Peter Wilson (left) and Brian Bershad of Google.

Google is scaling back its aggressive growth plans in the Seattle region, but it plans to continue hiring selectively. It will still move to a portion of a new three-building complex in Kirkland, but later than originally planned. And the company is still committed to the Seattle region -- planning to keep its locations in both Seattle's Fremont neighborhood and the Eastside.

The legendary perks aren't going way. But employees now have slightly fewer varieties of potato chips from which to choose -- and not nearly as many opportunities for catered scrambled-egg breakfasts each week. Where the company once had more than a hundred items in its on-site "microkitchen," now it has 50 to 75.

"The one perk which is really important is we get to work with really, really smart people everyday, and we get to build stuff that matters," said Peter Wilson, Google's site manager for its Kirkland operations. "The gravy tastes great, but it's just gravy."

That was the word from the search giant's Seattle-area managers in an interview Tuesday afternoon. Google is tightening its belt but not doing anything drastic in the local market as it tries, along with other companies, to weather the economic storm.

"This is sort of cautious optimism," Wilson said. "We will emerge from the recession and we will be stronger, and then we will go back to growing like we were before."

Google, which employs between 500 and 600 workers in the Seattle region, plans to grow in the "high single digits" to "low double digits" this year, Wilson said. In years past, the company has doubled its staff in the area. The company doesn't plan to actively recruit laid-off Microsoft employees, but it won't be surprised if some apply, said Brian Bershad, Google's Seattle site manager.

"The primary way you spend less is you hire less quickly," Bershad said.

Across Google, there has been some discussion about consolidating offices, Wilson acknowledged. However, the company has specifically decided to keep its operations in both Kirkland and Seattle," Wilson said. Both offices have critical mass, and both offices are considered successful.

"We got a message from our bosses in Mountain View, absolutely keep two offices here," Wilson said.

Google had initially planned to move its Eastside operations into new three-building Kirkland office complex early this year, but it now plans to make that move later in the year, Wilson said. The company is also subleasing a portion of that space.

Google focuses on four core areas in its Seattle area offices, including advertising, search, applications and systems, with the activities split about equally among the four.  Specific products include Google Talk and Google Maps. Bershad said the search technologies that Google engineers are working on "tend to be leading edge."