6 March, 2018: Japanese pickling is so different from what I’m used to in the USA. We visited Kyoto where pickles are one of the most important regional items. Pickles were everywhere. In the US almost 100% of pickles we consume are made from vinegar brine. If you’ve ever had a true “sour” or “half-sour” pickle, that’s salt brine, as… Read More
6 March, 2018: Ever since I first learned of Japanese tea ceremony I’ve wanted to experience one. Clementine and I found a tea house in the middle of a garden in Tokyo and it was AWESOME! There are a bunch of details to the etiquette that they patiently taught us. The simplified version is (a) eat the sweet first and… Read More
2 March, 2018: If you’ve been reading the blog lately or hanging out with me you know I’ve spent an inordinate amount of time thinking about packaging recently. Packaging is easily the most hairy operational issue we face with the Clover App rollout. And while it pales in comparison to the positive impact we have by excluding meat from our… Read More
1 March, 2018: Vincenzo (leads food production at Clover) and Greg (our COO) both have Italian heritage. So what did they think of Italian Japanese food? To be fair we only tried it once. But capturing this expression on film wasn’t that hard because they held this pose for a while. The site horrifying them: a giant wheel of parm… Read More
28 February, 2018: I first started thinking seriously about savory breakfast when I saw my father-in-law make oatmeal with soup stock. I’ve been wondering for years now whether there is a place for savory on Clover’s breakfast menu. Enzo says emphatic YES. First morning in Japan. And we’re having a traditional Japanese breakfast. I want to make this when I… Read More
27 February, 2018: We try to get a food trip in once a year or so. Past trips have included Calabria and Sicily for the Panelle and other recipes, Texas BBQ sauce (we ate at Franklins when we were both still trucks), New Orleans for chicory coffee, Great Lakes for frozen custard. This year we’re Japan bound. I’ll be updating… Read More
14 February, 2018: This past weekend we drove to Michigan to visit my family. It was a grueling trip. Heavy snow for 80% of the drive, 35 mph on highway, low visibility, no plows out. The 12 hour trip took 16 hours. We were in Michigan for less than 24 hours then returned through another storm. But it was all… Read More
13 November, 2008: We’re starting to catch up with the demand, but not quite. I still think that our biggest roadblock is our operations, and the level at which the truck is staffed. Just know that we’re working towards very rapid serve times and expect we can get there… someday. This picture was taken at 1:45PM, way after the line… Read More
13 February, 2018: We’re on the eve of our first ever public release of the Clover App. I started dreaming about this back in 2009 when we built what might have been the world’s first cloud-based POS. Back then we had 1 food truck. Over the past 18 months or so we have been beta testing an app. It’s been… Read More
23 January, 2018: We’re testing Justin Kelly’s suggestion for a sausage egg cheese breakfast sandwich at CloverHFI for a few more weeks. If you’re curious to try the next iteration of Impossible meat, head over to Central Square and give it a try. We may ask you to voice your opinion about whether this belongs on the menu everywhere at… Read More
16 January, 2018: Go soups! If you click on this post you can see my little souper hero animation. You may have noticed we’re making lots of soups this winter. And while we believe all our food helps the environment, there’s something extra special about soup. We want everybody to eat more soup. Read on if you’re interested in learning… Read More
13 January, 2018: Were you able to try a medlar this weekend? If not, we will hopefully have them at most locations Monday and Tuesday, but we can’t guarantee them much longer. Medlar mania is hitting Boston hard, as we realized when we got a very special visitor to CloverDTX on Friday. Fabricio, who leads up communications at CloverDTX, sent… Read More
15 July, 2009: Hat had us all over to her house for a dinner party. It was her birthday Saturday, and she just turned 21. So of course we made some drinks (proper old fashioned) but the highlight was the food. Hat’s parents used to run a Thai restaurant in FL. They had 5 items on the menu, you all… Read More
13 January, 2018: Hey, Longwood. Is there any area in Boston that has fewer places to get a drink? Well, we’re about to change that. First some backstory. When we opened CloverLMA, we noticed there was NOWHERE to get a beer. Ok, there was one place. The great Punter’s Point near Northeastern — and it just closed this winter! I will miss… Read More
