Wednesday, August 30, 2006

Lunch at the Salad Bar

I rarely get my lunch out of the salad bar. There are a few reasons for this, such as that I prefer to get salads from the places that toss them with the dressing for you, and that I like to eat sandwiches and pizza for lunch rather than Chinese food and other typical hot/cold salad bar options. Then, to get to the financial point of the matter, there is the issue of figuring out how much your lunch is going to cost. I kind of like knowing this in advance, rather than having to eyeball a plethora of options, estimate how heavy they might be, and balance a plastic container in my hand trying to figure out if it weighs more than a pound yet. Sometimes it's so easy to go nuts at a salad bar, and when you get to the register you suddenly discover that you have 2 pounds of food and it's going to cost you $16!
Today I did pretty well-- I judiciously sampled 3 items and my total was $6.04 (@$7.95 per pound). On the other hand, I was disappointed when I got back to my desk and discovered that the sauce I had smothered my poached salmon in was wasabi, not creamy dill, and that my cherry tomato and mozzarella salad had bits of hot pepper in it. Luckily my pasta with broccoli was delicious and mild enough to cool the rest of the meal off!
I have to tell another story about today's trip to the salad bar, because it was just so weird: there was a man next to me who was piling a small container very high, cramming in an awful lot of food. He was doing this while holding his briefcase between his knees and a cellphone to his ear. The phone conversation went something like this:

Hey, yeah, I was just wondering, do you get a discount on Rolex watches? You do? I want to get a Rolex, the really basic classic one. Yeah, stainless steel, all stainless, no bezel, no date or anything. Oh, great. I was just at the Tourneau in Westchester and saw one for about $4,000... yeah, great, great. I want you to send me a real, dated photograph of it. No, it's not urgent or anything...

I didn't hear the rest of the conversation, but I left wondering why, if it wasn't urgent, was he buying a watch while standing at a salad bar!

10 comments:

Anonymous said...

I love salad bars but I can get pretty heavy-handed. That is, I take stuff that weighs a lot and then I pay tons of money for my lunch. I have learned I have to skip the heavy stuff: marinated mushrooms, beets, potato salad, etc.

Asset gatherer said...

Yeah-- and absolutely no fruit, as refreshing as it may look. Funny reading your post now; I'm eating my buffet salad right now!

Anonymous said...

i'm too short to use the salad bar properly. I always have to duck my head and arms in under the sneeze-protector in order to reach anything. is that legal?

Anonymous said...

Definately agree, with have a salad bar at work and all the best stuff weighs a ton, so even with the best intentions its usually a ten dollar touch. Times again by five and its an expensive lunch week. Particularly anoying when we all know the beans/chickpeas are so cheap to buy at the store!

Anonymous said...

I lurv salad bars! When I worked at the big M I had a salad almost everyday. I don't have the prepared salads, and very little meat. It always came between $4-5.

Hearing a conversation like that about Rolexes would make me judge that he is very status oriented. I can get pretty judgemental though when I hear stuff like that.

KMK said...

I think the non-urgent Rolex/cell phone at the salad bar experience is unique to NYC. At times I miss things like that in my new low key west coast life.

mOOm said...

Those salad bars are such a big thing in NYC but not elsewhere. And the guy buying a Rolex at the same time is terribly stereotypical :) I live in upstate NY :)

Anonymous said...

I enjoy getting my salad tossed too.

GolbGuru said...

lol..cramming lot of salad in a small container must have its own thrill :)

Anonymous said...

Not a fan of salad bars.
I like to know the exact cost of things before I buy.
Too much stress to try to calculate it on the fly.
Not conducive to digestion.