A Cafeteria Experience

For the first time in a long time, I had dinner in a cafeteria. Ok, that's not precisely true. When I worked for the university I occasionally had dinners in the cafeteria there. But those were free. This one I actually paid for. By choice.

The cafeteria here has several counters, three of them serving hot food. There's "home" which serves a traditional Irish home-cooked meal, "roma" which serves an Italian dish, and "grill" which serves items from the burgers n fries genre. I went with "home." They were offering a chicken breast in bacon mushroom sauce, cheesy potatoes, and choice of one vegetable. I was tempted by "roma's" ziti covered with alfredo sauce and vegetables, but it didn't come with anything else. Plus, I was getting over the tail end of a cold, and "home" sounded like it would really hit the spot.

First of all, as much as I complain about things being smaller here, this was one massive serving of food. They take a regular sized dinner plate and cover it with three heaping piles of food. If I had to carry it without the assistance of a tray, my thumbs would have had to touch the food - that's how full it was. Oh, and if you don't like your food touching, you're out of luck. There was just no way to pile the food that high and simultaneously get it to keep to itself.

I went with corn as my vegetable, and it was excellent. I don't know how much butter they had to drown it in, but it was super sweet. That being said, I have to reserve myself a bit on this basis: even I can make corn. You take it out of the freezer and boil it. It doesn't even count as cooking. Still, it was superb. Grade: A-

The cheesy potatoes, however, were a disappointment. I realize that it's tough to make flavorful food in mass quantities, but I shouldn't have to add butter and salt to cheesy potatoes for flavor. That's just nuts. Plus I was cranky that they charge you an extra 20c for a pat of butter. What is that? Bottom line, they were bland but passable. Grade: C

The main course, the chicken breast, was somewhere in between. They definitely get a bump up for using real bacon, including bacon bits in the sauce. But for whatever reason, the bacon and mushroom flavors did not seep into the chicken. Maybe it's that mass production thing, I don't know. But it essentially tasted like a good chicken breast that had just begun marinating in brown sauce. Grade: B

So the net is on the line between B- and B. Based on the amount of food, value (5 euro), and low expectations, I'll give the overall experience the higher. Overall Grade: B