A New Reason to love Thursdays

I haven’t always loved Thursdays. Sure it’s one day away from Friday, which is clearly exciting. But usually mine are still pretty busy, consumed with classes and working and homework. This semester though, my Thursdays got a whole lot more amazing and not just because I’m back in Gospel Choir (which hugely improves Thursday evenings, and class will always include the entire class laughing hysterically at some point). This year, Thursdays introduced….the Mongolian Grill option…

Maybe this appeared last semester and I simply wasn’t here to appreciate it. Studying abroad tends to do that to you.  Even so, this came as a fantastic surprise to me.

This may sound deceiving. Or simply not all that exciting. But it is. Now, Thursday afternoons in Glar, the school cafeteria does not just offer chicken tenders (which normally excites the entire student and staff populations), but the Mongolian Grill. Essentially, it lets you select all your ingredients: chicken, onions, peppers, broccoli, snow peas, carrots, mushrooms, water chestnuts, tofu, you name it. My personal favorite is the fresh pineapple-I go back for seconds when that’s around. Next, you add a scoopful of steaming rice to your concoction and move down the line, eyeing up the selection of potential stir-fry sauces. There’s teriyaki, soy, stir-fry, sweet-and-sour and others. Then you hand your plate of goodies to the person behind the counter and tell them what sauce or sauces you want it stir-fried with then step back and let them go at it while you pick up a drink and silverware before coming back to retrieve your meal.

The result? A steaming plate that you handpicked of tasty food, and probably way more of it than you thought you were getting. I’m a big fan. I love being able to select what I want from the ingredients to sauces and have things I don’t normally carry in my kitchen (like broccoli). Plus, it makes a change from the normal routine of the dining hall and me wandering aimlessly from side to side trying to decide what I want to eat.

It also helps that my Thursdays are relatively free nowadays, as I only have two music classes and work, it lets you appreciate being on campus a bit more when you’re not running around all the time and being late for everything! Another fun fact about this fall is that it means the start of some of my favorite dressings at the salad station- namely, the Apple Cider vinaigrette- always a win!

Keep on Mongolian Grill. You make my Thursdays.