Corporate Lunches
Aug. 26th, 2004 04:05 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
pantryslutI work in the very nether bowels of SF's Financial District -- heck, my building is even named after a rather famous financial group, one that may have issued one of the credit cards in your wallet.
So what's on offer for lunchtime food is typical downtown fare, heavy on the sandwiches. I don't actually like sandwiches much, at least of the traditional deli-derived kind.
But I've managed to find a couple places I actually like to eat at.
The first is an Armenian deli, parked right next to a McDonald's and a cigar lounge. In additon to tasty gyros and falafel and little rolled sandwiches, it offers vaguely hippie fare("oatmeal fantasy") and other excursions outside of their idiom (taco salad). The place itself is a windowless dive with flourescent lights and a couple tables in the back. They cut their gyros a little thick, but that's OK, because they pack their sandwiches with good stuff until the butcher paper it's wrapped in becomes an essential structural element. And they've got the only edible tomatoes I've encountered downtown.
This deli also sells big vats of hummus for $5. I may have to indulge in this sometime soon and stash a little in the break room fridge.
The second is the little Vietnamese place in the "International Cafe" located in a basement a few blocks away. Most of the places there -- a Chinese place, a Thai place, a Japanese place, a Filipino place -- serve steam-table food, but noodle bowls, it turns out, are unaffected by this, because everything but the topping is cold anyway, and the place has a teeny tiny grill at its service.
Also of note: The taqueria in the basement is hugely popular, but I've never actually tried their food. Probably in the winter I will -- beans and things sound much more appetizing when it's a little colder outside.
One of the added bonuses of eating at the International Cafe is the people watching. (And sometimes the food watching, as when the Filipino joint's special was whole fried tilapia -- with the head still on. This was a very popular entree, and there were fish heads on plates all over the place that day.) It's popular not with the well-dressed office folks, but with the peons like me.
There's also a salad-by-the-pound place just a block away that I avoided until yesterday, but turns out to be not half-bad.
Today I got to watch the hard hats take their break out on the steps of the big fake-Greek building just to the north of me. They really do still bring their own lunches. I wonder what was in their little thermal bags.
I would bring my lunch more often, except that we have no sit-down break room and I have to eat at my desk. Is there anything more depressing?
So what's on offer for lunchtime food is typical downtown fare, heavy on the sandwiches. I don't actually like sandwiches much, at least of the traditional deli-derived kind.
But I've managed to find a couple places I actually like to eat at.
The first is an Armenian deli, parked right next to a McDonald's and a cigar lounge. In additon to tasty gyros and falafel and little rolled sandwiches, it offers vaguely hippie fare("oatmeal fantasy") and other excursions outside of their idiom (taco salad). The place itself is a windowless dive with flourescent lights and a couple tables in the back. They cut their gyros a little thick, but that's OK, because they pack their sandwiches with good stuff until the butcher paper it's wrapped in becomes an essential structural element. And they've got the only edible tomatoes I've encountered downtown.
This deli also sells big vats of hummus for $5. I may have to indulge in this sometime soon and stash a little in the break room fridge.
The second is the little Vietnamese place in the "International Cafe" located in a basement a few blocks away. Most of the places there -- a Chinese place, a Thai place, a Japanese place, a Filipino place -- serve steam-table food, but noodle bowls, it turns out, are unaffected by this, because everything but the topping is cold anyway, and the place has a teeny tiny grill at its service.
Also of note: The taqueria in the basement is hugely popular, but I've never actually tried their food. Probably in the winter I will -- beans and things sound much more appetizing when it's a little colder outside.
One of the added bonuses of eating at the International Cafe is the people watching. (And sometimes the food watching, as when the Filipino joint's special was whole fried tilapia -- with the head still on. This was a very popular entree, and there were fish heads on plates all over the place that day.) It's popular not with the well-dressed office folks, but with the peons like me.
There's also a salad-by-the-pound place just a block away that I avoided until yesterday, but turns out to be not half-bad.
Today I got to watch the hard hats take their break out on the steps of the big fake-Greek building just to the north of me. They really do still bring their own lunches. I wonder what was in their little thermal bags.
I would bring my lunch more often, except that we have no sit-down break room and I have to eat at my desk. Is there anything more depressing?
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no subject
Date: 2004-08-26 04:49 pm (UTC)Where's this place?
ps - eat lunch outside - great for watching the tourists, great for getting some fresh air and out of the building for a minute.
no subject
Date: 2004-08-27 01:05 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2004-08-26 05:02 pm (UTC)(Cafe Madeline used to have an amazing roast beef sandwich, with sage pesto (no, really, it was good!) and a cheese similar to Cambezola- can't remember the name. but used to doesn't help.)
no subject
Date: 2004-08-26 07:33 pm (UTC)Oh my goodness, that sounds good! I may have to try and see if I can create something like that myself sometime.
no subject
Date: 2004-08-26 07:31 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2004-08-27 01:06 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2004-08-26 11:43 pm (UTC)lunch?
i have 12:30-1:30...
no subject
Date: 2004-08-27 08:22 am (UTC)For financial reasons I've started bringing my lunch more often and I hate having to eat at my desk. Especially when my boss also stays in for lunch because he inevitably forgets that I'm on my lunch break and asks me to do things for him. Dude, I get paid by the hour and have absolutely NO benefits, at least give me my lunch hour. (If it's something small and quick, I'll usually do it. If it's bigger, I'll usually ask, "Is this time sensitive, or can I do it after my lunch break?")
outside
Date: 2004-08-27 09:48 am (UTC)There are some really nice tables outside in the courtyard at yr building. I could meet you there sometime if you want.
no subject
Date: 2004-08-27 11:22 am (UTC)kinda like now......