Like many things at Wesleyan, campus dining elicits strong opinions from nearly all students and has gone through many changes in the last year.
MoCon, the largest dining hall on campus, is located between Nicolson and Hewitt. Food is served cafeteria-style at several stations with sandwiches, fresh pasta or stir-fry, soup, salad, hot dishes, pizza and dessert always available. MoCon also has a very social atmosphere; many friendships have been made and strengthened at its large round tables.
Although few students rave about the food, most find something to like.
“I hated MoCon,” said Jessica Strom ’07. “But free ice cream is wonderful and ‘Sundae Sundays’ made my Sundays.”
Strom preferred Summerfields, located in Butterfield C, to MoCon.
“Summerfields was so much better, most of the time,” Strom said. “And lunch at Summerfields is a nice change of pace.”
Summerfields is smaller than MoCon and allows students to choose from a small menu of prepared meals. Vegetarian, meat and fish options are available along with a salad bar and dessert. Summerfields is laid out like a restaurant, with individual small tables, so it has a more intimate feel than MoCon.
Students dining at MoCon and Summerfields generally use their meal plans, rather than their points, to pay. After moving from the required frosh meal plan to the all-points plan, some upperclassmen never return to MoCon and Summerfields.
“I didn’t eat there too much for lunch or dinner,” said Zack Kagan-Guthrie ’05. “It seemed like it was trying to be good, but not really succeeding. I mean, how good is salmon going to be when it’s prepared by Aramark [Wesleyan’s food service provider]? Answer: not that good. On the other hand, the brunch there is really good, and those late-night chicken quesadillas are like manna from heaven.”
Frosh, too, have points in addition to their meals, although the number is much smaller. Points can be used at several dining facilities on campus, including Weshop, the Campus Center, Pi Café, WesWings, the Red and Black Café (located in the bookstore), Chique Chaque and the Star and Crescent Dining Club.
The Campus Center has a cafeteria on the first floor, a deli on the second, and a vegetarian and vegan café on the third.
Kagan-Guthrie gave his critique of the cafeteria.
“The calzones were OK, nothing special,” he said. “The sushi is pretty good, but expensive. I didn’t touch their burgers or sandwiches, although they are rumored to be adequate. I was very pleasantly surprised by the choose-your-ingredients past— think it’s pretty tasty. However, it’s also fairly expensive, as well as being a truckload of food, so know what kind of appetite you’re bringing, and how you feel about leftovers, before you decide to take that plunge.”
Robyn Schroeder ’05 is fond of the carrot ginger soup available at Broad Street Books.
“Carrot ginger soup…is unholy in its deliciousness,” Schroeder said. “It’s worth every one of the eight hundred thousand dollars they charge you for it.”
Whatever a student’s feelings about the campus food, it is important to remember that although the menu on day three might be the same as on day one, no one at Wesleyan has ever died of starvation.
Leave a Reply