

An Ike’s sandwich.

I dropped by Olives on the quads at Stanford for lunch the other day, and was shocked at how bad it was. I had been there before, but assumed that I had misremembered. North of $7 for bland, mealy, day old falafel on a huge pile of wilty iceberg lettuces. Thai Café in Jordan was another disappointment—mountains of bland fried things, rescued only by a copious dose of Sriracha.

Where, then, should we eat? Here are some ideas:

NetAppetit is mediocre to occasionally good East/Southeast/South Asian buffet food, served out of a truck for six bucks a box or so.

Ike’s is popular for its well-seasoned deli sandwiches. They are more than a bit overpriced for small, quick-service sandwiches, though. It’s not hard to break $10, even without a drink. You can get much cheaper—if worse—deli sandwiches in Cubberly, and equally good, marginally cheaper ones at Cantor.

We already covered the Taqueria in Beckman.

As far as the oddly sterile Stanford-run dining venues go, The Axe and Palm in Old Union serves up decent, mostly pasture-raised burgers for well under $8, and the GSB’s Arbuckle has solid thin crust pizza (including nettle pesto recently—nettles!).

The Coupa Café kiosk between Green and Meyer libraries has a $5 lunch special that has recently included a carnitas sandwich and a chicken shepherd’s pie of sorts with salad.

Oaxacan Kitchen Mobile shows up at Stanford about once a week, serving a pretty wide range of organic Oaxacan meat-and-or-cheese-on-some-Masa-based-flatbread dishes.

Two $5 lunches from Coupa.