The Road Less Traveled

Breakfast & Dinner

Wednesday, September 17th, 2008 by Matthew Lanigan | Food

I think I’ve said before, but the food here is wonderful. In our dorm, there are 4 floors. The 1st floor is all male exchange students, the 2nd and 3rd floors are Japanese freshmen, and the 4th floor is all female exchange students. On the 2nd floor is the cafeteria and lounge. The cafeteria serves breakfast and dinner Monday – Friday and breakfast on Saturday.

For lunch we generally eat at one of the many places around campus… I think I’ve already mentioned that the food at the student cafeterias is very, very good. So far we’ve only eaten at Cafeteria #2 (there are 5); it’s right next door to the Center for International Programs, which is where most of our orientation-related stuff has been so far.

Anyway, this is primarily about breakfast and dinner here in the dorm. So far, it’s been wonderful. Yesterday’s (Tues.) breakfast was just okay… I mean, it was good, but it wasn’t very much. It was very nice, probably homemade toast, hard boiled eggs, and a cabbage salad. Since then, though, it’s been extremely good. Yesterday for dinner we had quite a few different things, and it more than made up for the small breakfast. It was eggdrop soup, dumplings, some kind of chicken (which was really good), a cabbage salad (again), and a couple other things which escape me at this moment.

Apparently the reason breakfast on Tuesday was so small is because it was a “western-style” breakfast… which apparently consists of toast and hard-boiled eggs. Who knew? Today we had a Japanese-style breakfast, which was much bigger. Of course, we had the Japanese staple, rice, along with soup again, if I recall correctly, and a couple other things which, again, escape me at this moment.

We just got done with dinner… It starts at 5:30, but we felt a little bit bad, because we went in at 5:30 on the dot, and made the three very nice little Japanese ladies who make the meals get up from their table to serve us our food. In any case, it was good. We had fried breaded chicken, tofu, rice, a cabbage salad (which we have had, thus far, with every single meal), some noodles, and eggdrop soup. Again, it was all rather delicious. And we learned one thing: show up at the earliest at 5:35.

So far, I’m very impressed. This wins over American college food by leaps and bounds. And yet some of the Japanese students we’ve hung out with (who presumably have NOT lived in the dorm, as most Japanese students don’t) have said they hear the food is very bad here. I assure you though, this is not the case. Though, it is still the first week, so it may just be a matter of time…

Of course, when I’ve been eating my meals, my tourist mindset tends to disappear, as I’m distracted with eating, and so I have every time forgotten to take any pictures of my food (as if any of you care anyway… but I do!) Next time, I think I’m probably going to write about the people we’ve met and the friends we’ve made. Hopefully I’ll be able to get some pictures tomorrow… we do have the welcoming ceremony between 12:30 and 2:00, so that shouldn’t be TOO difficult. Anyway, until then!

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