Tonight, I got a three-course dinner. The best part: it was free! Sodexo, the company that does our food at McDaniel has a new chef in the kitchen for the past two years: Chef Jamie. As a new idea to improve campus dinning, Chef Jamie decided to create “Dinner on Us” events each month. Essentially, an announcement is sent out, and whoever responds can come in for a free, served 3-course meal in Glar while we discuss campus dining: what works and what doesn’t and what we’d like to see in the future.
While he’s only been here for around two years now, our new chef has had his work cut out for him and, in my opinion (and that of others there tonight), made a lot of progress on making Glar food better! He’s been improving a lot of things behind the scenes and introducing new ideas and items pretty regularly, like the Mongolian Grill, Pasta Action station and the crêpe station I talked about last week.
The meal was great (especially the fresh, still-hot rolls and the delicious lemon custard dessert), and the best part was Chef Jamie sitting there with his yellow legal pad and pen taking down all our comments and suggestions. It’s so great to have leaders and management that actually listen to the students, seek out their opinions and then react accordingly; I got to bring up how I loved the “make-your-own” type stations, such as the crêpe, pasta and Mongolian grill stations. New today was also a make-your-own flatbread pizza station! You got to pick all the sauces and ingredients you wanted to go on top and they made it right there- three minutes later you got to pick up your own personal pizza.
After we had chatted away critiquing, praising and making suggestions for both the Pub upstairs (please bring back flatbread!), and Glar downstairs, Chef Jamie took us on a behind-the-scene tour of Glar to the kitchens and food storage areas. He definitely has me convinced on his vision for Glar in the future and knows how to get there. So incoming students- look forward to more delicious food! And if we’re not happy- they’re always open to suggestions. I can’t wait to see what they come up with next.
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