Suggestions Through 3/21/19

We served the Cucumber and Seaweed Salad again on March 5 – and the Udon was repeated on Friday March 15^th .  We hope you were able to enjoy these favorites again!

“The tropicana raspberry lemonade sold at the beginning of the semester was REALLY GOOD! PLEASE bring it back!!!”

-and-

“Will you restock the Naked Press Juice purple/lavender flavor one? I miss it”

We’re sorry but both of these flavors has been discontinued by the distributors.

“Hello, Can we maybe get chili flakes as a self-serve condiment at the pasta and stir-fry bar? Just like how cheese is self-serve at the pasta bar. I see that we have chili flakes at the pasta bar on Fridays but it would be great it we could have it every time we have stir fry and pasta.”

Chili flakes aren't always available as a self-serve option, but they are available behind the counter at the Sauté Station. Just ask the cooks to add them to your meal. We will also try to put them out as a self-serve option more often.

“Appreciation message for Alex! She is always super friendly and always smiling and makes me happy every time she serves my food! Thanks Alex!”

Thank you for the praise for Alex – we made sure she heard it.

“(Tiger Cooler) Would it be possible to serve rice on Sunday nights? I love the rice so so much and I just wish it was around a little bit more”

Rice was added Monday-Thursday, primarily at the request of our student athletes seeking a healthier alternative following late practices on weeknights. Unfortunately, the Tiger Cooler does not have the staff resources to support offering rice continuously throughout the day or on evenings other than Monday-Thursday.

“I found pieces of bacon in my scrambled eggs from the grill station this weekend. I wish that there would be less cross contamination, especially as a vegetarian who doesn't want to eat bacon or even have it on my plate.”

We are so sorry. The chefs and cooks are working on better training for the part time staff members at the station. We hope this will not happen again, but should anyone experience something similar, please notify the Marketplace supervisor so we can address this promptly.

“It seems that there are more & more cup-o-noodles in the vending machine in the Library. What happened to all the pastries?? Please bring back breakfast/dessert pastries.”

This has been reported to the vending company and they are on it!

“Is the balsamic vinegar glaze (that was used for the chicken/arugula/potato coin salad at the homestyle station) available to use in the salad bar? I really liked it! :)”

We're sorry but this product has a high cost compared to other dressings and condiments. It is only offered on specific recipes.

“I've seen some students walk around with a lunch box type thing with a Pb&j, some fruit, and a granola bar type thing. Are they for certain students (athletes) or are they available to everybody? If they are where can we get them/ if theyre not can it made to be available to more people? I have a small gap between some of my classes, and would love a mini lunchbox to go.”

Teams, classes and student groups have the ability to pre-order meals for events occurring outside the dining facilities. We don’t have the staff resources to produce individual boxed meals, but you may select items from the many pre-packaged items in the dining facilities and assemble something similar.

“The pulled pork and the chicken sandwich was really good. Id love for this to be more available in the mp. Also, the granola in the cereal bar always has a hard time dispensing, with the granola dispensing into mostly crumbs. Can we put it into one of the other containers so we don't have this issue anymore?”

The chicken sandwich was just served on Monday 3/18 we hope you had a chance to enjoy it. The pulled pork will be served this Saturday (3/23) at the Berkus Hall Dinner. We understand that the dispensers aren’t ideal for the consistency of the granola. However, it sells so quickly that it isn’t realistic for us to put it in the smaller containers. We don’t have personnel readily available to re-stock it constantly.

“Can you please get RX bars in any of the said locations? They were in the cooler last semester for a brief period of time”

The RX bars were actually offered at the Coffee Cart, which is where we plan to continue offering them. One of our vendors provided the RX Bars last semester to see how well they might be accepted here. We are currently in progress of setting up an account with them, so we hope to carry them soon.

“Please start including some sort of consistent carbohydrate at the salad bar such as brown rice, quinoa, barley, farro, potatoes, even a carb-heavy vegetable like squash! This would make salads more filling so students won;t have to spend extra meal plan to get two meals.”

Most of the carbs you mention are very labor intensive to make in small batches. This is why we tend to incorporate quinoa, potatoes, squash, cauliflower, etc. into the deli specialty salad, where we are assured of selling 100-150 portions. If put out on the salad bar, experience has shown us they will not be utilized as quickly. That said, when we have carb-heavy leftovers from overproduction, they will typically a) go out on the salad bar if we have a large quantity, or b) be individually portioned into containers and put in the Grab & Go case.

“Can we transfer money from our meal plans or rollover to vending? Ever since we got the new machines I’ve been spending more money but feel like I’m gonna run out. Also why do you guys no longer sell the New York seltzer?”

While you may add dollars to vending at any time, we do not offer the option of transferring additional meal plan or rollover funds. The proceeds from vending go to an external contractor. If we were to allocate more funds to vending that would decrease the budget that supports Campus Dining’s current staffing, hours, menus and services.

I have celiac disease, and while Oxy is wonderfully accommodating to my inability to eat wheat/gluten in many other ways, it rarely has gluten free foods at the MP bakery. I’ve heard amazing things about their cakes and muffins and one time they had a gluten free cake, which I loved. However, I would love if the MP bakery could make gluten free products (like muffins and cakes) at least once a week so celiacs like me could have an opportunity to try the MP baked goods too.

We are currently working on this with the bakery staff. We hope to have more gluten free options available. Also, please be aware that the bakery staff starts very early and tends to place items out when the Marketplace opens. These items often sell very quickly so you may just be missing them.

“I really liked that egg + potatoes + salad thing you had over break. Real tasty!”

We are glad you enjoyed this. This is our spring break tradition!

“Please bring back the spanish chorizo it was SO YUMMY”

Our guess is that you are talking about our Argentine sausage with chimichurri sauce served at Homestyle, we try to rotate it in our menus as much as possible because it is so popular. Thank you for the compliment.

“Tortellini monday sauce option of Pesto Alfredo.”

The pesto sauce is more expensive than the other sauces. If we served pesto with tortellini, we would have to raise the price. We don’t think that would be well accepted because the tortellini is already our higher priced pasta dish.

“Hello all, I would just like to take a moment to appreciate the new vending machines in the Academic Commons snack room. I have used both the beverage machine and the snack vending machine and they are both very convenient indeed. The food was fresh, filling, tasted great, and it is economical. I have also overheard some student groups have interesting conservations about the new snack options. Thank you very much for setting up these machines.”

So far the machines and their contents are a hit! Thank you for writing.

“The old mozzarella sticks were so much better!! Please bring back the skinny ones these thick ones arent as good "

Have no fear! We have not changed the mozzarella sticks. They are so popular; we simply bought our supplier out of all they had on hand. Our supplier substituted in a different product to ensure we had sticks to offer until the preferred ones are back in stock.