Posts Tagged “lunch”

No, I don’t mean the trouble all those college kids are getting into, I mean Charity Muggers, or “chuggers” as the limeys call them.  I was at lunch with @tangyslice in Davis square today and observed him live-blogging the local charity panhandlers.  Being who I am, I couldn’t help but geolocate Tangy’s observed data.

Perhaps you can use this to plot a nag-free course through the square.  Good luck, and watch where you step.  If you really want to make a difference, perhaps you’ll make a donation to Jane Doe Inc., the Massachusetts Coalition Against Sexual Assault and Domestic Violence, which is the featured charity of Social Media for Social Change.

Lunch is one of my three favorite meals of the day. Taking a break from the usual grind of burritopalooza or wolf-at-your-desk, I sought out that Davis Square oasis of calm, Snappy Sushi. While some people are off in Japan nom-nomming their way across the island, I still find Snappy to be above average in the lunch sushi game. Turns out they have at least one interesting surprise on the menu, the mamemaki roll. While the $1 a piece nigiri feel a little stingy, this $9 roll had a lot going on: brown rice, tuna, salmon, avocado, cucumber and lettuce, all wrapped in a white soy sheet studded with black and white sesame seeds and drizzled with a nice edamame-yuzu sauce.

The whole effect is very summery, with crunchy cucumber and mushy avocado adding a salad-like vibe to the sweet and melty salmon. The sharp citrusy sauce (I can taste the yuzu, not so sure about the edamame) and bland, slightly chewy soy wrapper really made this roll stand out.

Not quite ready to return to work, I wondered, what next? Ordering another roll was tempting. Picking up another couple of shots of caffeine also seemed sensible. But who needs sensible when you can get ice cream? I made a bee-line for JP Licks. In the interest of keeping it light - and simple - I looked only at the soft-serve frozen yogurt selections. Lo and behold, they had both coffee and oreo flavors in one machine, allowing me to order the rare fro-yo swirl version of one of my favorite ice cream varieties, coffee oreo.

I opted for the kiddie size - smaller than small - which apparently comes in an espresso to go cup (take that, Murky Coffee!) for $3.14. I like that it says “HOT” all along the bottom of the cup. Honestly, it didn’t hold a candle to the ice cream version which has actual chunks of oreo cookie, but it was cool and most definitely hit the spot.

If you’re a big frozen yogurt fan and a bit obsessive, you will get a big kick out of JP Licks’ frozen yogurt schedule, where you can learn which flavors will be on offer at which stores during which weeks, no doubt avoiding much calamitous disappointment.

I had just one thing on my mind heading out to lunch yesterday: cheese. Pizza? No. Cheeseburger? No. Cheese fries? Ugh. Can you just have a slab or slice or chunk of cheese for lunch? Not that I haven’t done so before, but it’s somehow just not done during a lunch break from work. So I popped into a local place and ordered up a sandwich with cheese in it. It didn’t really live up to my cheese hankering, so today, I went to a different local place and had a different cheesy sandwich. Presented here for your edification, a head-to-head cheese sandwich comparison.

Sandwich the first: “Granny & Jack” at Blue Shirt Cafe

Jack cheese, granny smith apples and caramelized onions on grilled sourdough bread. I think I would have preferred it with cheddar, but as it turned out, the cheese was so meager and thin, I’m not sure I would have tasted it. (But wait, the cheese is yellow, does jack come in yellow like cheddar does?) Onions were nicely done and in good supply, and the apple was freshly sliced. What brings this sandwich down is that the proportions are out of whack, and it’s not grilled long enough for the apple to warm up. Maybe those issues are related, because my gripe is that there is way too much apple compared to the cheese, and the apple slices are so thick that it’s hard to keep the sandwich together since the onions are pretty slippery. I think that if there were more cheese and thinner slices of apple, things would harmonize better.

Sandwich the second: “Branch Trio” at Diesel Cafe

Three cheeses, greens, cucumber and tomato on seven grain bread. I think two of the cheeses were havarti and muenster, but I’m not sure of the thrd. I was intially put off that the sandwich was not grilled, but the bread held up well. Also oddly, it was served in a bowl because they were out of plates. The cheese to vegetable ratio was right on, with both sliced nice and thin. All in all, very comforting with the greens and grainy bread giving the feeling of a somewhat healthy meal, despite all the cheese.

Although the overall advantage is clearly to the Branch Trio, Both sandwiches could have benefitted from more interesting bread, and perhaps more time on the grill. Also, neither one really satsified my cheese craving, but maybe that’s better for all concerned. In addition, I should mention that the Diesel sandwich was a bit more expensive than Blue Shirt’s.

I think I might even have a cheese sandwich for dinner. Here’s my cheese sandwich formula: 18-24 month old cheddar and fresh granny smith apple on grilled pumpernickel. I’d definitely put some cheese on each slice of bread to melt around the apple slices and keep them from squirting out the end of the sandwich when I take a bite.

Photo credit: me.

You know how sometimes it seems you can’t do anything without causing some kind of fuss? First it was the Lake Champlain Chocolate Kerfuffle, and now this:

Last week I went to lunch with A at a Diva, an Indian restaurant near my office and was pleasantly surprised to find mini-dosas on the buffet table. I snapped a photo and sent it to a friend to make him jealous that I’d had such a treat for lunch. (Before anybody starts in, there is absolutely nothing abnormal about photographing your food. Just ask this guy or this one. Some lucky people make a living doing it!) This was my second plate at the buffet and the tandoori chicken leg was included for scale. (I ate it, of course.)

Apparently it was a slow news day, since he turned around and posted my photo on his blog under “Honey, who shrunk the dosa?” and racked up 200+ often heated comments. Here are a few:

khoofia: the violently oblique trajectory - but in many parts of the world, street vendors [from thailand to the philippines] are reducing portion sizes in response to rising grain prices. the picture actually represents one of the presumed root causes - the dosai, or the grain product, is increasingly a smaller portion of the diet as more people are adding non-vegetarian products to their meal.

Tamasha: Mini dosas are crisper, just the way I like ‘em. Plus, it’s the buffet. Get over it. :P

RC: The rise of commodity prices is largely due to the STUPID ethenol policy put in by Dubya. I mean is that anything that this government can do right? They have completely messed up the agricultural market of the whole world by this stupid ethenol idea.

Neale: Where is India’s Mason-Dixie line and what is it called?

Portmanteau: gee, that was so meta. a dosa is a dosa is a dosa. well done! to think that i missed the subtle gertrude stein reference.

Manju: I’m opposed to this burritozation of the dosa. dosa’s should be ripped and dipped (btw, notice no sambar in the pic?) and the inner fillings scooped up to control chutney or potato distribution.

…and a whole lot of stuff that was way over my head about the history and culture of different parts of India. I spent some time trying to figure out if any of these people were angry at me for eating the wrong dosa the wrong way, but gave up in confusion.

Behold, the power of lunch.