College eating tour--revisited

I've eaten at a lot of college campuses over the past year and a half. I guess it comes with the territory of my line of work. This week, as I traveled with a group of 38 high school students and several co-workers, I added five more college visits to my list, eating at three of them (as well as at some other places that I'm not too proud of).

Monday
We had an early morning, leaving San Francisco at 7AM to be in San Luis Obispo to visit the California State University there at 11AM. We all had an Odwalla juice along with an Odwalla bar for breakfast, courtesy of the parent of one of our students who works for the company. Billy offered all the staff vitamin C and echinacea tablets, which we all gladly accepted.

Our drive along the 101 brought us through green fields and rolling hills, with the Pacific Ocean along our right-hand side. It also brought us to our first rest-stop, with a McDonald's, Starbucks, donut shop, and all the other requisite rest-stop eateries. I was hungry already and knew that there was no way that juice and breakfast bar would last me until one o'clock, when we had lunch scheduled. So, I dashed off to the Starbucks to use their restroom and ordered a latte. Allison, Billy, and I then walked across the parking lot to McDonald's, where I ordered a Sausage Egg McMuffin.

I can't remember the last time I'd eaten a breakfast sandwich from McDonald's, although I thoroughly recall the last time I ate at McDonald's and was disgusted by the taste of their oil coating my tongue and mouth, being sure to never eat at McDonald's again (something that I do very, very rarely to begin with). But, I was hungry, lunch was hours and hours away, and I wanted something salty. McDonald's was my only choice. And, Billy urged me on to order the sandwich. So, with all that pressure and an empty stomach, I ordered my sandwich. Two seconds later, it appeared on the counter. I ate that sucker on the bus, and it wasn't too bad. Sure, grease coated the paper wrapper and, sure, I knew how bad that so-called food would be for me, but it was salty, warm, and hit the right spot in my stomach. I followed that with a handful of pretzel and cheese Combos from Billy, and a small stack of sour cream and onion Pringles from one of the students. What was I doing?

We made it to Cal Poly San Luis Obispo safely. And, after a tour and a presentation by an outreach staff there, it was time for lunch on campus. I followed a group over to the Chick-Fil-A and ordered a chicken club sandwich and some fries. The sandwich was okay, although a little salty and the chicken had a strangely too-soft texture, and the fries could have been more crispy. I was not impressed. Although, after hearing what everyone else had and reading the evaluations, I may have chosen the best food option that Cal Poly SLO had to offer. So, overall for SLO, the campus was nice, the food wasn't.

We got back on the bus to make the final leg of the journey down to El Segundo, where we would be staying for the next several nights. I was exhausted, as was everyone else, but I had volunteered to go pick up our dinner at the El Pollo Loco. That was an adventure. David, our very kind bus driver, had offered to drive Martha and me to pick up our food, so that we would save on cab fare. The three of us go into that 56-passenger bus and made our way through the streets of El Segundo and Manhattan Beach, trying to find the El Pollo Loco that had our food. The first El Pollo Loco, the one which the hotel staff had directed us to, was not the one. The second one, up the street and a 45-minute drive with confusing directions from an El Pollo Loco staff away, was. We made a couple very large U-turns, pulled into a McDonald's to ask for directions, made a few phone calls asking the whereabouts of this Crazy Chicken, and got a little tour of El Segundo, which had developed into quite a city of strip malls since the last time I had been there, only one year ago.

David asked us if the chicken was really that good to warrant the hour-long journey it took us to get the food. It wasn't, but I was hungry and tired and would have eaten anything. The hotel staff was nice enough to bake cookies (although probably from frozen cookie batter) for us for dessert. That was nice.

Day One done.

Tuesday
Day Two took us to San Diego. When we made it to the campus of UC San Diego, I noticed that there were stalls of food vendors, grilling up chicken and who knows what else. I knew where I was going to have lunch later.

We took a tour of the campus and had a presentation from a couple of UCSD students where our students got to ask them whatever questions they wanted. Then, it was time for lunch, which, undoubtedly, was something both the students and the staff all looked forward to. I went with Cindy, one of my sophomores, over to see the Tamales Ladies, and ran into a former student on my way over there. It was random that in a school with 25,000 students, I should run into one that I know. I said hi and chatted with her briefly, and anxiously made my way to find the tamales alone, as Cindy had left me.

But I found her at the tamales stall with Jesus. They were eyeing the menu and chatting with the ladies in Spanish. I envied their skills and ordered my green chile and chicken tamale in English. I took a seat on one of the cement blocks that lined the walkway, and ate my tamale in the sun. The tamale, sadly, was just okay. The masa was nice but the entire thing lacked flavor. For a green chile tamale, there was no spice. There was barely enough salt. I wanted to slather that sucker in salsa, but there was no salsa to slather it in. I missed the Tamale Lady from the Zeitgeist, and was left still hungry.

I headed back to the food stalls to see what else there was on offer. The lines had gotten more crowded and was about to pass more food, but I noticed Ken, Allison, and Nancy in line at the Thai food booth. They were just two people away from ordering, so I made a quick decision and asked Nancy to order a green chicken wrap for me. And, it was worth the wait. The wrap was stuffed with succulently juicy and well-seasoned grilled chicken, grilled zucchini, cucumber spears, and lettuce. I wondered if this wrap would be best thing I would eat throughout the trip. [It turns out that every Tuesday, UCSD hosts a farmer’s market sort of food vendor fair, which is where I got my tamale and chicken wrap--a nice little perk for UCSD students and staff.]

Our dinner in San Diego was at Dakine’s, a small Hawaiian food restaurant in Mira Mesa. Nelson, the owner, was very kind and obliging to us and our large group of high school students. Our group took up the entire restaurant, save for a four-seat table in the corner where a small family was already eating when the restaurant was inundated with our students. The small tables were already set up with plates, utensils, and food. The to-go containers were opened up for family-style eating, and were filled with macaroni salad, a tossed green salad, teriyaki chicken, grilled mahi mahi, and kalua pork with cabbage.

I’m no connoisseur of macaroni salad, but this one was pretty darn great. For someone who asks to have sandwiches with no mayonnaise and will only eat tuna salad knowing how mayonnaise-y the salad is, I ate this macaroni salad up, which is a huge feat, considering that the salad was simply a mixture of boiled macaroni noodles and mayonnaise. This one didn’t leave me feeling heavy and gross afterwards, and I was so bold to even have help myself to a second serving of the fat covered noodles.

The chicken was good too, tender, well-cooked, nicely flavored, and hinting of char. The mahi mahi was a little dry, but decent. And, the kalua pork with cabbage was a tasty combination of shredded, slowly cooked pork and thin strips of cabbage. The salad, dressed with a deliciously sweet miso dressing, was my favorite of all. I picked at the last bits of iceberg lettuce right out of the shared dish, it was that good.

We finished the meal with a cake that Martha had bought from the conveniently located bakery next door to the restaurant for one of our student’s birthday. We lit candles and sang “Happy Birthday” in that small Hawaiian restaurant for Doloris. She was so surprised. This had been the first time anyone had ever surprised her on her birthday, and she looked a little overwhelmed. Nelson helped us slice that cake into 40 small slices and we passed them out. It was a good cake from a Philipino bakery. It was a combination of chocolate and yellow cake that was soft and fresh, and had a nice, light cream frosting.

It was a nice touch to the end of our meal, which had been so easy to just have everyone come in and have food laid out and ready for us. I thanked Nelson and his family staff over and over again.

Day Two done.

Wednesday
This was our last day of visiting schools, and I was glad. I had been constantly exhausted with not being able to sleep through the night and wanted to be done. Rather than feeling invigorated by the trip and by the excitement of the students, I felt tired. So, I was counting down our hours at Pomona College and UCLA.

Our tour and presentation at Pomona College were disappointing, hardly exciting any positive reactions from the students. But, they all raved about our dining hall meal there, noting it as the best part of the college on their evaluations. Our hosts at Pomona College were generously kind enough to help arrange a free meal in one of the dining halls for our entire group, and it was funny to watch them in the dining hall. They entered the large room and sat at down at table in the corner, waiting. I didn’t know what they were waiting for, and told them that no one would be coming around to serve them. They got there food and piled on their plates were French fries, burgers, and pizza slices with a side of cookies and brownies. I was nervous; we had forgotten to tell them to take only what they would be able to eat.

For myself, I had some cheese ravioli, a slice of pineapple and ham pizza, a salad, and vanilla ice cream with toasted almonds and a small brownie. The ravioli was good, though not anything particularly special. The pizza, however, was surprisingly wonderful. It was freshly baked (you could watch it as it cooked), it wasn’t greasy, the cheese tasted like real cheese, and the crust was light and chewy and had granules of cornmeal stuck to the bottom. I was impressed. My salad was wonderful too, topped with all the salad fixings of my dreams: corn, spinach, beets, garbanzo beans, carrots, olives, broccoli, and mushrooms. It was hard to beat a free lunch that good.

After lunch, we headed out to UCLA. Once again, our tour and presentation were disappointing, but Jeanne met me and our group on campus, so I had a nice little distraction. We had dinner plans at Buca Di Beppo in Santa Monica, and Jeanne met us there for dinner. We started with the pizza margherita, which was followed by a rather lame green salad that tasted like salad tossed with water. Our fettuccine alfredo was equally bland, requiring a heavy dose of salt, pepper, and parmesan cheese. But, our chicken parmesan was too heavily salted (it had a nice crisp crust though). I ended up mixing the alfredo noodles with the extra tomato sauce from the chicken parmesan to come up with something decent tasting. We ended our meal with a huge slice of chocolate cake, which was the best part of the meal since it was something that actually tasted good.

We were done, and I was done. The next day would be a drive back to San Francisco for them, as I would remain in LA to see my family.