Katie Miller
Staff Writer
Whitney Cale
Staff Writer
Many students rely on access to Trojan Dining Hall, otherwise known as Saga, as their primary source of daily meals. In between classes, students can join their friends and spend hours inside, eating from an endless buffet of food.
Typically the food is adequate, but at the busiest time of day — lunchtime — how does Saga manage?
With approximately 50 people in line for Wednesday’s fried chicken, Katie Miller said her hopes to get food quickly were crushed. To her surprise, the lunch rush chicken line only took 10 minutes to get through!
“The wait time was pretty impressive,” Miller said. “It could have been much worse.” Workers were moving quickly in their assembly line, rushing to get the hungry college students their food.
Miller received two tiny fried chicken legs, mashed potatoes, one large baked chicken quarter and two pieces of cornbread.
“When I got to the front of the line, there was barely any chicken left, and they were all scrawny,” Miller said. “It’s noon, they should be sure to keep a steady supply available.”
According to Miller, everything looked great — steam was rising from the mashed potatoes, the cornbread was a light golden brown and the chicken looked crispy and flavorful.
Whitney Cale received her Hibachi bowl complete with vegetables of all types and an abundance of chicken on top, seasoned with General Tso’s sauce. With only about four people in front of her in line, Cale said the service to get her food took exactly 19 minutes.
“Considering they cook the food right in front of you, I guess that’s not too bad,” Cale said.
Fried Chicken — is it ‘finger lickin’ good’?
Miller said the cornbread from the chicken meal tasted fantastic. However, she said the bread was not warm, but it did not dampen the taste, which was rich and sweet.
The baked meat was hot and appealing to look at, she said. The meat, however, was not flavorful unless a piece of skin was added to the mix.
“The chicken wasn’t dry,” she said. “It just didn’t have a taste. The fried chicken should have been in bigger portions, but the meat on the small bones was still phenomenal.”
Grilling up the veggies:
According to Cale, the Hibachi meal was “cooked to perfection,” with the exception of the chicken, which may have been a little overcooked.
“It was very hot when I got it,” Cale said. “One of the complaints I have usually is that they undercook their rice, so it’s hard, but this time it’s soft and pretty good.”
Overall Experience:
“I would give the overall meal an 8.5 out of 10,” Cale said. “I would definitely eat here again!”
Miller had a different opinion on the food quality of her meal.
“Based on the overall appearance of my meal and how hot everything was, I’d give the food an 8 out of 10,” Miller said. “The service was a lower rating, a 6 out of 10, because the workers seemed to be irritated handing out that much chicken. However, they were fast, so it was not too bad.”
Overall, the two students came to a consensus of giving the dining hall an 8 out of 10. According to both, the food was fresh and satisfying, and the service was all right considering it was lunchtime on a Wednesday.
But they aren’t done yet! Stay tuned for the Trojan Dining Hall review part two in next week’s!
