The Staff Meal food truck looks a bit shady at first.
It eerily resembles the unmarked vans you imagine driving around luring children to look at puppies. Thankfully Staff Meal only lures customers in to feed them.
Despite it’s lack of flamboyance, Staff Meal is not a food truck to be ignored. They specialize in tacos! Not the taco bell kind, but real delicacies on authentic tortillas that could rival my Mexican sweetheart, El Dorado.
What’s really cool is that the menu changes all the time, and the food is truly fresh. Your bellies are in good hands with Patrick Gilmartin and Adam Gendreau, chefs with a fine-dining background.
The guys at Staff Meal were all smiles when I visited them earlier this week. I was lucky enough to visit on a sunny and epicly warm day, one of the first major days of spring we’ve experienced in Boston.
Walking to Staff Meal, the population of Boston seemed to have tripled overnight. The gorgeous weather would make anyone happy, especially if your business relies on people walking about and smelling your fine food. But the folks at Staff Meal were especially cheerful and welcoming.
Staff Meal Food Truck Review
I decided to start off with the Crab Stick, Scallion Cream Cheese, Wontons, and Apple Butter taco.
I took the short stroll to Copley Square so I could enjoy my taco on a park bench.
As I ate I was lucky enough to be entertained by a shaggy haired man selling CDs of his less-than-obvious music talents, while his possible girlfriend danced alongside him.
She would holler out vocals to accompany him every now and again, and then quickly rest every 30 seconds by collapsing onto a fire hydrant.
So yes, I had some lunchtime entertainment.
Musical atmosphere aside, the taco was quite nice! If you like crab rangoon, you will go bonkers over this thing – it’s basically a crab rangoon taco.
OK, so I was a little disappointed that there was no crab in it. I don’t know what I expected from “crab sticks,” but I did assume I’d be eating crab. Apparently that’s a thing in asian dishes, claiming that something has crab in it, when really they mean cream cheese. Can someone clear that confusion up for me?
While it was delicious, I felt a bit queasy after, as anyone would feel after shoveling rich cream cheese into their stomach at such an incredible rate.
I would have liked to try some of the others, but since I’m giving up red meat for lent (sausage is red meat…right?) I had to pass this time.
Tacos are about $3.50 – $4 which ain’t bad, but ain’t unbelievable either. El Dorado’s are about the same, but there you get a whole sit down environment. I guess my feeling is that you should get a price break for the lack of eat-in environment you have to maintain.
Staff Meal Gets 4 out of 5 forks
Quality food with a creative spin.
I also like Staff Meal’s whole motto: meals prepared for restaurant staff, by restaurant staff. They just let the rest of us tag along.
To see when Staff Meal will be near you, check out their website.
Also, if you’re checking out Staff Meal, you should consider grabbing their current Yelp deal, $10 for $20 at Staff Meal.
It’ll go a long and delicious way here.
So you had one taco you were upset didn’t have actual crab in it (despite it saying it was crab on the menu) and you gave it 4/5?
Well sure – delicious is as delicious does. Besides, clearly the whole “crab really meaning cheese” is a thing. Just looked up crab rangoon on wiki and apparently there are bits of meat in there. So maybe I was eating Staff Meal crab without knowing it? I’ll ask next time I stop by and let you know.
Crab stick isn’t real crab, but it’s extremely common in Asian food- it’s what’s in a california roll. It is real fish; I believe it’s usually made from pollock. So they didn’t actually claim to have crab in there by saying “crab stick.” Crab stick is what’s almost always used in crab rangoons. I don’t think they were being deceptive at all.
Also, I really don’t think you can write reviews of food trucks when you’ve only had one item. Get a few things, or go a few times before writing your review. Itry not to judge a place until I’ve had at least two main offerings from their menu. I haven’t tried Staff Meal yet, but I had an awful grilled cheese from Grilled Cheese Nation, which you gave 4/5. We got different things though; I got the gruyere mushroom onion one. At least talk about what your friend got and what she thought of it!
Thanks for clearing up that crab stick confusion – I certainly didn’t think Staff Meal was being deceptive, just that I was confused! 🙂
Duly noted about Staff Meal – I’ve been meaning to get back there and try more tacos. It’s taken a bit longer than I planned.
Sorry you didn’t feel the Grilled Cheese Nation vibes. A lot of people prefer Roxys, but I was really won over by their tomato soup. You might have missed the 2nd review I did of Grilled Cheese Nation going into a bit more depth about some of the other sandwiches they had. I never did try the Gruyere mushroom one though.