These days, it really does feel as if we’re chained to the office desk. Increasingly common is the excuse, ‘Oh, I was so busy today, I didn’t have lunch.’ Well we don’t approve of skipping lunch because, after breakfast and dinner, it is the most important meal of the day. Luckily, there are now so many lunch options, with several even offering office or home delivery. And we tend to favour the sandwich- and salad-type meal, preferring not to stink up the office with char kway teow. Recently, we tore ourselves from our desks and took to the streets. Here’s what we carted back to work. 

Bakerzin 
Of the many lunches we covered, Bakerzin was one of the weakest. The portions, though tasty enough, were miserly and expensive. A Styrofoam cup of bland (and barely warm) pumpkin soup cost $6.80, while a small portion of linguini with spicy bratwurst cost an astonishing $14.80. The mushroom bruschetta ($9.80) had a decent heap of mushrooms, but the bread wasn’t toasted; while the otah bruschetta ($9.80) was toasted but the topping was paper-thin. The steak and mushroom sandwich ($13.80) would have been great were it not for the fact that the bread was of the soft, fluffy, white variety when a rye or sourdough was called for. 


Fish & Co. 
Fish & Co. has an extensive takeaway selection of seafood-based dishes like pasta and paella, but only a few are available for delivery. These tend to be fried and not done very well at all. The fish in our New York Fish and Chips dish was a massive, but tasteless, filet of fish ($14.90), and the fried batter looked like the burnt pockmarked surface of the moon. Optimistically described as ‘the best fish and chips in town’, it wasn’t. Worse, the accompanying cheese sauce (which we guess is what made it a New York Fish and Chips) had split, leaving an unappetising layer of fat floating at the top of the container. The calamari rings (free with an order of two drinks) were soggy and bland, and the Fisherman’s Combo ($18.90 for fish, calamari, prawns and chips) was underwhelming. 


Pret A Manger  [now closed]
Pret’s draw cards are its abnormally cheerful managers and neat rows of gourmet sandwiches and wraps. Each pack of sandwich (average $3.70) is really only one thin slice of bread. It’s not particularly filling, so mix and match from a selection of salads ($7.50) and desserts (scrumptious chocolate cookies, $1.20). Best bets include the crayfish and roquette sandwich slathered with a low-fat mayo and yoghurt dressing ($3.90), and the roast beef wrap ($7.50) – a pitta roll thick with fat layers of meat and tomato, subtly hit with spicy horseradish. The hummus that came with the feta and black-olive salad was odd, though: a so-so mashed chickpeas blended with, of all things, sweetcorn. 


The Sandwich Shop 
One of a pair duking it out with Pret A Manger (the other is Simply Sandwich, just across the road) for supremacy on the same stretch, The Sandwich Shop offers a comprehensive takeaway menu that includes vegetarian sandwiches, breakfast sets and platters for large groups. The chicken tikka ($7) is almost always sold out. Our ham and Brie baguette ($7.50) was clammy and dry thanks to its stint in the chiller (a fate common to many of the sandwiches we tried, so when ordering, insist on fresh portions that aren’t swiped from the chiller). Rather good was the Club TSS ($7.90) – a chunk of onion bread embracing salad, large cuts of hard-boiled eggs and bacon strips. We were stumped by the chicken satay salad ($6.50). The generous tiles of moist, curry-flavoured chicken, crushed peanuts, tinned pineapple slices and leaves, we understood – but what does lemon mayonnaise have to do with satay? 


Simply Sandwich
Simply Sandwich scores points for its smart packaging, and for the quantity and quality of their servings, though the fillings (roast chicken, tuna salad, ploughmans) evoke a sense of déjà vu. The bread, invariably (but not always) softer, tastes fresher than most. For variety, order the triple packs ($8), which hold three triangles of thickly cut bread with fillings such as avocado, alfalfa and blue cheese (barely any in our order); cheese and chutney; chunky egg salad; poached salmon; very salty smoked salmon and thick lashings of cream cheese; and ham and cheese. The sandwiches come in different breads – grains, rye and brown – though we were hard-pressed to be able to distinguish between them. 


Toast 
Long ago, the Marmalade Group staked out the higher ground of casual Western meals, and it’s never really let go of the prize. Its Toast outlet at Raffles Place is a hive of lunchtime activity, with a predominantly expat clientele. Daily specials keep things interesting, though we’re always partial to the green soba noodles ($6.50) scented with sesameseed oil and enmeshed with crisp sugar snap peas and shiitake mushrooms. The wraps (around $7.50) are hefty rolls of imaginative fillings like spicy chicken, fresh mango and mint; though our recent roast chicken, roast peppers and Emmenthal combo could have done with a zesty relish. The home-made soups (from $5.50) come with a chunk of ciabatta. To finish, order one of the yummy lemon cupcakes ($3.70). 


Whitebait & Kale Deli 
The menu may be small, but the sandwiches (served with a decent side of garden salad and potato crisps) and cakes are a notch above most. Options include a chicken and cheese quesadilla ($7.50), and egg mayonnaise ($7) with black olives. Particularly delicious was the spicy hotdog – the hefty meat nuanced with chilli heat – topped with a slathering of caramelised onions; at $7, a great-value meal. The corned beef sandwich ($9.50) could have done with more of the very good slices of meat, to go with the lovely combination of melted Swiss cheese and sauerkraut. Sandwiches are made from a choice of ciabatta, wholemeal and rye – though our server neglected to ask which bread we wanted for our corned beef and just gave us wholemeal. Try the moist banana, walnut and cinnamon cake ($4). 


THE WINNER

Tiffin Club
This was easily the best desk lunch we had in terms of sheer quality and presentation. Takeaways come in an elegant cardboard box, while office deliveries arrive in a glossy, five-tiered tiffin carrier. The excellent Eurasian menu, which centres around daily set specials, doesn’t change all that often, and is complemented with à la carte sides. For our Tuesday lunch, we feasted on a superb beef stew, the meat fork-tender and perfumed with salty-sweet soy sauce. This set came with cauliflower and broccoli stirfried with garlic, perfectly grilled peppers and a huge mound of slightly lumpy potato mash. À la carte dishes include fried chicken wings ($6.50) served with a mango-andcucumber salsa; crisp spring rolls ($7.50) with fresh basil and mint; and intensely flavoured carrot and potato soups ($5.50). It’s not cheap (set specials come in three sizes: large $20, small $15 and extra-small $10 – the last size is confusingly labelled ‘takeaway’ on the menu), but for this level of cooking, it’s worth it.