Dorm Food Review is BACK! Kind of...

As I'm sure all loyal readers have been aware, this blog hasn't really been updated in a while. Why? Mostly because my schedule didn't exactly leave time for me to update, then I went to Europe for about six months (sorry about that) and there wasn't any too much dorm food to review. Then, when I got back to Wayne State, AVI had been replaced with Aramark -- a change I was so excited to see. The food options in the dining hall now are fresher and more varied than I every saw with AVI. This is great for all of the students (including myself) who eat on campus. This year, I also got an apartment, which means I can cook for myself (yayyy!).

Having my own kitchen, recipes from Mama W and the internet, and easy access to fresh fruits and vegetables through the Wayne State farmer's market (thanks also to SEEDWayne, which has a program that allows students to spend $5 and get $10 of fresh produce, which is so much more food than I thought!) as well as Eastern Market and other local grocery stores has allowed me to start cooking and experimenting a bit with what I make. Since everyone can Instagram their food, I'm going to start posting not only pictures, but a few easy recipes that are (usually) healthy that I've attempted. My goal this year is to try one new dish a week -- so here's hoping I can keep up!

First, here are a few of my past dishes:

Kroger had $5 lobster tails, so I used those, fresh green beans from the farmer's market, and my roommate J's wonderful roasted redskin potatoes for an amazing dinner that per person, cost about $8. In a restaurant? Probably at least $30.

Fried green tomatoes and tomato chutney following the Blue Willow Inn's recipe. The Blue Willow is a fancy buffet place down in Georgia, and it's where I had my first ever taste of fried green tomatoes (and fell in love with them!)

Last week's dinner: Butternut Squash(squared) -- or perhaps cubed? After AV and I cut the squash, we realized just how much there was, so we prepared it two ways: In a soup that's super easy but also super dangerous to make (I burnt my wrist pretty badly pureeing the squash, but it was definitely worth it), and roasted with rosemary, garlic, and Parmesan cheese -- delicious all around.

Raclette -- a typical European dish that's less effort and more preparation: Cheese, bread, potatoes, and tomatoes were all we used! AV and I also made another recipe that we had discovered for the first time in Europe: asparagus baked with cheese, olive oil, and garlic -- super easy and super good.

Okay, so now you've seen enough of my old recipes -- I'll start off tonight's return to dormfoodreview with a recipe that I never saw myself making: turnip greens.

Although I'm from Atlanta, I've never really been a fan of cooked greens. I always found them to be too bitter and mostly unappealing-looking. However, this past week at the WSU farmer's market, AV and I were searching for lettuce when we came across some other green leafy vegetable. The wonderful women who were there at D-Town Farms told us they were turnip greens and gave us instructions on how to make them. Tonight, I was brave enough to give it a shot -- and hey, it turned out just fine! I'd even say they turned out well enough that I'd make them again :)

The greens cooked down with onions!

The Recipe:

about 2 T of olive oil
3/4-1 onion
2-3 cloves of garlic
salt, pepper, and lemon juice (to taste)
(most importantly!) one bunch of turnip greens

The Steps:

1. Heat up olive oil in a pan/skillet. Add the onion, chopped into slivers, and cook until it's somewhat translucent.
2. Add the turnip greens and cook them down. Add salt and pepper as you're stirring. I was surprised at how fast this was -- all you do is add them and push them around in the pan for a bit, and after about 5 minutes, it's all cooked down!
3. Add minced garlic to this mixture, take it off the heat and stir it all together.
4. Add lemon juice to taste (this was what I really liked about the dish -- the lemon juice gives it a much "brighter" flavor so it's not quite so heavy).
5. Eat!


That's all for my culinary adventures this week -- check back soon for another update!

Mac Shack! October 12, 2012

Today I was lucky enough to get out of my orgo lab early, and since it was Cody's birthday, we decided to take a break from our normal lunch at Gold and Greens (which has been so, so good) to check out the new food truck on campus, the Mac Shack. I'd been wanting to try it since the summer but hadn't had time. Luckily, today was the perfect day for some gourmet mac and cheese.

I got the Papa Smurf, which had caramelized onions, mushrooms, and fresh parmesan cheese. The sweetness of the onions was a perfect contrast to the sharp parmesan, and the mac and cheese by itself was perfectly creamy and light -- as mac and cheese goes, anyway. The pasta shape was also kind of cool -- it definitely wasn't the Velveeta shells or Kraft macaroni that I've gotten far too accustomed to. Instead, it was a bit larger "ear shaped" pasta -- ideal for holding the perfect amount of cheese. Clearly whoever planned this has an engineering background.

Papa Smurf!

Cody got "The Bacon Made Me Do It!", which had bacon, green onions, and tomatoes. His descriptions of it was: creamy, delicious, breathtaking (sigh). In fact, he stated, "No words can describe the goodness in this cheese of mac."  So it was a step or two above dorm food, basically.

The Bacon Made Me Do It!

Finally, the piece de resistance: the garlic parmesan french fries. Feel free to enlarge this picture to fully appreciate the beauty of these. The other day, we had some really great truffle herb french fries at Green Dot Stables (post coming later... I'm pretty far behind right now), and these are like the bigger, less dainty, and slightly more delicious big brother of the Green Dot stables fries. They were ideally greasy, not in a bad way, but enough to make sure you knew they were clogging your arteries, and it was worth every delicious bite. I'm a big fan of garlic, and these fries had the most amazing mixture of garlic and parmesan cheese -- whatever the ratio was, it was perfect. They were crispy on the outside while still being creamy and soft inside, and were by far the best fries I've had on campus.

Garlic parmesan french fries!

Basically, if you haven't been out to the Mac Shack yet, it's something you need to do ASAP. Everything they have is perfect college student comfort food, but with a great gourmet twist. I can't wait until the next time I catch a break between classes to get some more!

Detroit Restaurant Week: Coach Insignia

Detroit Restaurant Week is by far one of my favorite weeks of the year -- after I found out about it accidentally with A.V. last year, I've been preparing myself for the next restaurant week to come. This year, there were 17 participating restaurants in Detroit, and the amazing thing about DRW is that you can go to some of the most amazing restaurants in Detroit and sample the best of what they have to offer for only $30 -- and really, how could anyone pass that up?

This week, the first restaurant I went to was Coach Insignia. Located at the top of the Ren Cen on the 72nd floor, this restaurant has the most amazing views of the city, and even before I had the chance to eat here, I'd been up several times to catch the amazing views. I had the pleasure of going this year with some of my favorite people in the world from the dorms :)

Everyone!

To start off, we (naturally) had bread. Being the bread connoisseur I like to consider myself, I would give this about a 7/10, not the most amazing bread, but hey, it's bread, and how can that ever go wrong?

 I then had the shrimp tasting, which had a great brandy-cream sauce for the cocktail shrimp -- it was kind of sweet tasting, and it went wonderfully with the bread (not that I dip bread into every sauce I encounter... but I mostly do).

 For my entree, I had the filet mignon (medium rare), and although I'm usually not a big steak eater, this was phenomenal. It was seasoned perfectly and so juicy and perfect. If I were to dream about a steak, this would be it. The asparagus was cooked perfectly, and the mashed potatoes were flawlessly creamy and smooth. 

 Desert was bread pudding for me -- I've always loved bread pudding, and this certainly did not disappoint. It was kind of cinnamony and creamy -- a great fall comfort dessert.

 A few others got white chocolate raspberry cheesecake, and I was lucky enough to get a bite -- I don't usually like cheesecake too much, but the flavors in this were great -- not overly cheesecakey and with a perfect accent of raspberry flavor. Plus, the presentation of this dish was gorgeous.

All in all, this was a successful first DRW outing. It was definitely sad to have to make the return to dorm food the next day -- as much as I've been loving the taquito-instant mashed potatoes-mac and cheese diet, this dinner was far above and beyond what I was expecting. This was a fantastic meal and hopefully I'll be back soon (and if anyone wants to take me, I'm all for that too!)

Post-dinner in the Ren Cen!

Wayne State Farmers Market: July 18

I've been on a long hiatus from this blog -- living at home means I'm not willing to risk foregoing my food supply by reviewing it -- but even if I was, it would probably get a bit repetitive with good reviews (Hi mom! I know you'll read this and your cooking is delightful! Please continue feeding me!).

I've continued to take pictures of a good portion of my meals, however, and after a point, you start looking like you have a problem if most of the pictures on your phone are squirrels and food, so I needed to start doing something with them.

Look! It's a squirrel in a tree on the Wayne State campus. I'm normal. Really.

Anyway, yesterday A.V. and I were on campus for Microbiology, and of course I was Facebook stalking when I came across this gem of a picture from J.A. that inspired me to venture out in search of the same:

Crepe from the Wayne State Farmers Market -- Good Girls Go to Paris Crepes has a booth there.
The wait at the farmers market is far shorter than the lunch rush at the store -- well worth it. I got a crepe with chevre, red peppers, spinach, and (I think) some other vegetables, and it was delicious (and huge)!

After that, I decided to check out the booth next to Good Girls', Sweet Potato Sensations. I have been and always will be a sucker for unique baked goods, and the coconut sweet potato pie seemed to be staring me down -- until I saw that there was sweet potato ice cream. That was a game changer. I was told that this ice cream would taste "just like cold sweet potato pie" and I was not let down at all. Not only was this ice cream the perfect consistency of smooth, soft, and just melty enough to be easy to scoop up with a plastic spoon, but the small chunks of pecan scattered throughout provided the ideal amount of satisfying crunch to contrast the silky smooth ice cream.

The sweet potato ice cream!

In conclusion, the food at the Wayne State Farmers Market is not to be missed -- not only is it pretty and delicious, but it's also (mostly) healthy and a good portion of it is locally sourced. And hey, you might see Jerry Herron picking up some vegetables there too (I've seen him the past few times I've been and it's always like seeing a celebrity -- but maybe that's just me)

Happy eating! And I'll do my best to post more consistently, I promise :)

February 8, 2012: Lamb Pizza

Hello again internet world!

I apologize for my lengthy hiatus from this blog. Unfortunately, this does not mean that the food has gotten good by any means at all. As with last semester, we've had good days and we've had awful days, with a tendency to err on the "awful" side of things.

Also, Wayne State appears to have renewed their contract with AVI, meaning 5 more years of sub-par food. Great.

However, it would appear that Hall Council is talking with AVI in regards to bettering their food to make it edible again (Right, Doug?), so stay tuned for more information on that. I've also found a link to the phone numbers of the AVI Wayne State directors, and I'm planning to save that until the situation gets truly dire.

On a happier note, the lamb pizza on Wednesday actually made me exclaim, "Wow, this is great!" as opposed to my standard "Wow, this is edible!" or "Wow I can't believe they thought this was fit for human consumption."

It was even enough to make me push aside (in excitement, of course) my oddly-spicy "Cordon Bleu Roulade" or whatever it was called.

The carnage.

A Brief Discussion of Pasta

Now, being half Italian, I love pasta. I was practically raised on it. However, having the dinner "options" of baked pasta with meat sauce or a "pasta bar" (for the 2nd week in a row) is frankly ridiculous.


On the plus side, at least they've stopped serving the salsa marinara sauce, which was almost distressing enough to turn me away from red sauce for life. Dear AVI Fresh, please note that just because two products may contain mostly tomatoes does NOT (I repeat, does NOT) make it okay to combine the two.


But really, when none of your pasta is even vaguely al dente, you should probably not serve it at EVERY. SINGLE. DINNER. After a lifetime of pasta, I'm almost ready to quit. It's that bad.


At this point, I'm even thinking that maybe the rice should make a comeback. That's exactly how desperate the situation's gotten.


Please, AVI, hear our pleas.

November 11: Towers Fish Fry

Clockwise from top left: Tartar sauce, "Warrior chips", fried whitefish, lemon slice.

Naturally, the first wish that came to my mind on the legendary 11-11-11 was to wish for good edible food in the cafeteria. For once, they actually came through. Maybe it's because the only time I eat at Towers is when Ghafari is closed (due to the lovely wind tunnel that forms between the two buildings), but eating at Towers during a non-weekend time proved to be rather enjoyable.

Granted, most things are good when they're fried, and this was no exception. The fish was lightly battered and had the most delightful consistency. This is possibly one of the best meals I've had on campus to date. Way to go, Towers. If this keeps up I may even risk the windburn to get to your food.

Alex and the best pancakes in the world...

Aerial view.

Alex and his "Whatchu lookin at boiiii" patented look. Also, profile view of the pancakes.

            We entered into the establishment known as IHOP or International House of Pancakes. The seats were dotted with a few middle aged African Americans here and there. We sat in a plush vinyl booth in the back and our waitress quickly came to serve us. She was very adept at her job and keen to our needs and she put on an air of genuine happiness and hospitality. Needless to say, she was a fine waitress indeed. After perusing the menu, I soon came across the New York Cheesecake Pancakes and it only took a couple minutes of intense inquisition to decide upon these. They came after everyone else’s meal but they were definitely worth the wait. The composition of the pancakes juxtaposed with the sausage links on the circular ceramic plate was very aesthetically pleasing. I started with the sausage. The texture was firm but tender and they were very juicy. The links burst with flavor as my teeth sank into their meaty goodness and the juices flooded my mouth like the Nile River. Consuming the sausage links brought about an even more intense excitement to dig into the strawberry and whip cream topped cheesecake pancakes. I began to serendipitously cut the pancakes and slowly pour thick maple syrup all over them. The first bite left me breathless and the second nearly knocked me out with pure orgasmic flavor. The pancakes were so soft and fluffy that I didn’t dare remove the strawberries in fear of them floating away. How IHOP managed to perfectly infuse cheesecake with pancake batter is beyond me. They were perfect in every way. The Greeks would have placed them in the Parthenon. The Egyptians would have designated the Great Pyramid for the adoration of them. The public must be made aware of these for the betterment of mankind. I bow down to their creator.

The damage.

Vegetable Lasagna/Pasta, Whitefish cake with aioli: Lunch at Ghafari, October 10

Clockwise from left: sweet potato tater tots, whitefish conglomeration with garlic aioli, vegetable "lasagna"

After a week of consistently bland and disappointing food, the cafeteria finally got something right. For once, the food had flavor. The pasta was al dente. The whitefish was.... well, you can't win all the time.


While it's not the most impressive presentation of food, it was possibly the best meal I've had since moving in. I didn't even have to add salt for once.


Whatever happened at this meal, I highly encourage its continuation. I mean, this meal really renewed my faith in AVI Foodsystems. Faith that was destroyed promptly at dinner, but at least I had an afternoon of joy.

Mushroom Tortellini, Dinner at Cass Cafe, October 9

I apologize for the infrequent posting this week. I've been terribly busy with procrastinating all of my schoolwork (and by procrastinating, I mean completing it in a timely manner of course).

Anyway, get ready for posts of everything I gorged myself on this week.

Cass Cafe, Sunday night. Mushroom tortellini and garlic bread.

Our hallway group usually likes to take Sunday nights to go out somewhere for dinner, and this week we descended upon the Cass Cafe. I didn't have much of an appetite when we went, so I just stuck to a pretty simple dish. It was pretty good (the garlic bread was EXCEPTIONAL. I highly recommend it.), but the tortellini wasn't my favorite. I was expecting a more cream-based dish, so I was a little let down when it came out. While the presentation of the dish itself was beautiful, I just wasn't in the mood for eating and ended up feeding the remainder of my dish to some of the guys on my floor.

Krab cakes, Dinner at Towers, October 6

Counterclockwise from left: Alfredo (?) noodles, Krab cakes, Krab cake sauce, couscous, Mountain Dew

Surprisingly enough, this meal wasn't completely terrible. I've noticed a general theme of having to add salt to literally every morsel of food to try to extract some flavor from it. I feel like at this rate, I'll probably graduate with the most extreme case of hypertension ever recorded.


Upon first bite, the pasta tasted just as bland as everything else I've had the pleasure of trying at this lovely cafeteria. After adding salt, it tasted like salty pasta with vegetables. Clearly a huge improvement.


The couscous was much the same. If I didn't have the texture to differentiate, I would've sworn it was the exact same dish in different forms.


The Krab cakes (quite obviously fake crab, but I wasn't expecting much... I mean, it IS cafeteria food, after all). I'm not entirely sure what the sauce tasted like (maybe some sort of pickle/cream/tartar sauce combination? It actually tasted okay, but I'm not sure how to describe it), but none of it required salt, so I consider that a quality dish.


In conclusion, thumbs up on the crab cakes, and neutrality on everything else.


P.S. I see I've been getting a lot of page views from Russia, so I just wanted to say hi. Feel free to leave me a comment!
Also, if you're a Wayne State student interested in writing a guest post, send me an email or leave a comment!

Peppercorn Roast Beef: Dinner at Ghafari, October 6

Left to right: Salad (exciting); mashed potatoes; roast beef; hummus and pita chips; Tidal Wave Blue (pictured)

Even after such a disappointing lunch, I tried to keep an open mind about dinner. Surely, nothing could be worse than the mush I had at the previous meal.

Well, the good news is that I actually got to chew the meat... A lot. It was a little bit like gnawing on a leather shoe, with about the same amount of flavor.

The mashed potatoes (as mashed potatoes should be) were mushy, which is no surprise. They did, however, bear far too close a resemblance to the paste that so many of us consumed in elementary school.

Even my usually trusty hummus and pita chips failed me tonight. The chips were freezing cold, and the hummus tasted like the kitchen had run out of literally everything except for the chickpeas they ground up for the hummus.

Luckily, the Tidal Wave Blue is still a constant.

Turkey, Broccoli, and Rice "Casserole": Lunch at Ghafari, October 6

Left to right: Steamed squash; redskin potatoes; turkey, broccoli, and rice casserole.

(Not pictured: Tidal Wave Blue)

It may have seemed impossible, but the food just got even more bland and awful today. I've been noticing a trend towards "beige" as a color scheme for all of the food. Even the formerly yellow and green squash was turned into a nearly unrecognizable mash of ecru tediousness.

My theory is that lunch today was a combination of all the food that was left over from the past few weeks -- I mean, that's what my mom generally throws into her casseroles. The main difference is that hers are actually edible.

I had my doubts when I saw the soupy yellowish mess being ladled out onto other people's plates, but despite my reservations, I decided to give it a chance. I liked turkey, broccoli, and rice (Seriously. Rice. AGAIN.), so I figured a combination of the three would maybe not be too awful.

I was wrong. So very wrong. The rice was literally so mushy it had become completely indistinguishable from the fake cheese blend that covered the top of this pathetic excuse for a casserole. I eventually unearthed a few hunks of turkey, but I'm fairly confident that the broccoli was pureed with the rice, since there was no evidence to suggest that it was ever there to begin with. 

As for the taste, it was like I was literally just eating calories with no flavor. I know I put food into my mouth, but my taste buds must have developed some sort of defense mechanism against the dorm food, making me unable to actually recognize what was entering my digestive system.

Honestly, the most colorful (and best) part of my meal was the ever-delightful Tidal Wave Blue drink. It is consistently delicious, as it tastes exactly like the blue liquid found in freeze pops (and it's really hard to screw up something with so much sugar in it -- impossible, even). One thing I can definitely say about Ghafari is that they have better drinks than Towers: Tidal Wave Blue and root beer are possibly the only two reasons I continue to eat there.

Bottom line: If one could survive solely on a liquid diet of Tidal Wave Blue and root beer, we'd be all set. Unfortunately, the food aspect of the dining halls completely ruins that plan.

Anthony's Choice

Enticed by the promise of cookies, I found myself standing in Jen and Maria’s room patiently ignoring my surroundings and waiting for the moment when Jen would finally give me the irresistible treats I had come for.  To make the time go faster I imagined what they would taste like.  What kind would they be? Would they be crunchy or soft? The possibilities were endless…

The words “blind taste test” and “guest blog post” broke through my sugary fantasies and I reluctantly let them slip from my consciousness.  What had I just signed myself up for?  I remained aware of the real world just long enough to understand that I was expected to perform such dreary chores as describing what I tasted with adjectives… adjectives.  My resolve began to waver, was this still worth it?  But then, I remembered the longing that had brought me this far, and I gravely made my choice. I would go even as far as adjectives to acquire delicious cookie goodness.

I straightened my shoulders and shook off the misgivings that weighed me down as Jen distributed the cookies.

Cookie 1 (Maria's):

This first specimen crumbled almost immediately upon being handed to me.  My expectations of the ideal cookie at first seemed to crumble with it, but upon finally tasting it, I experienced a pleasant reversal of opinion.  The tasty dough was interspersed with huge, scrumptious chunks of dark chocolate.  I, being partial to darker chocolates, found this quite an appealing characteristic.  Though the chunks were not extremely frequent, this fact prevented them from overwhelming the comprehensive taste of the cookie.

Cookie 2 (Jen's):

The second cookie I received was much more solid in composition.  I don’t mean to imply that it was overcooked or stale, rather simply that it did not fall apart as readily as the previous one.  The chocolate here had a decreased cacao composition, and tasted very sweet. While it undoubtedly still tasted heavenly, I found myself longing for the solid earthy flavor of my treasured dark chocolate.  Chips rather than chunks were present in Cookie 2 and made up a much greater proportion of the whole cookie than those of Cookie 1 had.  The symphony of ingredients produced a much sweeter taste, which was the signature characteristic of this sample.

The Verdict:

Not wishing to offend either baking party, I must say that both cookies were to my liking and embodied everything I had hoped for upon blindly wandering into this situation.  However, my love of dark chocolate broke through in the end, and Cookie 1—baked by Maria, I was told—earned my greater affection.  I wish to congratulate both bakers on their talent and courage in submitting their work to my judgment and also wish to thank them both for bringing my the cookie satisfaction that I desired.

Chocolate Chip Cookie Review(s)... TBA

Cody

Besides the fact that I look absolutely ridiculous in this photo. Let’s concentrate on what’s important here, which is these scrumptious chocolate chip cookies. In my opinion, there are very few people who can actually make homemade chocolate chip cookies, so Jen, I definitely commend you on your success with these cookies.  I must say that eating these cookies was like taking a vacation to Hawaii. The chocolate chips take you on a journey to the center of the fucking earth: that’s how delicious they are.  Oh yeah and please let me have the last container of them too PLEASE!!!!

Anthony

Steve

Now that these lovely photos are up online, hopefully Cody, Anthony, and Steve will finally write their reviews of the chocolate chip cookies that my roommate and I made...