I've recently spent some time working north of Queen Street, which has opened up a whole new world of PATH lunch options. Not many of them have been good. For one thing, the Eaton Centre food court at the south end of the mall is scary to me and full of teenagers. This is not something you normally encounter in the PATH core. I have mostly avoided it.
For a while I ate almost exclusively at the soup and sandwich place in the Church of the Holy Trinity, which is through the doors on the west side of the mall, just before Sears. This is mostly an unfamiliar place for people who work south of Queen, but it is super cheap and they have great daily specials. I like the spanakopita. After a while I got bored of the soups and started to think they all tasted the same. I wish they made carrot ginger more often.
After my church phase, I started eating at the T-spot in the basement of the Bay pretty much every day. This is the opposite end of the price spectrum - really way too expensive for daily lunches - usually around 14 bucks with tax for an entree and salad. Not that that stopped me.
The salmon is generally pretty good, and the onion tart is amazing but they never make it. I usually go here if I am trying to be "healthy" and get some sort of fish and salad. I'm never blown away, but it's only been not good maybe one or two times. The spinach salads are great. For some reason, the soups are terrible. No idea why, but I was getting soup for a while until I realized I didn't like any of them.
Then we got really busy at work, and we started getting Sandwich Box delivered every day. You can't really go wrong with the Sandwich Box. I liked that I could change my order everyday and avoid getting bored. I like the side salad. I like the bread options. The smoked chicken or turkey or whatever it is is great. The downside is that grilled sandwiches don't really sit that well, so if you can't get to the sandwich right when it gets delivered, it gets very soggy. Someone I work with had to stop with the sandwiches because that grossed her out, so she got a salad everyday, and then got bored with the Sandwich Box. I think it just might be because eating salad everyday for lunch is boring, but I do think they have a great variety of salad ingredients, and I'd venture to say that the quality of ingredients is better than any of the other salad joints.
So that is north of Queen. I'm looking forward to my return to Scotia Plaza, which has a terrible food court but is at least closer to more PATH lunch action.
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Dear N of Q
ReplyDeleteIt sounds like you have moved more towards the $10/lunch type spots, but if you are like most of us it may be a good time to look for value in the north end of the core. One reccomendation I'd like to make is Tuesday specials at the Mega Wrap hidden under 1 Queen East. I'm not a big wrap person, especially those green or pink looking ones, but Mega Wrap uses pita bread wraps which i enjoy. Next Tuesday go in a get yourself any wrap (junior size, its all any normal person needs) for $3.15. Good quality foods at recession prices. Note: there is a good shoe repair guy across the way if needed.
Why can't you ask sandwich box for un-grilled sandwiches?
ReplyDeleteThe teenagers in the mall really a add a new (and unpleasant) element to the food court experience. They also really clog up the escalators. The food court at the north end of the mall is less cluttered with shoppers, but has a weirder vibe than the south end.
ReplyDeleteI stick with Lettuce Eatery (now freshii?) when working at the EC. Salad can get boring, but Lettuce offers lots of salty/fatty additions (blue cheese, chicken, bacon, avocado, etc.).
You can ask for un-grilled sandwiches, but:
ReplyDelete1) If you CAN eat your sandwich at the right time (ie. when it gets delivered), grilled is so much better;
2) The bread I like tastes better grilled even if it has been sitting around; and
3) I decided I could live with the occasional soginess of the grilled sandwich because basically all sandwiches that sit around freak me out a little bit anyway.
One of the EC courts (mid-north rogue court) has teenburgers, which are among my favourite junk food items. And root beer (can't remember if they do frosty mugs though). It is a very strange court however.
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