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!