Have you ever had great institutional food?

• Flickr: Parker Michael Night
• Maybe it’s best to sometimes just stick with coffee.

Lunch within an institutional dining room is sometimes about the choice that will make you the least sad. It’s the turkey sandwich or burger in your office cafeteria — the things you pray are too simple to really get that far from edible. I was recently standing in a hospital cafeteria trying to determine the best course of dining action and trying to take clues from who was ordering what. It’s the art of food profiling. Was the nurse who selected the chicken-fried steak and mashed potatoes taking advantage of an employee discount or actually interested in the brown and crusty shoe-shaped wedge?

Have you ever had great institutional food, the kind of meal that makes you not just feel full but happy to have ordered it?