90% of the population uses public transportation, so unless the client provided transportation from the subway to it's data center, they wouldn't get many people to work there (and there are MANY people who work there). In have, they have lunch shuttles too, which brings employees from the data center to various shopping centers and back. In addition, they have a coffee stand and cafeteria in the data center. Oddly, the coffee stand provides a 33% discount to employees of the client, and they identify employees by those who have badges, and everyone (including visitors) need to get a badge when they enter the facility, so everyone gets the discount. I can't figure out the point of offering a discount if everyone gets a discount - why not just offer lower prices in the first place? When I asked the people here, they said that's because the coffee stand is a business which has other stands around the city, and apparently they can't offer different places different prices - except through discounts.
One morning on my commute I noticed a sign for a "Colorful Pancake" restaurant, and made a note of it to return for dinner. So I did. or I tried. The sign was attached to a building and said "4F" which I implied meant the floor of the building it was on. These buildings (there are many in this cosmopolitan part of town) have 10-30 floors, the first several floors are shopping areas with little independent shops in confusing mazes with weird places for escalators. Imagine getting off an escalator and not being to see where the next escalator is, and the hallways between the shops are maybe ten feet wide. Ok, so I go up the escalator to the building where I think the pancake place is, and am immediately in a frilly girly type of mall. Lots of pink colors, underwear shops, stuffed animal shops, etc and nearly every patron is a young girl or a gaggle of girls or the occasional guy walking behind said girls carrying bags and looking totally bored and they are all walking slow in the narrow hallways ... if you've been the Portland Saturday Market you know how it is .. just more girly and manufactured rather than granola and under-bridgy. But I deal with it - I know I need to get up to the 4th floor so I'm getting off one escalator and looking for the next one gong up and thinking, I think they put the escalators in weird places so you have to walk past all the shops to get anywhere, sort of how small towns run major highways through their shopping areas to get people to see the shops and spend money. And on top of all that I'm really feeling out of place being the giant red-headed freak towering above everyone else in this uterine wonderland. Maybe the pancake place is here for a reason and it's not really what I think it is. I get up to the third floor and am having some trouble finding the escalator to the fourth floor. I just can't find it. I conclude it isn't here and like a hungry rat in a pink maze I get back out on the street (actually a mall - closed to traffic) and see the sign and wonder, maybe there's another entrance (keep in mind I'm a stubborn Norskie).
Ok. Up another set of escalators, same little shopping area but more "normal" and not feminine. Still can't find any way to get to the 4th floor. Where the hell is it? I give up, go outside, and look at the sign again. It's listed with about eight other "thematic" restaurants on floors 4 and up, including a french one which looks interesting (after visiting a french restaurant in Florence, OR I have come to enjoy their focus on sauces). Off in the distance I see a sign for a Ruby Tuesday's and think "well, that would be good, but I'm not in Hong Kong to eat average American cuisine" and think to find the French place. I wal a little further down and note an area with crowds and posters and such which I dismissed as just another entertainment place but then realized ... the lines are for elevators ... aha! I bet those lines go to the restaurants up above! But screw that, I'm not british and don't consider queuing to be a form of recreation and resign myself to Ruby Tuesday's - after all, they usually have good beer if nothing else.
Ruby Tuesday's is in another mall - so I go in there, up the escalators, see more signs that indicate Ruby Tuesday's is on "10F" and proceed to take escalators until I can't get higher than 5th floor. Where the hell is it? Do I need freakin GPS to find dinner? So I unwind my maze stack algorithm and AHA! see some elevators which take me up there. There it is! I find Ruby Tuesday's, I find a small meal, I find an unsatisfying "Victoria Bitter" from Autralia, pass on the giant chocolate cake for dessert (they should take a lesson from Chili's small dessert menus), I leave, and head back to the hotel. Still in the mood for a little chocolate I pop into a 7-Eleven for a fresh-baked brownie and Lo and Behold - they have Guinness Foreign Extra Stout, which we can't get in the states. And it's only $1.30 - one fifth the price of the Victoria Bitter. Well, now I know where to find dessert.
The best part was when the cashier asked if I needed the bottle opened. It is legal (but socially frowned upon) to walk around and drink alcohol.
The brew itself is similar in bitterness and color and aroma as the Guinness we get in bottles in the US, but maltier and more chocolaty. Definitely the best Guinness I've had - and reinforces that the standard US-issue "Guinness Dry Irish Stout" is the lightweight among stouts .. like most things created for mass consumption.
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