Meet Me at the Cafeteria or Three

On to the cafe experience.
Google has 19 restaurants, some of which serve 3 meals a day. All of which serve lunch. I only managed to sample 7 which included a Mexican joint, a vegan smoothie bar (where I consumed a delicious pumpkin soup), Cafe 150 whereby all the food served is sourced from within 150 miles of the location, a California cuisine spot, and the main restaurant Charlie's which offers global fare like Indian food, sushi, Thai and barbecue all in one spot. Charlie's was actually the low point of all the dining experiences, probably because we hit it at 8pm one night and they were down to a pan of Pad Thai, some hot dogs and a platter of seaweed salad. Every cafe features a panini station and a salad bar chock full of creative offerings like sauteed mushrooms, grapefruit segments, qiunoa and pumpkin seeds in addition to greens and veggies.
Here's lunch from No Name, located on main campus. Not only was it beautiful to behold, but a pleasure to consume. Observe: grilled broccolini, Moroccan rice, cheddar focaccia bread, roasted lamb with apple chutney, cauliflower gratin, tempeh steak, broiled cobia, roasted apples, sauteed squash and a few petals of shaved watermelon radish just because they were so pretty. As one googler put it nonchalantly, it's a good $30 meal.

Next, lunch at Google's San Francisco office.
The cafeteria offers views of the Embarcadero and the Bay Bridge but I was more concerned with what was on my plate: curry cauliflower, sauteed kale, shiitake mushrooms, pizza with mushrooms and sundried tomatos, pan-seared salmon and portobello mushroom soup that rocked my world. In fact, the soups were a highlight of the whole experience, each one incredibly complex and satisfying on the semi-cold days. Other days I tried a fennel leak soup which I could have consumed an entire vat of, and a bracing tomato lentil that almost made me forgo the rest of my meal. Almost.

Desserts were usually hit or miss. A sour cream apple cake and chocolate mousse being the best, a stale chocolate-drizzled soft pretzel (wha?) being the worst. But you can always count on the little freezer of It's-It ice cream sandwiches, custom-branded and always available to satisfy my ever-expanding appetite.