Where to eat?

The problem with doing your graduate work at the same institution where you spent your undergrad years (besides academic inbreeding, boredom, lack of available classes, and a general sense of eternal indenturetude) is that there are few places where you can go without running into someone you know.

I am generally a very social person, and I love to chat and hang out. But sometimes, I really want to eat alone, and just stare at the wall, or think about monkeys, or read the New York Times. Faculty House was the last place on campus where I could do that. I didn't know anyone who eats at the Faculty House. Engineering students and professors don't even know about it, and it's mostly frequented by people from SIPA and the Law School, and professors of some sort of literature or sociology or something along those lines. The food there is quite decent, and I could usually count on being left alone.

Lately, however, I've come to be included into these various little social groups, and eating alone is no longer a polite option. I start out at the corner table by the window, well hidden by the Times sports section. But somehow, I always get pulled in to a conversation about Mike Mussina or Boris Yeltsin or that Economist article from last month. I guess that the communal nature of that cafeteria is conducive to spontaneous conversations with strangers. It's a weak complaint, really, because I usually enjoy the good company.

But now that Faculty House is no longer a suitable loner destination, I have no idea where else I can go on campus. The Engineering and the TC dining halls are out (because I don't want to get food poisoning) and I can hardly venture within a one block radius of Lerner without being asked (although nicely) to embark on a futile technical support quest. Wien is a painful memory for me. Which leaves, what... Uris? I think that's it. Bah.