Epic Win: Cafe Metro

Let me let you in on the most important part of my day:  deciding what to eat for lunch.  The website Midtown Lunch really changed my whole attitude about lunch in midtown where I work from considering it a wasteland of overpriced chains to an adventure of weird, ethnic, or greasy food.  It shames me that in the interest of being healthy, I do end up eating boring choose-your-own salads quite often.  What really gets me about these is that not only are they boring, but they're always expensive - around $8, when a pile of street meat in creamy white sauce over rice is only $5.

Then I discovered that the chain Cafe Metro offers really good deals if you order over it's website - $6 instead of $8 for a salad, and you can pay online and just walk in and pick it up.  More convenient AND cheaper!  So I order online often, then walk half a block to go pick it up.  Feel free to ask me more about my exciting life.

There's only one hitch:  sometimes I like a little midday ice coffee pick-me-up. The convenience of online lunch shopping is that you can order the ice coffee and select from a menu what kind of milk and sweetener you want.


Although I know from experience that Cafe Metro has Sweet'N Low available at all their locations,  there was no option on their site for it:


So I wrote an email to their customer service, with a suggestion that they add Sweet'N Low as an option.  A day later, I got a reply from their head of E-Commerce that not only are they going to implement my suggestion right away, but they were also going to give me a coupon for a FREE SANDWICH!

I bet you thought this story was going to be boring right?  You had no idea a free sandwich twist was comin' at ya!

Moral of the story is: I guess maybe it's better to politely suggest instead of angrily complain on the void of the internet.  Nah....

The National - Lower East Side

An anonymous tipster sent in this photo of the sweetener selection at The National Cafe.  Sigh sigh sigh sy sperling.

8 Rivington St  (between Bowery and Christie Street) 

Sweet'N Low Found at OB-GYN Exam Room at Woodhull Hospital

An anonymous tipster just sent me this cameraphone pic taken inside the exam room at her OB/GYN appointment at Woodhull Hospital in Brooklyn. 

Note the familiar pink packet nestled right next to the stethoscope and a big box of something that reads "Disposable Vaginal Speculum".  Thanks, doc, for preparing your morning coffee right near where you are going to stick stuff in a vagina.

Breadbox, Long Island City: A Lovely Sight

Breadbox Cafe
47-11 11th Street, Long Island City
This place opened very recently in an old gas station. While it was under construction, I would drive by almost every day on my way to work, and had a bet going as to whether it was going to be a coffee shop or a rims shop, since it looked like it could go either way. It seems perfectly nice inside, although apparently there's a cockamamie scheme to decorate the entire outdoor facade in wooden rolling pins. Whatevs. Most interesting is this beautiful display area for the sweeteners. Lovely, eh?

On the other hand:

 

T&A Deli
Corner of Bushwick Ave. and Grand St.