Arepa

It's summer and I am stuck in a lunch rut. Arbuckle Dining at the GSB did not bring back the much-loved every-other-week build-your-own pasta station from last summer. There are fewer on-campus eateries open, and the ones that are available are usually overrun by campers and summer conference participants.

So it seemed a good time to try one of the Venezuelan specialties from Coupa's GSB location: an arepa with fresh white cheese, black beans, and nata.

This is only the second time I've ever had an arepa, which for those not in the know is a stuffed corn-based griddle cake. The first time was actually in Venezuela, on a school trip in high school. I don't remember much about it; I was a 14 year old white kid from northern New York, which is to say that I knew nothing about food.

The Coupa arepa was crispier than I expected. A visit to Wikipedia's arepa page leads me to suspect that Coupa uses the waffle iron-esque Toasty Arepa in their kitchen; mine had that same almost too perfect round shape. It was tasty; a bit bland, which was not a problem for me (am currently trying to fix a chronic heartburn problem, so bland is good) but others might prefer more flavorful filling options like sun-dried tomatoes or shredded beef stew.

The menu said that arepas take 10-15 minutes to prepare. When I ordered, I was told the wait would be 15 minutes. It took closer to 25 for my arepa to finally make an appearance. Coupa has many virtues, but it's not the place to go if you're in a hurry.

Disappointed!

So obviously I failed as a food blogger in June. Excuses:

1. Was sick with a cold for a while.
2. Then gave up coffee immediately afterwards, which sucked my will to live.
3. Was gone to San Diego for a conference for almost an entire work week.

I did make it all the way over to the Science and Engineering Quad (not one of my usual haunts) for another adventure. But first, another shameful confession: I had never been to Ike's before.

For those not in the know, Ike's (located in the Huang Engineering Center) is the Stanford outpost of a wildly popular San Francisco sandwich shop. I knew that Ike's Stanford was notorious for long lines, so I placed an order online at 10:30 or 11 for pickup at noon.

Shortly before noon I trekked across the main quad and over to Huang. There was a huge line of people waiting to order, despite it being late in finals week -- a time when many students had already left for the summer. And there was no obvious place to pick up online orders. A woman kept coming out from the kitchen with sandwiches and yelling names, so I assumed she'd do the same with mine. A few minutes of awkward standing around later and the man at the cash register asked if I was picking up an online order. I gave him my name; he went to the back and retrieved my presumably-once-warm sandwich, which had been sitting back there for who knows how long.

This is a sandwich whose clever name I forget, but which included bacon, lettuce, tomato, melted Swiss cheese, avocado, and of course Ike's "dirty sauce" (reportedly a garlic aioli) on French bread. As I unwrapped it for a photo, it became obvious that there was no way to make it look good for the camera.

And this was possibly the most disappointing sandwich I've ever had. The melted Swiss had congealed. The lettuce was in the form of tasteless shreds. It was gloppy, messy to eat, just... not good. I think I put off writing this post because I feel sad every time I remember this sandwich. How could anything with bacon, avocado, and Swiss be so aggressively not good?

I guess there are some things you can only learn the hard way. Last month I learned that not only will I never again go out of my way to eat at Ike's, I will probably go considerably out of my way to avoid eating there.