Walnut Café - the cafeteria experience, six stories up.

The view from the sixth floor.

Of late I’ve been frequenting the Walnut Café – the cafeteria on the sixth floor of the Neal Smith Federal Building – for breakfast, and the odd lunch.

Breakfast is a simple affair with steam tables laden with scrambled eggs, both plain and topped with cheese and ham cubes, hash brown casserole, country gravy, French toast, oatmeal, bacon, sausage links, croissants, biscuits, bagels, English muffin, and toast.

On Wednesdays a pair of breakfast pizzas are offered, and the cheesy eggs are topped with sausage bits instead of ham. Breakfast pizzas are built on a soft pita, then take a ride through a conveyor oven. Both pizzas feature scrambled eggs and a blend of Colby and mozzarella cheeses. And for four bucks, its a decent bargain.

The Country Bacon features country gravy as the sauce, whereas the pita for the Ham & Cheese is slathered with cream cheese. My personal preference is the Country Bacon for the creamy country gravy.

The Country Bacon breakfast pizza.

The Ham & Cheese breakfast pizza.

From left: half-orders of cheesy eggs and hash brown casserole; breakfast croissant with bacon; cheesy eggs with sausage bits, covered in country gravy.

For lunch, the Walnut Café offers a daily salad, sandwich, and entrée, and not often is an item repeated over a given month. Meatloaf may only come once a month, but taco salad is popular enough to be offered once a week.

Meatloaf comes as a dense, thick slice, studded with green pepper and onion. I enjoyed it so much I ordered up eight slices to go the next month. That time the meatloaf didn’t offer as much pepper and onion, and was even denser. I froze the slices and used them over the coming weeks as a meatloaf scramble with eggs.

Taco salad comes with either seasoned ground beef or shredded chicken. I’ve ordered it either with or without the tortilla. Walnut Café offers chilled salads and sandwiches as well. Chicken salad, tuna salad, and egg salad are rotated on a weekly basis. A chunky egg salad on croissant looked promising but the judicial use of salad dressing was overwhelming.