Great Food Court Project on the Road

I’ve had a problem lately where I dream that things happen, and then I forget that they didn’t happen in real life. For example, this weekend I dreamt that I bought the new Dar Williams CD at Target for $9.99. The next day I was looking all around the apartment for the CD, but it turns out I didn’t buy it. They don’t even sell it at Target, or at least not the one closest to me.

That is the case with this blog entry. I was convinced I already wrote it. But I didn’t. And now I can only sorta understand the notes I wrote down, which means I can only partially vouch for the accuracy of this entry. That’s a shame, because this entry relates to something near and dear to my heart, which is the Great Food Court Project.

As you may remember, the Great Food Court Project, an attempt to eat at all restaurants in the Lenox Mall Food Court, was partially spurred by the great sense of relief I felt at being back on the East Coast, where the food courts are as God intended. By which I mean, they have a Chick-fil-a. I couldn’t find one good food court in the greater Seattle area, so when I went back to the Northwest on vacation a few weeks ago, food courts were not high on my list of things to do.

But what I realized is that I may have been prematurely hasty in writing off all Northwest food courts, because apparently Portland has a good one. I ate at this food court, located in the Pioneer Place Mall, completely by accident. The goal of that day was to look around at a bunch of outdoor food carts and eat at one of them, which is rather like eating at a food court, except it’s outside. Doing things outside is REAL big in the Pacific Northwest.

But it was Sunday, and the food carts were closed, as was most every food-serving place downtown, I guess because Sunday is a city-wide day of fasting that I was unaware of. Do you know what was not closed? A food court! An inside food court in a mall! So now I present an edition of the Great Food Court Project On the Road.

First off, as I mentioned just two paragraphs earlier, I liked this food court. These were the restaurants:
--Kelly’s Cajun Grill
--Gyros n’ Grill
--Wrapture
--McDonald’s
--Subway
--California Crisp
--Yucatan Grill
--Paradise Bakery and Grill
--Lotus Express
--Suki Hana
--Thai Go
--Sbarro

I thought this was a good food court because of the diversity of options, with not too many major chains, and it was affordable. Although I did not eat there, I was intrigued by Wrapture because I thought it was a clever name for a place that serves wraps. I went to Yucatan Grill and got a delicious and attractive plate of nachos for just six dollars. I gave my meal a 10 out of a possible 10.

I was eating with my friend Gallagher, who gave his meal a 7 out of 10 if my notes are to be believed. He had a dish of spicy chicken with red beans & rice and boiled cabbage. While he ate this meal, I seized the opportunity to pick another person’s brain about food courts.

While I enjoy food courts for the amount of diversity they offer, Gallagher does not feel the same way. Given his druthers, Gallagher would rather eat at a place that does just one thing really well, as opposed to having to choose from a bunch of places that do several things in a mediocre way. When I asked him why he selected the meal that he did, Gallagher explained that he panicked, which may be further evidence that there was just too much choice. I don’t want to speculate too much on what this might reveal about his personality.

Gallagher claims to be against food courts in general yet had no bad food court experiences that he wanted to share. Later in the conversation he revealed that Chick-fil-a was his favorite food court restaurant of all time, so maybe he’s against food courts because he lives in a place where the food courts don’t have Chick-fil-a. Generally, he finds food courts to be lacking in options related to vegetables and fruit, as well as North African cuisine.

For awhile, Gallagher and I discussed how the restaurant California Crisp had no customers. I thought that was weird because it looked pretty healthy, and the Northwest is all about eating healthy. But Gallagher pointed out that the food court was full of foreigners. That was true. Also if someone really wanted to eat some California cuisine, they only had to venture a little bit south to actually be in California, another possible deterrent.

Speaking of foreigners in food courts, Gallagher told me about food courts in Japan, where he lived for two years. Apparently they serve udon, ramen and fried octopus dough balls in Japanese food courts.

When asked what kind of food court restaurant he would like to operate, Gallagher said he would serve rolls, of the kaiser and rye variety. I think at that point I tried to convince him to serve all kinds of rolls, like sushi rolls, pizza rolls, sandwich rolls, likely with a cutesy name like “Rock and Roll” or “Roll it Up” or “Rolling Stones.” I am guessing this conversation got sidetracked, because here’s what I have written down in my notes: “Molly continues talking about brilliant idea; Gallagher starts talking about cartoons/comics.” I don’t remember which cartoons or comics, or how that related to my brilliant idea.

Here’s another thing I have written down in my notes: “I tried to pick a fight about Cinnabun.” I don’t really remember doing that, though I generally do think that Cinnabuns are a waste of space. So I may have brought that up, but then written the exchange down in my notebook in a way that created dramatic tension. My notes abruptly end at that point because we went to see a movie.