sub shop. Many thanks for that tip, chef!

Warning: 4 stars only for the Sichuan cuisine here -- the Thai food is terrible. Weird, I know, but read on.

I don't read Chinese, but I do read Chowhound, where I learned that Thailand Café, a long-running Central Square purveyor of mediocre Thai cuisine, changed hands a couple of years ago. The English-language name didn't change, but the sign now also says "Authentic Sichuan cuisine" in Chinese. That reflects the extensive menu of traditional Sichuan dishes that the new chef added. The Thai food has gone from middling to bad, but the Sichuan fare is the real deal: fresh, bracing, and loaded with the lingering fire of capsicum chilies (both fresh and dried) and the unique, galvanic tingle of Sichuan peppercorns.

You don't need a high chili-heat tolerance to love staples like Sichuan wontons with chili vinaigrette ($6), minced pork in delicate wonton wrappers swimming in a smooth, oily, crimson sauce that balances fire with some sweetness and roasted-chili smoke flavor. Poached chicken with chili sauce ($8), better translated as "mouthwatering chicken," uses that same sauce to underpin pale drumsticks hacked into pieces, making for a fine, typically cold Sichuan first course. Westerners preferring warm apps might gravitate to sliced tender pork with fresh garlic sauce ($6), uncured, unsmoked pork belly cut into bacon-like ribbons in a mildly fiery sauce with bean sprouts, dotted with blobs of fresh garlic puree. Many vegetable courses, like shredded potatoes with green peppers ($8), offer a refreshing respite from the otherwise ubiquitous fire.

Most protein dishes run from mildly to stunningly hot, especially if you tell your server sincerely that you like it spic6y. Smoky hot shredded beef with cayenne chili ($10) is relatively gentle with fresh green chilies, while Chengdu dry fried hot chicken ($9) piles crisp chicken cubes with leathery, searing dried red chilies. Double-cooked pork belly with spicy capsicum ($9) uses that bacon-like cut again to good effect with chopped leeks and a hefty dose of Sichuan peppercorns, which look like tiny Pac-Mans and taste a bit like mentholated lemongrass; this essential Sichuan spice will numb your tongue and lips with a cold fire that contrasts intriguingly with the hot heat of capsicum.

Fish filet with cabbage in paste chili ($14) beautifully exemplifies this one-two punch, with chunks of tilapia in a fragrant sauce spiked with fresh cilantro. Drink options include bad hot teas ($1.25-$1.50), good Asian lagers ($3.50), and okay sake or junk wines by the glass ($4). Skip the gloppy, complimentary hot and sour soup and ignore the Thai menu, and Thailand Café competes wonderfully with Boston's new crop of traditional Sichuan restaurants. That's one cheap-eats trend we could do with a lot more of.

Great little neighborhood Haitian bakery/cafe with hearty sandwiches and entrees for short money.

If you're keeping an eye out for quality cheap eats, the car and the MBTA are not always your friends. While drivers focus on the road and buses retrace the same main-drag routes, it's only pedestrians who get off the beaten path to notice the kind of joints that quietly thrive on neighborhood trade. Camie's Bakery, a Haitian bakery/restaurant in a residential area roughly equidistant from Central, Kendall, and Inman squares, is one such slightly out-of-the-way place. It only registered as a potential budget-dining find as I happened by on foot, on my way to someplace else.

Order at the counter and grab one of 20 seats in the tidy, cavernous dining room. If you're ravenous, get a patty ($1-$2) to tide you over: these savory turnovers offer a bit of filling (spiced minced beef, chicken, cod, or smoked herring) surrounded by beautifully fresh, flaky pastry. Entrées are hearty stews and pan-fried dishes with occasional flashes of spice. Stewed chicken ($5) features three meaty, crisp-skinned, juicy drumsticks in a savory brown gravy topped with grilled peppers and onions. The generous plate of jumbo shrimp ($13) boasts a faintly spicy, tomato-based Creole sauce, again topped with onions and peppers. Fried goat ($12) is gorgeous: nearly ebony chunks of mostly boneless goat meat pan-fried crisp and topped with pikliz, a vinegary, capsicum-flamed slaw of cabbage and carrots. These entrées include big plantain slices and hefty portions of either black-bean-flecked, seasoned rice, or white rice, onto which you pour a gravy boat of soupy, pureed black beans. There are also American subs and sandwiches like BLTs ($4) and cheese steaks ($5.50) on good house-baked bread and rolls, but far more interesting are Haitian-accented options like the fried-pork sub ($5.50) topped with pikliz, cheese, mayo, and onions, featuring the kind of fatty, slightly spicy goodness that will have it in my morning-after rotation.

Drink options include the AK 100 ($3), a cornmeal-thickened milkshake with the flavor of a vanilla cookie; fresh ginger tea ($2); and canned coconut juice ($) with chunks of fresh coconut. The bakery case up front offers sweets both American and Haitian: standouts include bon bon sirop ($1.50), a dense, moist gingerbread; the flat, brown-sugar-dusted "plain pastry" ($1.50), like Haitian fried dough; and tablet noix ($2), a sweetly spiced fistful of cashew brittle. With its oversize portions and friendly service, Camie's is a useful reminder that the best cheap-eats deals are often found in neighborhood joints serving traditional cuisines, mostly to an immigrant audience. It's one such place you'll be glad to have ambled by.

Another sure-fire winner from Jackson Cannon and Co., the team behind Eastern Standard and Island Creek Oyster Bar, a comfy new craft cocktail bar with a 2am license and a super-cool vibe, like the basement living rooms of a prosperous artist.

Superb drinks in the tradition of the city's best craft cocktail bars, drawing from but not limited to the pre-Prohibition classics. Uses only top-notch spirits; quality still, sparkling, fortified and aromatized wines; fresh juices, herbs, fruit, and other fine-dining-level produce; and obscure craft beers and ales. Thoughtful, often costly choices made regarding barware, ice, and servingware. A polished, highly-trained staff, mostly poached from Boston's best bars, notable as much for their hospitality as their technical chops.

A short menu of tasty small bites, like deviled eggs topped with crispy prosciutto (not sure how they make it bacon-like, but it's a good trick). A big front bar and much smaller (four-seat) bar further back. Lots of comfy sofa and armchair seating in both areas. A sidewalk patio is promised on the other side of winter. The unmarked basement space (entrance just inside the hotel's main lobby) will shortly have a line out the door. Get in now before the inevitable crowds arrive.

The best, most original, highest-craft food truck in Boston, two former fine-dining chefs doing amazing, modestly-priced food in a mobile setting.

A few years ago, Boston's street-food universe was tightly limited in scope, ambition, and geography. There was little to see beyond a few trucks and carts peddling so-so hot dogs, burritos, and American-Chinese fare, mostly in Downtown Crossing and around the MIT campus. That's changing fast with the advent of excellent new vendors like the vegetarian Clover Food Lab and Bon Me, a gourmet Vietnamese truck. Staff Meal, the brainchild of two fine-dining chefs -- Patrick Gilmartin of Bravo at the MFA and Adam Gendreau of Bistro du Midi -- has upped the ante further, bringing seasonal sourcing, old-timey kitchen craft, and a delectable gastropub sensibility (sans the alcoholic beverages) to meals on wheels.

The menu varies weekly: a recent sampling reveals an offal-loving, snout-to-tail focus and an admirable dose of in-house curing, pickling, and smoking. Bruschetta ($2) spreads two slices of toasted baguette with cream cheese subtly flavored with roasted marrow, and tops each with a perfect white anchovy. Arepas ($3) are a brace of griddled white-cornmeal pancakes (reminiscent of thick Rhode Island jonnycakes) flanked with a curtido-like slaw of lightly pickled, julienned carrot and watermelon. Foie gras baklava ($4), a small wedge layering phyllo, chopped pistachios, and fattened duck liver, is a fascinating savory variant of the Ottoman pastry, garnering a hint of sweetness from a drizzle of vincotto syrup. A substantial chowder ($4/pint) boasts fresh sweet corn, a generous helping of sliced fresh morels, chopped bacon, and a broth thickened with starch from cubed potatoes.

The early showstoppers here are the phenomenal sandwiches (all $6). Fat slices of superb, chunky, house-made pork head cheese are dressed with thin-sliced Manchego, bacon-accented grain mustard, and mesclun greens on a fluffy, commercial-bakery bulkie roll. That same roll is flattened to crisp discs in pressed sandwiches like an outstanding meatloaf of beef, ground bacon, and black garlic topped with a thick slice of excellent house-cured pastrami, house-made pickles, and "BBE sauce" (mayo plus barbecue sauce). Sliced grilled "chorizo" (actually a mild, kielbasa-like Brazilian chouriço) is crowned with Manchego, marinated red peppers, and a vivid chimichurri with a kicky raw-garlic zing.

Drink options are limited to American canned sodas and bottled water ($1). Even by the humble standard of food trucks, Staff Meal is homely, its boxy truck embellished only with a simple stenciled sign. But Gilmartin and Gendreau are bringing a nearly unprecedented level of creativity, kitchen chops, and love of charcuterie to the mobile-food-vendor format, raising the bar for a Boston street-food scene that is finally starting to get really exciting.

Good if pricey (and slow, and Westernized) version of the Vietnamese street-food sandwich, plus decent rice bowls and bún.

Boston long owned a reputation for being hostile to food trucks: getting licensed to offer meals on wheels meant braving a daunting tangle of municipal red tape. Mayor Tom Menino recently pledged to be more welcoming to mobile restaurateurs, and he appears to be keeping that promise: a dozen purveyors now operate along the Rose Kennedy Greenway, and a cluster of three trucks is now in business on City Hall Plaza. Bon Me Truck belongs to the latter, and its short menu of Vietnamese food is very promising, if not always quite the bargain we associate with such street food.

Consider its namesake bánh mì ($6), a sub that fuses Vietnamese staples (grilled meats, raw and lightly pickled vegetables, fresh herbs and chilies) with French influences (baguette, charcuterie, mayonnaise). Bon Me spins a beauty, a salad of sliced red onion and cucumber, lightly pickled shredded daikon and carrots, and fresh cilantro on a good, crisp-crusted baguette, with optional spicy mayo, fresh jalapeños, and a schmear of house-made liver pâté. This is topped with a choice of three excellent protein options: "BBQ" (sweetly marinated and grilled) pork, grilled chicken breast chunks (moist, with a good grill flavor), or sliced shiitake mushrooms with cubes of firm tofu.

Noodle salad ($6), a/k/a Vietnamese bún, is a big bowl of rice vermicelli with Napa cabbage, bean sprouts, carrot, daikon, red onion, and a choice of dressings; fish-sauce-laced "Vietnamese vinaigrette" is closest to traditional, though miso-lime and toasted-sesame dressings work nicely, too. The rice bowl ($6) tops a heap of brown or white medium-grain rice with carrot, daikon, Napa, bean sprouts, cilantro, and scallions, finished with a light drizzle of soy sauce. The noodles and rice bowls include the sandwich's same protein options.

Daily-varying sides include steamed edamame ($2) with a sneaky-spicy dusting of cayenne and salt. Drink options include so-so (bulk-brewed) Vietnamese iced coffee with sweetened condensed milk ($2), much-tastier fresh limeade spiked with Thai basil ($2), and excellent iced ginger/lemon tisane ($2) with chunks of ginger. Desserts include a fine chewy blondie ($1).

Service can be slow during the noon-hour crush, which may leave some wondering if their time might be better spent walking to Chinatown, where a similar-quality bánh mì costs only $3. (By this yardstick, the rice and noodle bowls seem a better value.) But given its quality, fresh flavors, and convenience -- and my sense that many workers and tourists are leery of Chinatown -- Bon Me Truck kicks many nearby lunch options to the curb. If this is a bellwether of Boston's food-truck revolution, laissez les bons temps rouler.