Being a freshman isn’t easy. We live (most likely) far away from home, we have far more independence than ever before, and, worst of all, we have to leave where we sleep to go eat. It hasn’t even been three weeks and I am already tired of walking to get food every time.

There is nothing in this world I love more than a great meal. If the school is making me walk a several minutes, if not more, to go get my meal, you can count on me making sure I love what I’m eating. Sadly, I have to taste many of the locations and the à la cartes before I can decide upon the best and the worst of the sports.

My hard work will not be in vain. In my following posts I will be reviewing one different location, on or off campus, for you.

First on my list of reviews is Redifer Commons’ buffet.

Located in the south part of campus, Redifer Commons is easily accessible to those living in South and Pollock. Seeing as it is the nearest commons to my dorm, I have eaten there just about every day. My expectations were set very high for Redifer from the SHO Time meals, and I was told not to expect the same treatment once school began.

Sadly, my mentors were right. The Redifer Commons’ buffet is extremely inconsistent. Throughout the week I couldn’t eat breakfast because Redifer’s hours are absurd in the mornings, and even on weekends they don’t open for breakfast until 10:30 a.m. I believe. How hard is it to let people in to make cereal and eat some toast?! As a huge breakfast fan, I must say that I was extremely disappointed that I wouldn’t have easy access to unlimited cereal and chocolate milk each morning. It really crushed my spirits.

In the two and a half weeks that I have been here, I have had one good dinner in the buffet. Often their meat is dry, the vegetables are cooked poorly, and the options are relatively thin. If you happen to be a salad fan, which I am not, they do happen to have a salad bar with plenty of selections. Anyway, the flank steak dinner was absolutely incredible. If you have an app that allows you to preview the commons’ menus, keep an eye out for the flank steak at Redifer! You will not be disappointed.

The low-light of my meals at Redifer came just the other night when they were serving ribs. Don’t get me wrong, ribs are difficult to perfect, but they were the driest ribs I have ever eaten. Not to mention that there was hardly any meat on the bones! I was so excited to see that I could have ribs, but my dreams were crushed so fast that it ruined the rest of my night.

BUT…

The dessert at Redifer is INCREDIBLE. It almost made up for the terrible ribs, but not quite.

There is always a great selection of 8 different ice creams from the creamery, and for the price of admission you can’t go wrong! There is also a tray of cookies on a hot plate, and there are sometimes cheesecakes (which go great with a scoop or two of ice cream)! I have, and probably will again, swipe into Redifer solely so that I can have their desserts.

Be careful though! Going in and taking a takeout box and filling it with only ice cream and cookies is “a violation” and you can get into trouble for doing it. For those brave enough to do it anyway, if/when you’re caught, use the best excuse at your disposal: “Sorry, I’m a freshman. It won’t happen again.”

Hope my insight helped, and I look forward to giving you all more tips in the coming weeks.