Recession Meals (and not)

So as part of my new austerity plan, I've brought breakfast and lunch in to work every day this week. Breakfast is easy--either a bagel from New York Bagels and Bialys or Trader Joe's oatmeal (which, by the way, is thick and delicious). I'm not really a fan of pre-packaged lunches (those Stouffer's beef chop suey dinners when I was a kid notwithstanding) and we rarely have leftovers from dinner, so this was a bit of a challenge. Here are my reviews so far:

Healthy Choice Five-Spice Beef & Vegetables Steamers: One of the five spices had a very strong and overpowering flavor. Wouldn't buy this again.

Annie Chung's Udon Noodles: Really tasty and could pass for freshly made. Only complaint is that I was still hungry after I finished, but actually I had this problem with all my meals, so maybe I'm just a pig. Will buy again.

Trader Joe's vegan pad thai with tofu: OK, but didn't really taste like pad thai. Probably won't buy again.

Of course, the few bucks I saved on brown-bagging lunch and breakfast was put toward a great dinner at Aigre Doux. This was one of the best meals we've had in a while. On the bartender's recommendation, I had the calamari salad. It was good, but pretty standard fare. A had a great heirloom tomato salad. My loup de mer special was delicious--especially the lentils and I'm not ordinarily a lentils fan! A had some veal duo that included veal cheeks--not my cup of tea, but he inhaled it. This was much better than the dinner we had at Joe's Stone Crab the week before and cheaper--then again, the wine wasn't flowing like it was the previous week. And we had much better service--you would think that if a table was dropping over $2000 on dinner, you would get good service, right? Well at Joe's, you'd be wrong.