As long as colleges have dining halls, students will have conversations discussing all the flaws with the food they serve. Here at Penn State, it is no different. I get tired of the blueberry pancakes they serve every Tuesday Morning just like everyone else. It would be nice if they shuffled up the breakfast menu so they don’t serve the same breakfast every Tuesday. If miss out on the delicious French toast sticks every Monday because you have an early class, you’ll have to hope for a better shuffle next semester.

But with all of their problems, every once in a while the dining halls come up with some real gems. I’m gonna say it right now, you don’t wanna miss grilled cheese day when they serve it for lunch. Right now they have it at South every third Thursday, and you bet I’ve never missed a grilled cheese lunch this semester.

Sometimes the dining halls will have something they call “pop-ups.” This event is when a certain dining hall will serve something special only for a certain meal. I have often gone out of my way to hit a pop-up for a meal, however these events can require some real planning.

Starting with the lowest intensity pop-ups, they had chocolate bacon cake pops at Redifer for dinner last week. All I had to do was make sure to hit up South for dinner that night, and they had plenty of leftover pops- they were pretty good, but like deep fried Oreos, there was no way I could’ve eaten more than one. That was diabetes on a stick. The dining hall chefs also held a toast competition over a week or two where each chef got to showcase their best version of toast. The toast was good, but I never went out of my way to hit the toast dining hall for every meal.

Moving up in commitment, before Halloween weekend and Christmas break all the dining halls hold a Harvest fest, and a Holiday dinner for dinner on the same night. Those meals were both so good and had some great food. The only problem was that the dining halls were PACKED. The line to get some of the high class food at Pollock for the holiday dinner was over 45 minutes long. I just had some of the other great options because I’m a busy college student. The Harvest fest meal I ate at West and it was easily the best meal I’ve ever had in a dining hall. You bet I’ve already marked my calendar for that next year. 

On to the highly elusive pop-up events. First off, taco night at Pollock. If you attend dinner at Pollock during taco night and sit at the Swirl, you will get great Tex-Mex vibes with probably the greatest music to ever be played in a dining hall. However when we got there at like 6, they were already out of taco meat, so I spent the evening eating meatless tacos.

Finally the most elusive of them all, Churro day. You’re more likely to get student season tickets for football then get a churro on churro day at Pollock. I’ve gone 1 for 3 on churro nights. The first two times they promised us churros they just did not deliver. Not even any churro dust to be found. But last night it was glorious, my friends and I got the highly elusive churros. They put down a pan of churros and they were gone in less than 3 minutes. You basically have to sit in the swirl with an empty bowl ready if you want churros. Was the wait worth it? Yeah-they were some pretty good churros.