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Manpower Cafe
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Chili or is it Really? (11/5/7)
So, today at lunch I was feeling a bit more peckish than normal and decided therefore to see what was available in the company’s café. I had seen that they had a pasta bar option and thought that this might be a good choice to bill me up on a cold day. However, when I arrived, I quickly noticed that the line on that station was long and it appeared to just be vegetables and meat. There may have been noodles elsewhere, but I did not see them. So, I continued to browse through the café and see what else was available. The blue plate, sandwich, panini, and salad all seemed to leave much to be desired, so I decided to try a bowl of the chili that they seemed to offer every day.
It seemed like I had lucked out as there was only enough for one or two bowls left in the container and I quickly scooped it out. I grabbed a few packs of crackers to go along with it and used a liberal amount of cheese from a nearby bowl to top it off. However, I knew that with the size of the bowl, I would not be filled, up so I decided on a side of French fries, and a strawberry and pineapple yogurt parfait.
After paying for the meal, which came in under $5, I quickly found an empty table and tucked in. I ate my fries first, to take the edge off of the hunger. They weren’t great fries, but good enough to eat without condiments. So, with the fries down, the next was the main course, the chili. I immediately noticed that this was different than the chili I was used to. First off, there were bits of green peppers in it, which I thought would make it spicier. However, there was also an oddity that I had not expected, carrot chunks. I have never heard of carrots in chili before, but there is a first time for everything. It was at a decent temperature, not to hot to scold, but not to cold detract from the taste. It was probably a little cooler than I would have liked, but the temperature was fine. However, when I took my first spoonful, I knew that it would not be a great lunch. The chili was fairly bland, it seemed as if they had forgotten to add the chili mix or powder, or whatever was used to make thick vegetable beef into chili. The flavor wasn’t terrible, but nothing like actual chili. To add to this was the slight crunching/chewing on the carrots that made me immediately know why they are not usually found in chili. Like I said though, it was not terrible, so I finished it off and turned to my desert, hoping for a good conclusion.
This was my first yogurt parfait. I have had many flavors of yogurt in the individual packages and I liked most of them, so I thought I would like this. It was odd, though, when I took off the lid, I quickly realized that the first 1/5 of the desert was actually oats. This was confusing, but not bad. I tend to like them anyway, but it was hard to get through them to the yogurt. Once I did, I also found that there were large chucks of strawberries and pineapple. This made for an interesting dessert. The yogurt was sour tasting and then add the sour strawberries and pineapple and you had a weird sour on sour combo. However, it was pretty good, much better than I would have first thought and with the big chunks of fruit, good portion of yogurt, and the oats, it did its job to quickly finish filling me up.
Overall, however, I was again disappointed. The chili was some of the worst I have ever had and the yogurt was different, but not enough to salvage the meal. I am quickly starting to think that the salad bar might not be a terrible choice in the future.