Thai Island (Exchange and TD)

The number 32 at Thai Island, a chicken, springroll and noodle number, is a standby for some of us. It's flavourful and filling, and a nice break from sandwiches. Once in a while the meat is a bit iffy (unidentified hard bits often require the two finger rescue from your mouth) but that's part of the fun.

However the real excitment involves one of the more hostile environments for PATH lunch counter transactions.

The staff (one woman at the Exchange court in particular) have a few things they get a real kick out of:

1. Giving you your lunch in a bag to go when you asked for it on a tray.
2. Sulking when you then ask for it on a tray.
3. Keeping a stack of popular beverages next to the cash registers so they get nice and warm.
4. Ignoring "sauce on the side" requests (they are frequent as the alternative is about 200 mls of thai sugar sauce on your food. They keep a stack of pre-filled sauce containers for sauce on the side requests).
5. Generalized customer-focussed hostility.

Number 3 is the one I hate the most. The fridge is maybe 40 inches from the cash register. They can't be saving that much time. What's the point of a fridge if you return beverages to room temperature before their sale?

I used to quietly fume about this. Now I ask for a diet coke from the fridge. I am secretly hoping that they refuse at some point so I can freak out.

Never a dull moment at TI.

OVERALL RATING: PAT

(the relative value of the meal gets it a third full letter)

A tale of two Mr. Subs

Often in the world of PATH lunches, we are often just looking for something that is fast, and not gross. Mr. Sub in the Exchange Tower court (one of my favourite courts) is fast and clean. They do a tremendous amount of counter wiping. Things were very tough for them during the sliced meat "troubles". Often I felt like the only customer. But they pulled through.

The staff are very cheery, although I was once rebuked for not using the cookie tongs. Generally they are pleasant.

I only get the tuna sub (I've not seen sharkwater) and the meatball sub. I'm sure both are terrible for you but they are fast, filling and won't break the bank. It's my go-to bring back to the desk lunch.

The First Canadian Place Mr. Sub is closer to my desk, but I avoid it because the staff is not as friendly and the tuna tastes "different". Also, it is in one of my least favourite courts. The FCP court should be among the best, with the abundance of natural light, but somehow the noise, the decor and the food offerings conspire to make it kind of dead and downmarket. Basement courts in the Exchange Tower, Commerce Court, TD, and now even Royal Plaza are much preferred by this reviewer.

Also, the FCP court invariably has birds in it. If I wanted indoor birds, I'd go to the Metro Zoo and visit one of those geo-domes. Speaking of the Zoo, it's a real shame about that monorail.

OVERALL RANKING: PAT out of PATH (Exchange Tower)

OVERALL RANKING: PA out of PATH (FCP)

North of Queen

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.

Soup Nutsy

I would describe the location as somewhere in netherworld between TD and Commerce Court. Just south of a shoeshine stand.

I haven't been in a while, but I go through phases during which it will be one of my top lunch options. Then I'll get a gnarly bit of chicken in my soup, and I'll give it a rest for a few months.

PROS:

• The soup usually tastes good.
• Quick moving line.
• The bread that comes with the soup is surprisingly good; try the crusty rolls.
• The fruit is a nice touch.
• Centrally located, and not in a food court.
• Loyalty card option for those so inclined.
• Good winter option.

CONS:

• Quite salty (and I like salt)
• Expensive and not that filling - 8 bucks for soup, and then you are starving at 4pm.
• They make you ask for butter.
• It's a bit tense in there.

OVERALL RANKING: PAt out of PATH

Saisons in the Sun

What motivated me to launch this blog was the demise of the Ooh La La (OLL) in the Exchange Tower/FCP area. It wasn't perfect, but it had lots of seats, and Mulligitawny Mondays are sorely missed.

This week "Saisons" opened in the former OLL space, and I gave it a try. These were my impressions:

• a guy was freaking out about the end of calypso chicken (popular OLL sandwich and wrap filling - never tried it myself). In response the cashier kept repeating that there were new owners. I know how you feel, pal.
• they were out of diet coke (single most popular non-water PATH beverage I would guess).
• asparagus soup had lots of woody bits - they were not trimming the ends of the asparagus enough.
• it's more expensive. Soup sandwich and diet coke used to be in the 8 dollar range. Now a flat 10. Seemed fishy.
• seating /decor is nicish? cashier was slow.
• layout is not good. Hard to explain. You'll have to check it out yourself.
• tuna salad looked so weird (pink?) that I switched to ham (which was decent).
• bread not toasted enough. the OLL sandwich woman was better. a travesty she was not hired on to the new venture.
• there was a stray Toronto Sun hanging around, which is always nice.

OVERALL RANKING: Pa out of PATH