Where do you eat lunch?

Miscellaneous and Personal Stuff I Must Share
1

When and where do you eat lunch?

I almost always go to the cafeteria in the next building. I work in an office/laboratory complex and there are, oh, twenty-five buildings clustered here with three or four cafeterias scattered about. (Boeing calls this their “Kent Space Center” which is a bit of an exaggeration, since very little work here relates to space.)

I sometimes go out for lunch, especially if Mrs. Pluto is going to be in the area. Then it’s usually fast food or a small restaurant that caters to the lunch crowd.

I seldom eat breakfast so I’m usually very hungry at lunch time. The cafeteria opens at 11:00 and I’m usually there by 11:05.

How about you? Do you bring your lunch? Eat out? Entertain clients? Snack all day? Give us the straight dope!

2

The Avalanche Grill. It happens to be the place where the Colorado Avalanche practice. I can go up there, get a tasty lunch, and peer down upon the ice and watch my favorite hockey team go through their drills. After their practice is over, one could easily obtain autographs by merely asking when they come out to their cars.

3

My standard three options:

I live two blocks from my office. I go home a lot.

I walk every day. I sometimes walk the 1/2 mile
to our main street, and stop and get a pint of
Ben & Jerry’s.

I will stay in and cover the office if someone is
willing to buy me lunch. This usually happens when
whoever is suppose to relieve me doesn’t show
or doesn’t want to.

4

the area around my workplace is pretty lame as far as food is concerned. there is a small coffee counter across the street, and a chinese canadian restaurant at the next block.

so instead, my coworkers and i venture further to the real jerk a few streets over.

mmm…

jerk chicken,
rice and peas,
plantain.
enough said.

5

…sigh…

this is so pathetic…

4 days out of 5, you can usually find me eating lunch at my desk.

Mondays, we usually go out for lunch after our weekly meeting, to Greektown or somewhere close to that. Next week we’re going to Mexican Town.

Detroit.

6

I rarely vary from my boring routine: Home at 12:00 (which takes all of 4 minutes), watch the noon time news, grab a small container of fat free cottage cheese, sugar free jello (cherry), fat free tapioca pudding and some triscuits, head back to the office to eat yummy diet food at my desk with lots of water.

I am so boring and predictable.

7

When I lived in Seattle, I worked in the Smith Tower building, and lunch was always something to look forward to.

Tons of choices – from Thai to Creole – my favorites were the great sandwiches from Bakeman’s (homemade bread and real meat, not that processed crap) and Don Pay in Pioneer Square – simple bowls of rice with beef or chicken.

On payday, we’d head for the Market and grab some fried chicken livers and then get dessert from one of the bakeries.

Now I eat from the cafeteria at work. (Think school or hospital food.) But they do the best they can, I guess. Although some real beef in a hamburger wouldn’t hurt once in awhile.

8

I work right across the street from the IDS Center in downtown Minneapolis, so my options are pretty much limitless.

Top 3:

  1. 5th Floor Lunchroom, My Building: Sandwich or Leftovers
  2. Au Bon Pain, IDS Center: Sandwiches, sandwiches, sandwiches.
  3. Nichol’s, Gaviidae Common: Awesome salads and sandwiches.

I likes my sammiches.

9

Pluto, try Gambardella’s down at the corner of Meeker and Pac Highway. Last week I got a sausage & pepper calzone the size of a frisbee for $7. I do lunch about once a month. The rest of the time it’s a Powerbar at my desk.

10

Taza, a chicken place right around the corner from my office on Wabash. The place is a bloody zoo at lunch – wall to wall people and there’s no such thing as a line, just whoever gets to the counter first! Surprisingly, no pushing or shoving, everyone behaves. Yes, their food is worth it.

Needless to say, I eat it at my desk. :slight_smile:

11

I’m envious of all you guys. Where I work we are out in the middle of nowhere. Sure there’s a cafeteria at work, but it’s run by the same people that do our vending machines so you can imagine the food. Usually I take a sandwich and just eat at my desk, while posting to the board.

12

Scarred –

I’ll have to add you to my informal list of local dopes. We may yet have a successful Puget Sound Straight Dope Get-Together (PSSDGT).

I think I know the place you’re talking about, but I think it’s the West Valley Highway that intersects there – we’re talking down in the valley, next to a QFC, near a BigK-Mart and Hotspurs?

If that’s the place I will certainly give it a try. Somebody asked about it just the other day when we drove by and I wondered why we’d never stopped in. Of course, from where I work I’d have to drive by the Caveman to get there, so I might get sidetracked!

Auntie Pam–

Downtown’s a little too far from here for me to enjoy the cuisine there – consequently I know little about it. Mrs. Pluto and I did have lunch just yesterday at McMeniman’s (sp?) Pub on Queen Anne Hill, though. It was way above average.

Canthy–

For some reason I didn’t know you were in Minneapolis. I’ve only visited there once but I always thought it would be a nice place to live. (This was in the summertime!) My dad is from Lake of the Woods area – Warroad to be exact. I don’t want you to think he was rural but his mom won $5 in a crossword puzzle contest when he was a kid. That was a lot of money in those days (depression) but she had to pick it up in person in Duluth. It might as well have been the moon.

13

Well, I usually just bring leftovers or a frozen something or other from Trader Joes. I eat at my desk while I work, so I have an excuse to go out walking later in the afternoon.

There is a snack shop where I work,though, and I mainly replied to this thread so that I could tell you the name. Now, keep in mind that I work on a Navy base. Our glorious, aluminum-sided repository of Doritos and Slim Jims is called:

The Tidbit Palace.

I love it.

14

You’re right. I’m wrong. It’s West Valley. Duh… I work at West Valley and 228th. Mirabella’s, a little farther down Meeker to the west, is also a nice upscale sandwich shop. Usually crowded, tho. It’s where the bosses go. The only good food I ever got from Caveman Kitchen was when they smoked a whole turkey for us. Their BBQ turns me off.

15

I guess I’m lucky, there’s TONS of places within walking distance of my building.

My favorite place to have lunch is Victoria’s, an excellent Italian place 3 blocks from my building. But, it’s hard to get a table there and it can be slow, so we go there rarely.

Usually, it’s the Colonial Inn Cafe, aka, the Dirty Dive. Decent food, cheap, and really fast, especially if you tip well. Plus, it’s less than a block away.

Or, there’s the subway, which is an underground mall/passageway/hard to describe thingie that connects the Clinic buildings and has several fast food places and shops. It’s nice in the winter, you don’t even have to go outside.

Other places we go once in a while, Bilotti’s, a decent pizza place and Red Lobster. One of these days, if I have my way, we’re going to try Michaels, The Greenhouse, Henry Wellington, and O’Neil’s Pizza.

Occasionally, we’ll head to the cafeteria in the Harwick building, usually when we feel like eating outside.

Of course, for about an hour before lunch, my friends and I don’t get any work done, we’re so busy emailing back and forth arguing about where to go.

16

Depends…I work 4 blocks from home, so I usually walk home, let the pup out and scarf some yogurt or something. (Or catch a 20 minute nap and take the yogurt back to eat at my desk.)

There are plenty of good places nearby when the urge hits to eat out: Thai, 2 Chinese, a brew pub (great sandwiches and soup), Italian, etc. There are also some quick sandwich places, including an honestly pretty-good hot dog cart on the plaza. In nice weather it’s fun to grab a quick sandwich on the go, sit outside and watch the river roll by.

Of course on really hideous days (weather and work) I just buy some stale cheese & peanut crackers and pout.

Veb

17

I usually eat lunch at my desk.
In the form of pizza.
Which I pick up from the local Pizza Hut.

18

I live and work in New York City, the restaurant capital of the world.

But I work in Rockefeller Center, carefully designed back in the 1930s to exclude any sort of interesting restaurant. Almost everything within easy walking distance is an expense-account joint (I patronize them on occasion), but few places that offer quality grub at low prices.

Nonetheless, I persevere. One block south is a kind of Kyoto Greasy Spoon…a Japanese noodle shop that dishes up the soup, rice, dumplings and noodles with the best of them. Down on 46th there’s a Brazilian place that does nice black beans and rice, and chicken fried up with about six heads of garlic. Right next door is an Argentine steak joint that fills the bill when I have a craving for kidneys and sweetbreads. There are also a number of Irish pubs around; SaxFace and I had lunch in one yesterday. Cheeseburgers and a pint of Guinness. They also do things like fish and chips, bangers and mash, etc. There’s a Cuban place a little further west that makes great Cubano sandwiches. Sometimes I sneak up to 53rd and Eighth to Da Tomasso, for northern Italian, or to the Carnegie Deli for hot pastrami or brisket. The Diamond Dairy Luncheonette over in the diamond district, up on the mezzanine over the dealing tables, is nice for a soothing cup of tea and some rice pudding.

Today I hit the pushcart on 50th Street…Cynthia & Robert’s…for a hot Italian sausage sandwich with onions and peppers and extra hot sauce. Carried it back to my desk and dripped it all over the NY TIMES.

19
20

Where do I eat lunch?

Slide over, give me some of your fries, and I’ll tell you.