Collins Pub Collins Pub offers some of the best box lunches in downtown. At nine bucks a box, they’re comparable in price to other brown-bag deals in the neighborhood, but they rise above the rest in quality. Each comes with a large sandwich served on excellent Essential Bakery bread with Tim’s Cascade chips, fruit, and a house-baked—or, as was the case with a recent trial order, underbaked—cookie. The home-style grilled chicken sandwich came thickly sliced and nicely seasoned, and the roasted veggie sandwich provided a delectable vegetarian option with grilled portobello, red pepper, asparagus, and chevre basil cream cheese. The $10 ahi tuna “sushi sandwich” lunch box is worth the extra dollar—the ahi came fresh, flavorful, and perfectly seared, served between thin slices of bread and complemented by spicy wasabi and cooling cucumber. If Mom had packed them like this, you wouldn’t have traded lunch with your best friend all those years. ZANA BUGAIGHIS 526 Second Ave., 206-623-1016. DOWNTOWN

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