lunch, actually

Having read a friend's recent post about bringing lunch to work, I got to thinking about what I eat at lunch everyday.

Monday was a simple one of egg salad sandwich (with cucumbers).
Tuesday was 3 mini beef pies (courtesy of my uncle who's visiting from Perth) and a mixed salad dressed with olive oil, lemon juice, freshly cracked black pepper, some olives and feta cheese).
Today, I didn't bring a lunch.

Yes I do work at a place that has really cheap, subsidised food, but I just cannot bring myself to eat canteen food. I've worked here since mid-Oct but I've eaten canteen food probably less than 5 times (not counting fruits).

My lunch menu tends to be composed of cold foods - sandwiches are always a feature (sometimes with deli meats like honey baked ham, other times with egg salad or tuna mayo, or just cheese, but always with some salad leaves like butterhead or sliced cucumbers), I've brought pasta salads (tossed with some salad leaves, cherry tomatoes, fresh herbs like basil and olive oil of course), couscous salad (cherry tomatoes, olives, fresh coriander, olive oil, lemon juice, salt and pepper), potato salads (mayo, some relish, salt and pepper or my warm version which has lemon juice, olive oil, finely chopped canned anchovies, chopped bacon).

What I do pick up at work is coffee. Unfortunately, the nearest outlet is a Coffee Club Xpress, and I must say that their coffee is just not very good. I made the mistake of ordering their mocha once, only to find that it was far too sweet (I think they put some chocolate syrup?) and tasting like filtered/brewed coffee instead of espresso. Their banana muffin was also quite a disappointment, tasting mainly of banana essence than anything else. The canteen does have an Olio which offers far better versions of coffee (although have yet to try their food). But my absolute favourite is the building where my boss' office is, which has a Spinelli's, with a barista who created a leaf design in my latte (I've only been served by him once, and haven't had a designed latte since). Spins also has a good sandwich of goats cheese and fig tapenade. And as a trip to the boss' office is in the agenda for today, that's what I hope to score for lunch later.