OK, put up your hand if you get stuck eating lunch at drive-thru windows and boring food courts.

Right. Nobody clinches big deals every day and the reality of refuelling between meetings and appointments usually just bites.

But if you find yourself with a case of the growlies, and you happen to be cruising around in the northeast quadrant, I have some suggestions that go beyond cold fries and burgers. When you want to put some adventure in your fast food, go to the food court at Pacific Place. If nothing else, you’ll get a variety of choices that you won’t see in any other mall.

Never been to Pacific Place? If you’ve shopped at Office Depot or Canadian Tire on 36th Street, you’re there. Pacific Place is an old mall that’s been completely renovated and now contains a lot of interesting Asian businesses, the most notable being the massive T& T Supermarket.

T & T is an Asian grocery like no other — big, clean, and insanely well-stocked. Whether it’s pristinely fresh (and reasonably-priced) fresh vegetables, beef sliced paper thin for sukiyaki, live fish blinking from massive tanks, sushi-grade tuna or Cheerios, you’ll get it here.

For lunch (and parties and any other time), they also make sushi and it’s the best deal in town. While you may be leery of pre-packaged raw fish, they really do it quite well here.

It helps that the raw material is literally swimming six aisles down, and that two chefs behind the counter are making it up as the selection dwindles. Single pieces of nigiri topped with tender salmon, steamed prawns, purple octopus and the like, are a mere 80 cents and up, and are neatly wrapped in little cellophane packages. You can get a nicely arranged box of salmon and tuna rolls in nori (seaweed) for $3.99 or a pretty plate of eight fresh salmon nigiri and six cucumber rolls for $8.50. The big “deluxe family set” is $17.99. Fresh and delicious.

Just outside the supermarket proper, there’s T&T Express. This is a take-out counter with very interesting selection of hot and cold Asian dishes — some a little challenging if you’re not an adventurous eater. The cooks will send you home with their glistening, mahogany BBQ duck, pork or chicken wings, or you can order any of these Chinese specialties with rice for $3.99-$5.49.

Then there are the deli cases filled with hot and cold prepared food for take-out — electric green seasoned seaweed, salted bamboo shoots, seasoned conch, fish maw and marinated beef among the cold offerings. On the hot side, choose from freshly cooked trays of salt and pepper whole smelts, bean curd sheets wrapped around tender shiitake mushrooms, soy sauce chow mein, pork feet with peanuts and deep fried whole fish or shrimp, lightly breaded, shells, legs, eyes and all.

I did say challenging. But there are some more familiar things on the menu, too, like sweet and sour pork, chicken wings in honey sauce, salt and pepper squid and soy sauce chow mein. I had the large combo – three items with rice – which was a massive amount of food for $5.49. The chow mein was tasty, if a bit bland, the bean curd too slimy for my tastes and the deep-fried squid suffered a bit from sitting, but again, the food is freshly-made and interesting.

Wandering past the supermarket into the mall’s international food court, you’ll find several small operators (no chains) serving up everything from African-style chicken and donairs to Japanese food.

Your first stop should be Fruity Smoothies, where a friendly kid puts everything from carrots and beets to mangoes and ginger through the big Vitamix juicers. There’s a comprehensive selection of fresh juices and slushy stuff, made to order with fresh fruit and healthy extras like protein powder, spirulina and astragalus.

The Mango Tango is a delicious smoothie of fresh limes and mangoes with lime sorbet, zoomed up to milk-shake consistency, a sweet but fat-free indulgence. If you’re feeling the need, try something more medicinal — from the juice menu that includes wheat grass, Liver Cleanser (carrot, apple beet and parsley), Cold Fighter (carrot, lemon, ginger and garlic) and Immune Booster (carrot, celery, parsley and garlic). A big 20-oz. glass of juice is $4.25 – some of these could make a meal.

If it’s a Japanese feed you’re after, Teppanyaki has a variety of hot and cold choices. For burgers, pizza or Mediterranean fare (Lebanese donair, baba ganoush, hummus and falafel), there’s the Olive Branch.

At the end of the little strip of kiosks, Andy Zahirali Hirani has just opened his Chicken Hut, where he’s determined to make every kind of take-out chicken under one roof.

You can have basic fast-food-style fried chicken, Nano’s marinated and charbroiled chicken (like those other guys), or more exotic selections like Chicken Pilipili (deep fried and bathed in a hot East African sauce) or Mishkaki (Swahili-style grilled chicken kebabs). You can opt for the usual fries on the side or get your chicken with naan bread, and take it up a notch with one of Andy’s own secret sauces – from sweet and sour tamarind sauce to tomato chili sauce and suicide hot sauce.

It may not put a dent in the Colonel’s business, but with a planned drive-thru window, road warriors will have a new choice in the northeast.

Pacific Place is a foodie’s paradise — whether you’re shopping for groceries, cool kitchen stuff or lunch. Cruise through the little housewares stores and don’t miss the elegant and inexpensive Japanese tableware at Utsuwa-no-Yakata. And stop for a bite – it’s an international adventure.

LET'S DO LUNCH: Pacific Place international food court

* ADDRESS: 3516 8 Ave. N.E.
* CREDIT CARDS: no
* WHEELCHAIR ACCESS: yes
* SPECIAL FEATURES: mall food with an ethnic twist.
* PRICES: sushi from $3.99 a plate, Chinese dinners from 3.99, fresh fruit smoothies from $4, chicken dinners and tandoori chicken from $2.99.