Dining hall food. We gripe and complain, but a university meal plan is mandatory for those living on campus. With blustery arctic winds outdoor and smothered tofu steaks (what does that even mean?) on the menu, it’s all too easy to get stuck eating the same thing in the same dining hall for every single meal. It’s time to eat somewhere different. Here’s a crash course guide to campus’s best, Senior Superlative style. Forget that “Most Likely to Succeed” award you have hanging over your head from high school, and explore Northwestern’s cuisine.
Best place to try something new: Hinman
When you’ve exhausted every variety of grilled chicken wrap and get nauseous at the thought of meatloaf again, make the walk to the southeast corner of campus for Hinman. Hinman has a couple specialties that no other place can top, including made-to-order pizzas and the salacious stylings of Stir Fry Steve. There are lots of fresh veggies, real fortune cookies, every kind of stir fry sauce imaginable and both noodles and rice to choose from.
Avoid Sunday nights at all costs, however. Last time I made that mistake (probably during the Dark Ages of New Student Week) I got hip-checked into a wall by some athlete homing in on the hot cookie bar. This place was never designed for a crowd, but something about those hot cookies brings out the savage animal in every Northwestern student.
Best place to cozy up and stay a while: Willard
Willard is the secret gem of Northwestern’s dining options. Tucked away with the sorority quads in the unlikely basement of Willard Residential College, this small and cozy dining hall feels less like a cafeteria and more like a cute café. That takes WildCARDs.
When you enter, you place your order on one of two computer touch screens. You choose from a wide and customizable selection, then receive a buzzer that alerts you when your food is ready. Before you pick up your meal, you can snack from the salad, sandwich, cereal and dessert bars. The entrée salads and made-to-order pizzas here are practically restaurant quality, and waiting to go pick up your food goes takes less time than waiting in long lines at other dining halls. Go ahead: cozy up in the couches by the fireplace with a cone of our campus’s best soft serve and sleep through your afternoon classes.
Best place to grab a quick meal:Sargent
If you still can’t find Einstein Bagels, you can stop by Sargent before or after your North Campus classes for a quick, yet satisfying, meal. The lines at the grill and made-to-order station are always long, but Sargent boasts the best pizza on campus. It’s consistently hot, the cheese is stringy and the slices actually have recognizable toppings (unlike at Allison). True, the salad bar is a little barren, but the cereal bar makes up for this with scrumptious selections such as Cinnamon Life, Lucky Charms and Cap’n Crunch Crunch Berries.
Best place to avoid the Freshman Fifteen: Elder
The only perk of this dining hall (notorious for the worst food on campus) is its amazing salad bar. The freshman quad need not frown, as salad can be a whole new realm of dining if you know how to spice it up. Experiment with the seemingly random items in the salad bar, like chick peas and crumbled feta cheese, and ask the grill for slices of chicken breast to complete the creation. Of course, if you get sick of eating salad, you might just find yourself at D.D. Dogs — which is quite conducive to the Freshman Fifteen.
Best place to gain the Freshman Fifteen: Allison
Before you realize that you’ve been deluded all along and the food here is just as bad as everywhere else, you’ll already be wondering just when exactly your pants stopped fitting. Between mouth-watering grilled chicken wraps, a saucy Italian stir fry bar and — the crowning belt-unbuckling glory — Friday dinner hot cookie bar, sneaky Allison tricks you into going back for thirds. Its many options include a Kosher station, resplendent with Kosher grade ingredients that are distinctly better than the sketchy meat/tofu/seitan in the main line. Smothered tofu steaks? Really?