Lunchtime woes

At work, we all eat lunch at staggered times, anywhere from 11:30am-1pm, depending on the workload of the day.

Lunch is half hour, and the clock starts as soon as you notify Chef.

“Chef, je peux prend déjeuner?” I speak to my Japanese pastry chef in French..but that’s another post.

“Bon appetit!”

I look down at my phone: 12:15.

The half hour starts now.

It takes me around 3 minutes to make it down to the staff room. It’s in the basement of the Landmark, and our kitchen is on the 4th floor. I’ll sprint down the 8 flights to save time.  The back stairwell is separate from the mall, reserved for employees. I’m careful not to trip on any of the custodial staff that tend to communal nap on its steps.

In the staff room, lunch boxes await me.

I have about a minute to make a decision, because it takes the old microwave at least three minutes to heat anything up thoroughly.

What shall I eat today?

The decision is always difficult.

Maybe some noodles? Today’s noodle option is yellow-tinted vermicelli with bits of chilli and a couple of pieces of boiled to hell cabbage.

Or over-cooked rice with greasy beef (is it beef? I never know) curry and boiled to hell cabbage.

Or over-cooked rice with chewy pork and boiled to hell cabbage.

The other vegetable option seems to be stringy, also boiled to hell bok choy. With over-cooked rice and meatloaf puck.

There is always a “white box” as I like to call it. This whiter-than-glue gloopy sauce is sometimes over pasta, other times it’s with over-cooked rice and boiled to hell cabbage.

On a lucky day there will be something a little bit easier to stomach.

Like the “spaghetti bolognese”.

The pasta is over-cooked of course, and the sauce is barely able to coat everything. But with a lot of ketchup and about 20 squirts of Tobasco, it’s edible and unfortunately one of the “better” boxes.

Of course, everyone knows this and since the entire company eats the same lunch boxes, it’s a matter of first come first serve. Pastry department always eats lasts.

Cooking is love. Whenever I eat the lunches, I can’t help but think: WHO HATES US?!

This is the first restaurant I’ve worked where the staff meals are not cooked by the cooks. Maybe its a time thing, I don’t know. They definitely made time at Regis Marcon, another 3***Michelin restaurant to cook hearty meals.

So maybe it’s a money thing. Food in Hong Kong is tasty, and it can be very cheap. I can’t understand how they managed to find the worst restaurant/caterer and 6 days a week, I have the worst food of my life.

One of the first moments my co-workers accepted me as one of their own was when I asked: “So..what is wrong with our lunches?” I think it confirmed for them that they’re not crazy in their loathing and even the optimistic, eat-everything new girl finds something wrong with the food. We joke about how terrible it is and ask each other which best-of-the-worst we ended up picking.

As far as jokes go, ultimately the joke is on us. We work a 9.5 hour day, we need to eat something at lunch. There’s no time to leave the premise to get anything else. Bringing a lunch runs the risk of lunch theft, and there’s just not enough space in the metre high fridge if everyone brought lunch.

At least there’s only time for 20 minutes of eating in my half hour lunch. It’s a relatively quick time of suffering and then I can get back to a kitchen with truly exceptional pastries. And begin dreading the next day’s lunch…