Welcome to POLITICO’s West Wing Playbook, your guide to the people and power centers in the Biden administration. Send tips | Subscribe here | Email Eli | Email Lauren After Lauren’s initial report on the omelets at Ike’s, MATTHEW YOU, president of ILC Food Service, which operates the basement cafe in the Eisenhower Executive Office Building, invited us back to try the rest of the menu. He, along with several administration officials, had taken umbrage with an anonymous email disparaging Ike’s offerings. It could not, he wrote, “be further from the truth.” He wanted us to taste for ourselves. So Sam sent Eli with an assignment he’s been preparing for his whole life: “Try it all.” He went on a Wednesday — Chinese buffet day — and ate what would otherwise count as three meals in about an hour. Here is our [lunch] service journalism: 1:14 p.m. — We enter Ike’s. In the far room nearest to the kitchen, steam rises off a buffet cart. My eyes lock in on what looks like orange chicken. There is also fried rice and chunks of pork swimming in thick brown sauce. And steamed broccoli. I fill a container. “You new in the building?” another buffet devotee asks. “No, just a reporter on assignment,” I reply. “Come here often?” (I hate myself) 1:21 p.m. — We paid and found a table in the marble-floored hallway just outside the doorway. I start with the fried rice. There is a large chunk of pillowy, melt-in-your-mouth scrambled egg. Makes me envious of Lauren’s two-omelet breakfast. 1:24 p.m. — I cut into a piece of orange chicken. The fried shell is still crunchy despite having sat in a tray on a steam buffet for who knows how long. And there is actually chicken inside. The sauce is sweet but not overly so, a less cloying version of Panda Express. But the standout buffet item is the roast pork. The teriyaki sauce is thick but not goopy, and the large chunks of meat are surprisingly tender, falling apart easily. I regret not having gotten another scoop, but I remind myself this is only round one. 1:37 p.m. — I’m at the grill counter, and there is EDY, the rockstar omelet chef, in the flesh. I order two sandwiches (not for the first time in my life, I’ll admit): the corned beef Reuben at the recommendation of former NSC spokesman ADAM HODGE (he also recommended blood pressure meds) and the grilled chicken. Edy throws a row of ingredients on the shiny grill. In about three minutes, both sandwiches and the accompanying order of fries are ready. I’m starting to get nervous about my cholesterol. 1:43 p.m. — I bite into the Reuben. Okay, so it’s not Katz’s. But I’m also not eating into my kids’ college fund. And the sandwich is satisfying. Proportionally, there may be a touch more kraut than necessary. But everything else is nails: the Russian dressing, the softness of the lightly buttered bread, the temptation to inhale the whole thing. 1:46 p.m. — With uncharacteristic restraint, I leave half of the Reuben uneaten beside the heap of Old Bay-dusted fries (a tad thick and slightly under-salted but still easy enough to polish off) and unwrap the grilled chicken sandwich. 1:50 p.m. — I have just crushed the entire chicken sandwich, almost without realizing it. Basic chicken breast topped with a melted slice of American cheese on a bed of green lettuce, a tomato slice and mayo on a soft (but definitely not homemade) egg bun. Certainly there are more exotic ways to do a chicken sandwich. But this held up. It made me feel, despite the cheese and mayo, that I was making good choices. And, yes, I know I’m not making good choices. 1:53 p.m. — Good god, what am I doing? I’m eating the second half of the Reuben now. I tell myself I just want to see how it holds up after sitting a bit longer, and it’s actually better now. But I see my escort/chaperone across the table and imagine they’re privately horrified. I stop after two bites.
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