Bostonia staff writer Amy Laskowski had never worked in a commercial kitchen, but when her editors asked her to do a story on Fàn Boy, the new BU Dining Services Asian­-fusion food truck, she decided it was a good time to learn how. Here is her report.

Fàn Boy launched this summer after Dining Services heard “hangry” (mix of hungry and angry) students complaining that in places like East and South Campus, there were fewer food options than in other parts of campus, says Dining Services social media coordinator Robert Flynn (SHA’96). Dining Services thought that a food truck would solve the problem with fewer overhead costs than a brick-­and-­mortar restaurant. The truck, hard to miss with its red and yellow stripes and a giant ninja painted on the side, serves dishes such as stir fry and lettuce wraps. It now parks weekdays on Cummington Mall from 11 a.m. to 2 p.m., Agganis Way from 3 to 6 p.m., and South Campus from 7 to 10 p.m.

If you’ve lived off campus in Allston, you probably have some idea of what the truck’s kitchen looks like: it’s so small that you can reach the fridge, the stove, and the sink simply by pivoting left or right. Unlike most Allston apartments, however, every­thing here is state-­of-­the-art and stainless. The truck’s size and limited storage mean that all ingredients must be diced, prepped, and marinated beforehand in the Dining Services George Sherman Union kitchen and then cooked on the truck.

When I knocked on Fàn Boy’s metal door a little before 11 a.m. one day this summer, three people were already hard at work inside preparing for the lunch rush. My teacher, Fàn Boy chef and sometime truck driver Ian Gray, handed me a Fàn Boy T­-shirt and a black kerchief and began lesson one: Fàn Boy fries, a heart­-stopping dish of waffle fries topped with marinated beef, garlic kewpie mayo (a tangy Japanese mayonnaise), spicy Seoul sauce, green onions, and a sprinkling of a spice mix Gray calls ninja dust.

I learned how to craft stir-­fry bowls filled with tempura or grilled chicken, beef, and curried vegetables, and watched as Gray handed out other orders, like Sumo Vegetable Egg Rolls and the K­Pop Taco, which is filled with grilled chicken, kimchee, sauces, and toasted sesame seeds.

The work got a little easier as the afternoon wore on, but I couldn’t match Ian’s speed and grace. From the throngs of people lined up outside, it was clear that Fàn Boy would be feeding a lot of hungry customers this day. I served about two dozen of them, then decided I had all the reporting I needed and called it quits.