Technically my vacation started today, but I made sure to come in for our potluck lunch, which Nick did an excellent job orchestrating. It was a great spread overall, complete with cookies, enchiladas, salad, sweet potatoes, and all sorts of snacks in between. I brought in some homemade beef jerky (or as close as one can get without owning a food dehydrator), as well as “Octopus Garden,” which ended up being some sort of macaroni casserole.

The key to Octopus Garden is actually in one of the first devices I remember ordering on the internet, The Octodog. Basically, the Octodog takes an ordinary hotdog and transforms it into a nautical being of myth and mystery by making a series of slices along the length of hot dog, and two little holes at the uncut end. When the dog’s cooked, the legs curl up and take the shape of an octopus. Sorta. Anyway, here’s where all that lead to.

First, I cut a few Octodogs, and then made little slices from the rest of the hotdogs in the pack, and boiled them all up. While that was going on, I gave some broccoli a light steaming. Then I tossed the cut dogs and broccoli into a bowl and mixed them up with some pepper, diced parsley, basil and a little garlic. Then I cooked up some shell-shaped pasta, which is thematically crucial here.

Once the pasta was done, I mixed it all up with the rest of the ingredients and added in some shredded cheddar. Then I tossed it all into a baking pan, spread it out, and topped it off with a bunch of crumbled up Ritz crackers and three Octodogs before baking it for about 30 minutes or so. It wasn’t much to look at, but I like to think it was pretty edible. In retrospect, it really could have used a little more greenery on the top. But who knows. Maybe octopi are shitty gardeners.

We’ve got a skeleton crew in here today on account of the weather, but we still managed to make a real doozy out of our lunch situation here. See, here’s how it all went down. At first, we had grand designs to grab sandwiches from Bottega Fiorentina. Orders were collected and everything. But then on the way, things got strange. B.Good had a sign out front, boasting the sale of fine burgers and fries, and it just all seemed so right! Sure, we’ve been hurt before, but maybe this time would be different. And so Ashley went off to collect the orders from Bottega from those who’d made requests while Nick and I braved B.Good to collect orders for the three of us. It was quite a daring divergence from “the plan.”

And then my turkey burger tasted kinda like meatloaf.

There was some new guy working the counter at De Luca’s today. He seemed to be coping reasonably well, despite a little scrambling here and there. He seemed to be picking up quickly on one of the things I like about that place; when they don’t have bread behind the counter for sandwich use, they can always just go grab some off the sales shelves and use that instead. Pretty handy practice, especially when you really want rye bread for your corned beef sandwich, like I did today. Luckily, there weren’t any problems with the swiss cheese, horseradish, lettuce or slaw I was after too. I think he would have had a lot more trouble wrangling those ingredients.

It was cold and miserable out today, so we did another Men Tei order, mostly thanks to their proximity to the office. This time I went with the omelette over rice and a side of gyoza. The omelette was good (if maybe a little light on shrimp), but the gyoza seemed a little deflated or something. It’s been a while since I ordered it there, but it was definitely a little light on filling. However, despite there being less filling, it still managed to taste great.

I went back to the shwarma combo from Café Jaffa today, but I was sad to discover that it wasn’t quite the rainbow of fantastic flavor it was last time. I think there was something sub-par about their choice of red meat today (beef or lamb, I wasn’t sure). Just a bit on the bland side. It was still a fine sandwich, but just not quite up to snuff with where they’ve been before. But oh well. Live to eat another day.

I’m sure I’ve mentioned this before, but I’m continually grateful that Men Tei is what it is- year after year of quick, close, delicious food. I only had a few minutes to figure lunch out today, and once again they were the solution. I even got the food back to my desk in time to realize that the burning sensation I was feeling from my spicy tofu dish was actually equal parts spicy heat and actual temperature heat. Just another upside to the ten-minute take-out.

Today was our annual day-long company and departmental meeting. Unfortunately these started up for a lot of us just around lunchtime, so the lack of food seemed to begin hedging towards a mild state of crisis after a bit. Luckily, Steph bailed us out with a pile of pizzas (I think from Pizza Pier?), including the much loved nacho pizza. I was still feeling a little wonky from my redeye back from LA, so I kept it tame with a couple slices of pepperoni, which gave me the strength to carry on.

Our meetings in LA ended just before lunch, so we packed up our things and drove up to Santa Monica for lunch. Rhonda took us to this cute little Mexican place, the Tortilla Grill, which we saw was just a block down from Electric Avenue. I had a grilled catfish burrito, which was one of the most massive renditions of the “burrito” concept I’ve ever seen. Through either folding technique or sheer pull of gravity, it had gone from the usual cylindrical shape to something looking like a gigantic, gourmet hot pocket. But in a good way. It had to be like 24 square inches when viewed from above. Keith successfully managed to pick his up, but mine quickly revealed itself as a knife and fork kinda burrito, which is a-ok by me. If nothing else, it really rejuvenated my faith in the possibilities out there for pocket-shaped foodstuffs.

I’m on an overnight meeting in LA, where I landed just in time to get some food. Rhonda was already in town and took me to this Mexican place in Torrance called El Torito. Time was a little short, but they were incredibly kind about us making a rush of things. I had the burrito especial with chicken, which I believe roughly translates to “burrito that is special.” I’m not sure what made it particularly special, but it certainly was tasty. It was the sort of “laid out on a plate covered in sauce” breed of burrito, served up alongside beans, rice, and a little mound of pulverized cornbread that had a nice sweetness to it. I’m not sure it was the breed of Mexican food that California apparently does so well, but it certainly did the trick at the time.

Whenever we go to DeLuca’s, Kenji orders a sandwich made with chicken salad from the deli counter rather than a sandwich of sliced lunch meats. While watching him do so today, I realized that I’d never given that particular method a shot myself and recognized that as an oversight. So I grabbed some chicken salad on rosemary and garlic bread, topped with lettuce, tomato, pepper and American cheese. I thought about the possibility of including some other condiment on there, but came to the conclusion that chicken salad is basically 20% condiment as it is.

I wasn’t craving lunch so much today as I was craving some sort of vehicle for tabasco sauce. If it were at all reasonable to just eat tabasco like a soup, it might have crossed my mind. However, I’m simply not man or fool enough to go that route. Instead, I went for the Mediterranean-style wrap with steak from Boloco. Sure, it’s an incredibly tasty wrap on its own, but it features a collection of flavors that are very supportive of some additional spiciness.

Once I’d made my choice, everything went according to plan. Drop on a palatable layer of tabasco, take a bite, and repeat. I continued this process until I’d formed a fine layer of sweat on my forehead. It was an unfortunate side effect of my grand plan, but an acceptable loss within the realm of satisfying cravings.

There was some last-minute gear-changing with the lunch order today. There seemed to be a general level of ambivalence, and a bunch of us went with Men Tei at first, mostly out of a lack of any other ideas. However, just as the names were on the paper, along came Kenji with the Scoozi menu. After that, everything changed. Names were crossed off one list, written on another, and vast quantities of pocket change migrated from one pile to another. I had the salad nicoise, which was tasty and full-featured as usual.

I was nursing a reasonably painless hangover today in the wake of some going-away drinks for Kate last night, but it was notable enough to get my stomach whining for something dense and indulgent, preferably with more grease than I might usually want. You know how it goes. So I ended up with a meatball sub from Bostone. It definitely hit the spot, but for some reason ordering the subs over there seems to be an incredibly lengthy process. Even when it’s just a matter of spooning some meatballs from a vat and into a roll, I always seem to end up holding everyone else up with my order while the folks behind the counter crank away laboriously at the sandwichery. What’re they building in there?

Dear Keith,

Just wanted to regroup with you about the shwarma combo sandwich I had today from Café Jaffa. I know you were curious before, so my aim now is to keep you as informed as I can manage.

Upon review of my records, while I have indeed enjoyed this breed of sandwich before (or “roll-up,” as it’s occasionally referred to), I wouldn’t feel comfortable referring to it as a “regular” selection of mine. Certainly not on the level of say, a chicken shwarma salad. However, this is a trend I may need to rethink.

By my recollection, it’s been many months since I’ve concluded a meal feeling quite so sated, nor enjoyed such pleasant waves of aftertaste. It was, without a doubt, one of the finest sandwiches I’ve enjoyed in recent memory, and I highly encourage you to try one for yourself next time you happen to be in the area.

Perhaps we can even enjoy one together.

Until then,
- mike

For some reason, the pork and curry in my pork cutlet over rice from Men Tei was all shifted to he side of the container. Not like it was tipped over, but more that the toppings had been carefully placed off-kilter, so as to allow for a fresh, white strip of rice along the edge about an inch wide. Not the end of the world, of course, but it did require some careful mixing to ensure that each bit of rice got just a tiny taste of curry, so that I in turn could do the same.