ICU....

We have this place at work called ICU- I really do not know what it stands for, normally everyday use of the letters ICU would be Intensive Care Unit...but not at The Ritz (since it is a hotel and all)

The ICU at the hotel is behind the scenes. The guest cannot and will not ever see the back hallways of the hotel, but lets focus on this place. ICU hmmm ICU... It's our employee cafeteria.

The upshot is we get a FREE lunch.That's where the upshot ends. Yesterday when I worked It was the lame attempt at Chicken Catchatore..oh PLEASE...Mostly it's some kind of slop that someone in the chef department makes up. Now I will state this, the people who work the ICU work very hard to keep us fed, so I am not knocking their job what so ever. What I am knocking in the actual food that comes out of there.

Here is how it works... There is always some kind of Hot food. Like what is called Chicken Catchatore, or half cooked Tilapia or over cooked hamburgers and hot dogs. There is always rice and steamed veggies. Some kind of soup, apparently the Cream of Asparagus is the favorite at the moment, and if the soup is Chicken Noodle you are lucky...yet actually finding a noodle in the Chicken Noodle soup would be like finding Willy Wonka's golden ticket. Then there is The Salad Bar, or "The Heart Healthy Salad Bar" as the sign says. Romaine Lettuce (all the time) your basics salad toppings, tomatoes, cucumbers,cheese, chick peas, hard boiled eggs, dry tuna fish, celery. You know stuff. There is also a selection of breads...don't get to excited. the breads are from Wonder Bread and are in their bags still. White, Wheat and Rye. So when the bag is open, then it stays open all day long and you are eating dried out bread. There is also Deli meats like turkey breast and ham with sliced cheese. Then the salad dressings, all fat free. It's good to have fat free stuff but it just has that fat free taste to it. Then the drinks.

It's rare that a meal is actually good. The days to stay away from the ICU are the Tilapia days. During Lent season, this would be every Friday. I give them snaps for dishing out the fish on Fridays, but the other holidays things cannot seem to come together...lets see....the hotel hosts a large Christmas and Thanksgiving dinner so for weeks after those holidays you are eating (or not) Turkey Something. Roasted Turkey w/ all the trimming, Turkey Pot Pie, Turkey Rolls, Turkey this Turkey that. But lets say on the Fourth of July, the All American Holiday, lunch would be Tacos. On Christmas we would get Pork and fried Plantain's. Instead of Corn beef and Cabbage, (which is a selection on some days) on St. Patrick's Day we would have Chicken Teriyaki. But fear not, on those holidays the ICU is decorated with table clothes and flowers and something related to the holiday celebration. So they try.

You get REALLY lucky when you eat later in the day because then you get the left over food form the banquet department. The stuff that they used for a banquet that has come back unused or half used. That's when you WANT to be in the ICU. They food is taken off the Queen Mary's and brought onto a table in the ICU and then all of the employees that are eating drop their forks and make a mad dash to the front of the room and take what is there...even if you don't like it you still takeit because you know it will be better than the stuff you currently have on your plate. At the Marriott in Marco Island where I used to work enos ago, they too have an associate cafeteria. They have a better and bigger selection of food that you can choose from for a minimal cost....so what do you do, accept the fact that ICU is FREE, or ask for better food at a cost?