Business Park Grocery Store Rotisserie Chicken

I didn't bring a lunch today.  At lunch, I asked the new guy in the cube next to me if he wanted to go grab lunch.  He said sure, but where.

Do you, fictitious reader, work in a business park?  If you do, you know that there are a zillion places to eat, but you have to drive there.  In other words, there is no wandering around and browsing the restaurants; you have to know where you're going when you get into that car.  And that's why me and the new guy in the cube next to me -- let's call him Al -- that's why Al and I spent the next 15 minutes naming all the places nearby and why we didn't want to go there.

We ended up at the grocery store.  We really wanted burgers, but the burger place is within walking distance of a large hardware company and it's always packed.  So we settled for rôtisserie chicken from the nearby grocery store.    It was not Gordon Ramsey's chicken.

In which we eat out with Irene

The beauty of the holidays is that you can go out for lunch to places that aren't the place next to your office.  I mean, that panini place is awesome, but I've had enough chicken-and-goat-cheese sandwiches.  

The other awesome thing about the holidays is that I actually get to see Irene in person instead of over dodgy cellphone connections.  

My parents had the day off and offered to take care of The Toddler while my Spousal Unit and I did some last-minute Xmas shopping and went out for lunch.  The last minute shopping went very badly:  there was a line-up in the bookstore that made us despair and leave; the liquor store was so packed, we couldn't find anything; and we totally forgot what we went into the fancy soap store for.  But we had a nice lunch at Gordon Ramsey's rotisserie!

On the table, there were pickles.  Instead of bread, you get pickles.  I didn't have any, but Spousal Unit said they were really good: crunchy, not too salty, not too vinegary.

Then we had our mains.  Spousal Unit had a 1/4 white meat rotisserie chicken with fries and coleslaw and I had tourtière.  Spousal Unit ate the salad that came with my tourtière and I had his fries.  They were damned good fries and it was a damned good tourtière.  It had cherries in it!

Throughout the meal, we kept seeing these slices of lemon meringue pie passing us, so we ordered lemon meringue pie for dessert.  Damned that was good!  The lemon part was a thick, creamy lemon curd.  I don't think I've ever had such a good lemon meringue pie.  This is like the time I was in Florida and had key lime pie at this upscale restaurant and then I could never have key lime pie ever again.  

The End of The Meal

After our lunch, we went next door to meet Irene for a coffee at Juliette et Chocolat.  We had a cappuccinos and a brownie ("Le Balsamico").  Again:  Damned that was good!  

Irene and I both took pictures of the cups.  Guess whose picture is whose.

Cappucino Study

I took a picture of cups.

Food Amongst The Ruins of Good Taste

Today was a bad day for food and conversation at the office.

The snack cupboard was starting to go bare, which meant that the denizens of the office were starting to get grumpy.  I ate the before-last cheese string.  Whomever had the last cheese string neglected to take the empty box out of the fridge, making everyone expect cheese when there was none.

The next thing to go were the chocolate chip cookies.  This huge box of Chunks Ahoy! was opened yesterday.  By 2pm today, there were 2 cookies left.  I took one and left the other on the communal table. Being the nice person I am, I "recycled" the box.  Of course, the "recycling" bin goes into the trash, but I pretend it doesn't to appease my conscience.

In between the cheese string and the cookie courses, there was lunch.  My lunch today consisted of stir-fried leftover rotisserie chicken with rice and carrots with Peri-Peri dipping sauce.  The Peri-Peri did an adequate job at masking the taste of the stir-fry.  For "dessert", I had extra-fat blueberry yogurt.

My lunch purse is hiding the coworker who was sitting across from me and who didn't want his face on the internet.  Presumably he is a fugitive from justice. Or he didn't want to be associated with today's lunchtime discussion about horse husbandry.  Either way.