Work Lunch Outing

I typically don't go out to eat lunch during the week. Sometimes I'll go and grab food, but most of the time when we're not being fed, I will bring my own. Last week my team went out for our "last supper" lunch. We're getting a new boss. It's quite a traumatic thing. It deserved some team commiserating. Since we're in Conshy, there weren't many options, and noone wanted to make a decision, so we ended up at the Boathouse. It's not an exciting place, but it's somewhere to go.

D got a burger of some kind. There's bacon on it. Can't go wrong with bacon! K got a chicken BLT sandwich? Looks pretty good, eh? The kept poaching his fries, they were good. Again, bacon on his sandwich, another winner.

R went with the chicken pesto sandwich. It's got feta cheese on it. I'm not a fan of feta cheese, but otherwise, the sandwich sure looks good. See, it comes on a fancy "rustic focaccia" roll. I went with the good ol soup and sandwich combo. It was the soup of the day - shrimp and roasted corn chowder. Pretty good I must say. The salad was a big house salad. Much bigger than I expected. Good croutons. I picked the sesame ginger dressing. It wasn't as much dressing as it was a marinade, so it was a bit on the strong side. I shoulda gone with vinaigrette. I had my first leinenkugel that day. You know what, I enjoyed it. Probably a bit too much...

More company eats

We had our quarterly company meeting last week. Typically, it's at the West Conshohocken Marriott, but it was moved last minute to the ACE Center. Not a bad thing. They told us some stuff during the meeting, but nothing was surprising. We all knew what was coming.

The lunch was alright. I've had better meals there. Similar to my last meal at ACE, it was a little lackluster. The chicken was a bit dry, but the red pepper sauce was great. The creamy italian salad dressing was actually quite noteworthy.


Desserts, as usual, is where the ACE really stands out. There were multiple pies, cakes, chocolates, and even fruit. I went with the apple pie again. I can't help myself, I know what I like.

Bye Bye Chef Donald

Last Friday was the last week of the season where Chef Donald graced us with his grilling prowess. Sadness. This is truly the end of summer. For his last meal, he made hawaiian chicken. It was delicious, and had pineapples in it. I loved every bit of it.

I even took some home for dinner and it reheated itself beautifully. I don't know what he put it in, I never know what he puts in his lunches, but I just loved it. And I will miss him every Friday until next summer. Bye bye Chef Donald, you have no idea how much my stomach will miss you!

Food - the company way

I used to work at a company that gave us free lunch every day. And by free I mean subsidized, so either free or nearly free, depending on how much you decided to eat. It was luxurious. Not because the food was particularly great, but because you never had to worry about packing a lunch, worrying about where to go out for lunch, or wondering if you should take your leftovers into work the next day. The caf was always there, enticing you with their salad bar, sandwich station, entree line, hot grill line, and soups. You could rely on it. Plus it saved you a ton of cash.

In the first few years they basically served typical american cafeteria fare. Towards the latter years, after they changed vendors, the food started getting a bit more interesting. Some days we had sushi or chinese. They even had indian and middle eastern! They were trying to introduce some pseudo-internationalized cuisine onto unsuspecting American suburbanite office drones. And I admired them for it.

My new company feeds us twice a week. On Wednesdays it varies from restaurant or caterer. on Fridays it's pizza from Tony A's. But a few common themes abound through our free lunches - vegetarians and dieters, you're screwed. It's not the healthiest in the world, and always meat-laden. Last summer on Fridays was my favorite day of the week because of Chef Donald. That's right, we had a chef that came in on Fridays that grilled for us. It was unbelievable what that man could do with onions and garlic, his main staple ingredients, and whatever meat they brought in that day. I wish it was summer again, because damn, Chef Donald's meals were the best.

Today was Tony A's as usual. And I always eat the same pizza - Bacon Burger. Bacon Burger pizza you say? It has everything you love - bacon, ground beef, caramelized onions, and hot peppers. How can you go wrong? After all, everything tastes better with bacon. The onions on this pizza.... Man! I don't know what kind of crack they sprinkle on it, but I could eat it straight from a bowl.

I didn't eat the pizza today though. Last Sunday I had decided to make chili. It was a particularly cold day, and on cold days, there's nothing better than pho or chili. I'd had pho on Saturday (more on that later), so I decided to make chili. I made a giant vat of it and ate the last bits of it today. Mmm, mmm, good.