Micro Kitchens

As my Supercheap Auto colleagues will attest, I am a fan of snacking and food generally. One of my favourite unofficial rules at Google is that every Googler must be within 50m of a food. There is a micro kitchen about 20m from my desk. Here are some pics of the glorious snacks that reside there.

Chocolates on the top shelf, cereal and muesli next, organic fruit, then nuts, organic chocolate brownies (my favourite), chips and other odds and ends on the bottom shelf.


Care for a drink anyone?


The fridges are topped up with pre-made salads each day.


Along with sandwiches and sushi (in the black boxes).


The sandwiches are seriously amazing. This one might look lame with the alfalfa sprouts etc. but it is possibly one of the best sandwiches I think I've ever eaten. It's called the 'So Cal', short for Southern California I believe. It is made up of:

• Thinly Sliced Turkey,
  
• Pepper Jack Cheese,
  
• Alfalfa Sprouts,
  
• Heirloom Tomato and
  
• Avocoado Aioli on a
  
• Herbed Ciabatta Roll.
  

There's also a wicked coffee machine.


And random snacks like these donuts which appear from time to time.

Cafe Moma

So it's my last week in Mountain View before I head back to Sydney and I'm going to try and cram in the last few cafes...

Today Jess, Dru and I jumped on some Google bikes and rode over to Cafe Moma for lunch. The Google bikes are pretty cool, there's hundreds of them all over the campus so u just grab one and you can ride wherever u need to go. :) They even come with geeky orange flags!



Today I enjoyed:

• Manhattan Clam Chowder (far right)
• Steamed Vegetable Medley (left)
• Sweet and Sour Wild Boar (front)
• Potato and Shitake Mushroom Pizza (top)
• Organic all Natural Guru Energy Drink
  

Yum! :D


Jess was keen on the homemade roasted banana nut ice cream!


We met Mike Knapp (Sydney), Chris and Rebecca for lunch and took a lame video. :)

Dogs at Google

We're allowed to bring our dogs to work. I love dogs but I must admit that at first I thought this was a little odd. It's actually really good! There's something calming about having dogs around and it's a great ice breaker when you meet someone new and they have a dog at their desk.

Here are a couple of pics of Karen's dog Zoe.




Zoe has a few different outfits but my favourite is her Google shirt!


Maren brought around her friends Golden Retriever to say hi.


And Dru brought in Brewski today for a visit.




Dogs at work = Good Times.

Breakfast at Noname

Noname has officially overtaken Fundies (an organic cafe in Brisbane) as my favourite cafe in the world, and not just cause it's free. Last week and this morning I went there for breakfast and the food is at least as amazing as it is for dinner!

World's best omelet:
Step 1 - Pick up a bowl and select what you'd like in your omelet from all this good stuff. I went with tomatoes, tomato pesto, mushrooms, spinach, onion and guacamole.


Step 2 - Hand your bowl of good stuff to the chef and let them know how you'd like your eggs done. I went with the traditional omelet however you can also get a whites only omelet, eggs cooked any way you like or even a breakfast burrito!


Step 3 - Eat!


I also went with a berry and yogurt shake.


Leeanne went with the breakfast burrito!


Also on offer were strawberry crepes.


And these awesome looking steak and egg stacks.


Plus the traditional array of cooked breakfast goodness.


I love Noname.

Massage Good Times

Today I had my free Google massage! Upuia was my masseuse and damn she is good! My right shoulder was a bit out of whack from playing cricket with some Indian Googlers last Friday, but Upuia fixed it up for me and even gave me some tips to stretch it out in the future. :)

Whenever we Australians visit the Googleplex in Mountain View we get a free massage. The Googlers in Mountain View get one when they start, then one for each birthday.

Thanks Upuia!

Bill Clinton

We had a visitor to work today, Bill Clinton! He was speaking at the World Philanthropy Forum which our charity arm Google.org was hosting. Unfortunately we couldn't all be in the theater to watch him speak, but they broadcast his speech into a meeting room in our building.

Photographing a screen looks a bit ghetto, but it was a very inspiring speech and great to see!




My friend Jess was attending the Forum and she got to meet and have a photo with Bill!

Lunch at Cafe 5ive

Yesterday for lunch Carl, Austin, James and I headed over to Cafe 5ive for lunch. Carl took us in his new Rav4 'Betty'.


James and Austin


Yep, this is geek heaven, even the buildings have nerdy names!


Unfortunately we let Carl navigate so we got a little lost as he was too busy trying to look like a homie to work out where we were actually going.


Once we arrived, Chris met us there.


And got stuck into the homemade Candied Ginger Ice Cream.


I was stoked cause like Cafe Seven, the chef's here toss your salad for you!


Cheers for tossing my salad Chris!


Carl was excited about the great food.


Check this out for a free feed! I enjoyed:

• Sweet Potato Sausage Soup with Heirloom Potato Chips (shown at the top)
• Vegetable Medley - Steamed Spring Vegetables, Seasonings Tossed in California EVOO
• Pan Roasted Duck Breast with Duck-Red Wine Reduction (on the right)
• Grilled Salmon with Citrus Tarragon Vinaigrette
• And of course my tossed salad, though I went a little heavy on the blue vein cheese today.

James and Carl enjoyed their food too.


Chris took a little video of the lunch chat. :)

Californian Mexican Mmmm...

On Wednesday night a group of us went to the local Mexican restaurant 'Fiesta Del Mar' to party with the 'buddies' we've been teamed up with.


Evan is my buddy. Not only do we rock the foosball table but we can both pull stupid faces in photos too!


I ordered 'Drunken Beef Fajitas'. They weren't quite as good as the nachos from the Mexican extravaganza on Sunday night, but they were good nonetheless. Fiesta Del Mar definitely keep with the American tradition of monstrous servings. Both plates are mine. :) I like America. :)


The Mexican was washed down with some good Margaritas. :)


Austin and Lee Anne.


Jasper and Roxanne


Apparently it's spring over here but Austin was finding it pretty cold outside.

Get Naked

The free food at Google is generally very healthy and in keeping with that theme, there are fridges around the campus that hold what is officially my favourite juice ever - Naked Juice!


Here is the local fridge in the building I'm in - 1400 Crittenden. Note it is chock full of fruit juice goodness first thing in the morning. :D


Here is a smaller version of the Naked Juice fridge in another building.


Here is a large fridge in building 43 towards the end of the day. Lots of healthy Googlers are now all juiced up!


Another small fridge.


These are my 3 favourite Naked Juices in order of preference. I have Green Machine every morning with my muesli, Carrot with lunch and I tend to mix the 3rd one up a little, but Power-C generally keeps me powering on. Mighty Mango is another favourite.


Green Machine creates a bit of controversy around the building. There is the camp that I'm in who believe Green Machine is genius in a bottle, then there are those who claim, 'This tastes like *insert inappropriate expletive here*". I reckon it tastes awesome and with blue green algae, wheat grass, spirulina, broccoli plus lots of other great stuff inside, I can party on safe in the knowledge that my body is fortified with Naked goodness.