Dining hall circuit

By the time I’m done with my current job, I’ll be well-versed in the ways of the college dining hall circuit. Since October I’ve experienced the fine dining of UC Davis, UC Santa Cruz, UC Berkeley, San Francisco State, and will add Stanford to that list on Tuesday. This week’s journey to southern California treated me to the food of UC Merced, Cal Poly Pomona, and Pitzer College. For those of you keeping score of the who’s who among college dorm food, here’s the rundown on the last three.

UC Merced
The newest addition to the University of California system, UC Merced is tucked into the there’s no there there of the central valley. With only 900 hundred students, this growing university has only one dining hall, which is more comparable to the mall-style food courts than the buffet-type of more traditional dining halls. As with most large university dining halls, there are various ethnic cuisine options--Asian-style stir fries, pizza and pastas, a burrito bar--and, of course, the ubiquitous burger and fries and mandatory salad bar.

I opted for a safer bet of a sandwich and salad. I ordered a toasted turkey club, watched it be assembled, and witnessed it travel through the toaster. The sandwich with turkey, bacon, lettuce, tomatoes, provolone cheese, and a ranch dressing sauce was a decent sandwich though nothing spectacular. The ranch dressing was an interesting addition, although it didn’t taste too out of place with the bacon and turkey. The warm toastiness of the bread was quite enjoyable though.

My half-sized salad was decent too. I had a “make-your-own” salad with mixed baby lettuces, spinach, romaine, garbanzo beans, cherry tomatoes, grilled chicken cubes, shredded carrots, and an Asian pear dressing, which was their only sort of light vinaigrette other than an Italian one. It’s hard to mess up a salad, but for this one the dressing was too sweet, tasted nothing of pear, and with no discernable Asian qualities, whatever those might be other than the presence of soy sauce. I also had asked my salad maker to go very light on the dressing, which she might have done, but the vegetables just tasted like the syrupy dressing.

Lunch came out to be a little of $7, which isn’t bad, but a little overpriced for a dorm food sandwich and salad.

Cal Poly Pomona
Cal Poly Pomona was funded by a generous grant by W.K. Kellog (the same Kellog whose name adorns various supermarket cereal boxes). And, although the cereal magnate donated a huge sum of money to the university, I couldn’t see any of his breakfast boxes to be found at the Los Olivos Dining Commons. This was more of the buffet-style dorm food that I’m used to seeing and, for a year of my life, had been used to eating. It’s the type of dining hall where you can pile on as much food as you want on your plate and go back for seconds and thirds. It’s the type of dining hall where you pack onto your once thin frame those non-mythical freshmen fifteen. I had to be careful with this one.

After making a lap and scoping out my edible options, I decided on beef tacos with beans and rice. It was a questionable choice, but, sadly, it looked like one of the better ones. I made myself three tacos with hard corn shells, ground beef, grated cheddar cheese, lettuce, salsa, sour cream, and guacamole. And, on the side, I had black beans and rice. The tacos weren’t bad. I probably would have made something similar to them at home although probably with beef that most likely wouldn’t also be sold to prisons. The beef was flavorful and spicy, the shell crisp (although one of them leaned against the beans and became so soggy I had to eat it with a fork). The rice was good too, fluffy and light. And, the beans tasted like black beans, hearty and earthy, and were tender.

I had two glasses of a pink colored juice that now I can’t remember what fruits were in it. And, for dessert, I had a chocolate cookie that was still slightly gooey inside. It was crisp on the outside and chewy within. Yummy. Sadly, I didn’t get a chance to see if my skills at frozen yogurt cone making were still up to par, as I had to leave before I got around to the soft serve machine. All this food for $6.50 was a good deal, although it would have been exponentially better if I would have been able to walk away with a frozen yogurt cone in hand.

Pitzer College
Pitzer College is among the five colleges that make up the Claremont consortium. It has been described as a hippie school of sorts and is the most liberal campus of the Claremonts. And, the dining hall reflects this attitude.

Pitzer’s dining hall is another buffet-style one with many options. There were several vegetarian options and a few vegan ones. One section boasted organic field greens, grown by local farmers. According the fact sheet on the table, the Pitzer dining hall tries to serve seasonal organic foods and foods grown by local farmers whenever possible, they make all their broths the day before in order to remove all fat, all soups and dressings are made in-house, and there are always vegetarian and vegan options. And, in the corner of the dining space was a large sign that read, “Compost.”

After making my usual circle around the different sections, I headed straight for the salad bar. I piled mixed greens, spinach, mushrooms, garbanzo beans, tuna, beets, and croutons onto my too-small plate. I topped it with an unknown dressing, which was a faint orange color and was tangy like a light Ceasar dressing. I also grabbed a pre-made grilled vegetable sandwich since I didn’t want to wait in the long line for a custom-built one.

I was excited by my salad. How often does one see beets at a salad bar, nonetheless a dorm salad bar? It was a great salad. The vegetables were fresh. The tuna and beans added nice texture and need protein to the greens. The dressing was delicious too. It was light but creamy and rich, and not too overpowering. I had only wished that I had found a larger plate so that salad wasn’t falling of onto my tray.

My sandwich was good too. In between the slices of focaccia bread were grilled Portobello mushrooms, zucchini, and eggplant with a creamy white spread. The focaccia bread was a nice touch to the otherwise seemingly unsurprising sandwich. And, the white spread, which I still don’t know what composed it, added a nice bit of creamy substance and flavor.

For dessert I had some honeydew and cantaloupe melon, which tasted unbelievably sweet, and a brownie. The brownie was the most disappointing part of the meal. It was grainy and had a weird texture. It tasted like some vegan’s mean trick on the egg-eating populace. I think it was the first brownie in my whole brownie-eating existence that I didn’t finish. I washed away that graininess with some orange juice.

At $5, the Pitzer meal was the least expensive of the bunch, and the healthiest, eco-friendliest, and best tasting (except for the brownie, of course).