Over the course of the semesters and countless visits to dining halls, a student inevitably learns tips and tricks for navigating the variety of food choices. Here are six of the best tricks I have learned at the dining hall.
1. Cereal Bowl Noodle Bowl: When you want an extra-large portion of cereal in the morning, don’t settle for one of the bowls that sit right next to the cereal dispensers. Go to the Pho Noodle Bowl station and grab a Pho bowl to fill with cereal instead of filling up a regular bowl repeatedly. In DCs without a Pho station, pasta/salad bowls will also work.
2. Ice Cream Parfait: Nobody can ever have too much ice cream; so fill up a cup. Layer your ice cream and toppings in a glass for a substantial dessert. You can even stir it all up and make a frappe. This works best with soft-serve ice cream, but it works with hard ice cream as well.
3. Ice Cream Cookie Sandwiches: On Tuesdays and Thursdays after dinner, Berk makes chocolate chip cookies. Grab two and put some ice cream in the middle to have a truly amazing dessert. You can adapt this trick with other cookies and/or hard ice cream if necessary depending on your preferred dining hall.
4. Yogurt With Whipped Cream Dessert: If you’re feeling marginally healthy, put whipped cream on top of yogurt like you would for a dish of ice cream, and you can even add walnuts or fruit to make it even more like a sundae.
5. Tupperware: Use a container to save food from the DCs for later. This is great for winter time when it is too cold to leave your dorm.
6. Grab and Go Snacks for Later: Instead of raiding the vending machines in your building for late-night snacks; grab up to six sides with two swipes at Grab-and-Go. They often have a wide variety of snacks to choose from, all either included in one swipe or worth spending another on. Plan ahead and grab some snacks during the day.
Since not every DC is the same the availability and location of some of the necessary items to do these tricks may vary.
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