When did midtown Manhattan get so boring? I'm talking about lunch. New York was always about the food, and yet it's harder and harder to find an interesting lunch at a reasonable price.

Even that octopus sandwish is sounding appealing right now. Better than the panini craze that has gripped otherwise reasonable deli-owners. My first experience with those: I spotted an okay-looking prosciutto-on-focaccia sandwich at the nearby Cafe Europa, pointed it out to the man behind the counter, and instead of wrapping it up to hand it to me he sticks it in a trouser press. I got back a flat and lifeless ham cracker.

And such is the direction that food is moving in Manhattan.

I need to start packing my own sandwich in the morning. But even that is risky -- by about 10 or 10:30 in the morning I tend to get a little hungry. Most brown-bag lunches don't make it past 11 a.m.

Perhaps I need to pack two lunches in the morning. Anything to mitigate the lunchtime risk (how fresh can that pre-made sandwich really be?). The downhill spiral began years ago -- I went to the pizzeria near my job (the Law Journal at that time) and ogled a very attractive sausage roll (the kind that wraps sausage, cheese and peppers in a buxom pizza crust). It looked so good. He heated it, wrapped it, and I took it longingly back to my desk.

And there, I ate it.

But love was not to be had. Something was wrong. Very wrong. This sausage wasn't right. This was... breakfast sausage!

I was appalled. I was hurt. My faith in mankind had been shaken.

That night I called Big Vin in Florida and told him of my lunchtime woe.

"Whoever made that sausage roll..." Vin said with rising anger, "He deserves to have 16 bullets in his head."

At first, I thought that was a bit much. But reflecting upon what has become of lunchtime over the years, I think his is rather a measured response.