Weekday "lunching" out

Recent - more or less - college grad that I am, one of my many money-saving schemes is bringing my lunch to work at least three days a week. I'm pretty good about it - I think there have been a total of maybe six weeks out of the 68 I've been a member of the 9-to-5 crowd that I've bought my lunch three days and brought it two. The rest of the time, I've kept the purchased lunches to zero, one or two days a week.

When I do buy lunch, I want to know I'm going to enjoy what I'm buying and not get stuck in line for 30 minutes, so I've become a creature of habit. I generally head to Cosi, a soup, salad and sandwich shop a block and a half southeast of my office, or to Au Bon Pain - affectionately referred to by all current and former GW students as ABP - a soup, salad and sandwich shop (how new and different!) two blocks southwest.

I don't like ABP's salads, so if I want a salad, I go to Cosi. I love Cosi's bread but oddly enough don't like their sandwiches, so if I want a sandwich, I go to ABP. I have to admit, Cosi's salads are not particularly spectacular either, but their bread is so fantastic that I'll happily suffer a merely so-so Caesar salad once a week if it means I get to chow down on their delicious bread afterward.

Lately though, I've been seriously tempted to ask if I can just buy a piece of bread and bring my own veggies or salad, because the assembly line employees of my local Cosi's salad department are even less customer service-oriented than usual. Most restaurant and carry-out salads are doused with way too much dressing - it's a fact of life. So you either live with it, or ask for it on the side, which I'll do in a restaurant, but feel awful holding up the line to do in a carry-out joint. Usually I can spread the dressing around enough that I don't notice the excess too much, but the last two salads I've bought have been so drenched with dressing that I literally cringe at every third bite, and find myself spending more time studying my salad for edible pieces of lettuce than reading my lunchtime/Metro book (more about that later). The lettuce-tearer/chopper is also noticeably slacking: the last two salads have required either intensive folding of lettuce into bite-sized pieces, or a knife. (What, you didn't know that eating a salad is an extremely exact science, and can be scarring if done improperly?)

Having waitressed for more than a year, I understand the insanity of the lunch rush in this town (especially in the neighborhood where I work, made up of about 98% businesses), and the temptation to slack off on service just to get the not-infrequently-snippy 12-2 crowd in and out as quickly as humanly possible. But really, is more-or-less bite-sized lettuce, prepared hours before the lunch rush, and a ladle not completely overflowing with dressing so much to ask?

What are your lunchtime solutions? Any carry-out or dining-in pet peeves? Any really spectacular lunch spots near you? Please, tell all!