NEW FOODS, SIMILAR QUALITY

In the past couple months, CCA has been trying a few new options for hot lunch. There was a BBQ chicken pizza and the Tikka Masala rice bowl on April 11th. I unfortunately missed the rice bowl, but I tried the BBQ chicken pizza and the Chicken Lo Mein and Egg roll. I don’t think the Lo Mein is new but it isn’t something I have tried here before. 

CHICKEN LO MEIN FROM THE LUNCH LINE; PHOTO BY JOSH GAETA

I was somewhat excited to try the pizza because it’s a kind that I have had from Casey’s and have really liked. I went into it with the expectation that school pizza is decent, and is fairly consistent. In reality, the BBQ chicken pizza was fine. The cheese was bland and had an odd texture, the BBQ was a good consistency but needed more flavor. The crust was good, and the chicken was your standard school chicken pieces. I don’t think I would pick it again over other school foods but I can certainly say I have had worse.

As far as Chinese food goes, I would say I am a big fan and I love it. I typically get a Lo Mein of some kind as well as crab rangoons and egg rolls when I order takeout, so this is something that I am well experienced with. Presentation of the meal was interesting, it looked almost like a ball which was odd. Vegetables and chicken were both visible, but the noodles had a darker color on the outside than the inside. The egg roll looked like your standard egg roll, nice dark color on the outside. The flavor of the chicken Lo Mein was overall not too bad, there was a good amount of chicken pieces that had good texture and the vegetables tasted fine but were too soft in my opinion, but I don’t think I’ll eat it again because of the texture of the noodles. They were mushy and seemed to stick together and just weren’t the greatest. The egg roll did not surprise me but it was enjoyable. My only complaint with it is that there was little-to-no crunch on the wrapping. I can’t give the school too much grief because I’ve made Chinese food myself before and know how much effort it can take to turn out amazing, so I believe the fact that they probably did the best they could.

Overall, the new options have been a decent bit of fresh air. School lunch as a whole typically gets a bad wrap due to some dishes overall not looking the most appealing. However, some dishes do have decent presentation. While school lunch isn’t always the greatest, the best way I can describe these choices is “two steps forward, one step back”.