Cafe Side Dish

So… it’s your pretty much your average lunch time spot, but my boss always say that if he loses me, he’ll know where to find me around 12. Scary? Perhaps. The people there are always friendly, the food is consistently pretty good and they have a large variety of things. I’m a big fan of the lentil and split pea soups; ask for bread instead of crackers and they’ll give it to you. The salad bar is always fresh and a lot to choose from. Sandwiches are decent, as are the hot meals. If you’re into Indian, they always have a few of them to choose from. They also have pizza, pasta and some other hot stuff I’ve never tried.
For breakfast, it’s the only place I’ve found that has peanut butter for my toast :)) and cakes, croissants, and bagels are always fresh. They do tend to run out of the bagels if you’re late in the am.
The prices are on par with the other breakfast/​lunch spots around. $ 1 coffee is actually good and they have a few flavors.

Stay far away from this place. I couldn’t decide what to have for lunch so I decided to grab a small Soup and ½ Sandwich ($ 9.00). I started to mix the soup with my spoon just to see what the whole soup was about and found a HAIR!!! This is unacceptable! Management should really restrict their employees to hairnets. Needless to say I will NOT get anything from here ever again!
STAY FAR AWAY!

I typically hate places like this.
However, for what it is… a busy cafeteria style work lunch place it is not too bad.
I get their Indian food. You pick 2 sides and rice. Vegetable Korma and Channa Masala are good ones as well as the curries.
I have also had their soups which are actually pretty good. The white bean soup is restaurant quality and the split pea is not bad.
The salad bar appears to be clean. Greens are pre packed and dumped into a bowl where they mix it with your toppings.
Is this my favorite lunch place… no, but it gets the job done and I have never gotten sick from them.
I also tried their veggie burger which was ok.
All in all I am sure I will be back here when I run out of other lunch ideas.

I only hop over only on Thursdays when their lunch menu offers the penne vodka and chicken parm. Not bad but the penne vodka is too bland.

Once you get through the chaos of ordering an picking up your food you will find that the food is hot and tastes good. This is good news for Gateway which has a limited selection of food. The choices generally are cheap food or expensive food. The Café is right in the middle.
I love their Indian food especially, since their is nothing like it in the area.
Overall, good value, good food but tough ordering process.

Dragged into this place again with colleagues. Still awful, don’t worry.

Café Side Dish is Jack of All Trades, Master of None…
I tried Café Side Dish right when it opened in Dec 2009 too. My coworkers and I decided to try it out and every single one of us was disappointed!
Though they offer various types of food (salads, sandwiches, pizza, …), none of it was good. The only thing they had in common was that it was pricey! Ever since our trip there, not one of us has returned.

I just had a craving for a turkey burger and thought about giving this place another try as I heard the burgers were actually pretty cheap. Ordered it up with L&T, swiss, and mushrooms — apparently the mushrooms and cheese was no extra charge (yet). Sweet.
The ordering process was still a bit confusing and they should put up some signage instead of simply relying on the cooks to prep the order. Signage makes everything simple. When I turned to the cashier and said aloud that I wanted a Turkey burger with fries, she nodded. I waited and there didn’t seem any communication with the cook about any Turkey or French Fries for the Chinese gentleman. Then again I couldn’t understand Mexican/​Spanish/​Portuguese. So I had to shout it to the cook directly… and repeatedly as there were many orders.
Plunked down $ 5.95 for a burger n fries with the mushrooms and swiss that would normally cost $ 2 more, I thought okay kewl — extra star for that!
Getting back to the office and if you’re like me, you like those little packets of ketchep/​mustard/​black pepper like McDonald’s used to have — grab as much as you want to add to your fries or your burger. Alas, I got nothin.
Although it was nicely presented (see pic), and I’m a fan of shoestring fries everything about it was Bland. That’s right, I capitalized the B in Bland. The turkey meat didn’t taste like meat at all — more like tofu. No salt on anything and the fries which was obviously frozen needed 2 more minutes in the fryer. First time I’ve ever had to thrown away fries.

Café side dish fills the void that was the Gateway Center food offerings. They offer alot of items that previously you had to either get in the cafeteria OR venture outside on to the cold streets of newark for… Pizza they got it, panni’s, salads, sandwhiches… yah uh huh. Then theres some new stuff, fresh squeezed juice, a pasta bar and pastries baked on site. All of the offerings I’ve had thus far were pretty good, and the pricing while high for NJ is on par with the rest of the downtown newark area, though the breakfast platters are a little pricey since they dont include a cup o joe. I wish there was a 3.5 button but since there is not I guess I’ll round it up. Also it just opened so once the kinks are all ironed out it very well has 5 star potential.