Creamy Vegetable Soup and Pretzel Bread

One of the first words I learned in German was Spargal, which means asparagus. I learned this from seeing the summer Spargal and Erdbeere (asparagus and strawberry) stands. Today's soup had Spargal and other more difficult to identify vegetables. It was yummy.

Strangeness: 1/5
Deliciousness: 4/5

Stir Fry and Rice

Yesterday's essen was another Asian inspired meal, and it too was a pleasant surprise. Fun fact: I counted exactly three pineapple chunks in my meal.

Do you remember when you were little and went to day care and sometimes they would give you an apple for dessert and you were mad because that's not really dessert and where are the cookies? No? That's just me? Oh. Well dessert was an apple.

Strangeness: 3/5
Deliciousness: 4/5

Egg Pancakes... again

The eggy crepe pancakes made their third and presumably final appearance yesterday. But this time, instead of sunblock tasting yogurt, there was machiatto-like filling. I'm not just saying machiatto to make it sound fancy--that's what the menu called it. Here's the meal, making a sad face:



Strangeness: 3/5
Deliciousness: 3/5

Spaghetti

Wilkommen to the final week of Essen 2! I am so impressed that even after five weeks, there are still only a very few duplicate meals. Sure, the red sauce, vanilla sauce, and steamed vegetables have played a few rounds of musical chairs, but compared to Caltech dining, this is variety.

Today's essen is college food if I've ever tasted it: spaghetti and red sauce with steamed vegetables. And I even splurged and bought a pack of Parmesan cheese (25 euro cents). Americans, you take your free condiments for granted. Never again!

Strangeness: 1/5
Deliciousness: 3/5

'Curry' with 'Naan'

I was so excited for Essen 2 today because the menu said Indische--Indian food! Curry is my favorite food in the whole world, which is why I was utterly disappointed when today's curry was just soup with no curry flavor what so ever. I thought they might be able to pull off Indian in their own German-cafeteria-style way, like they did with Chinese, but I can't cut them slack here.

The one redeeming quality of this soup is that it has dahl--yummy lentils. Over this meal was decent for a meal but very bad for curry, which is what I was expecting and looking forward to.

Strangeness: 4/5 (strange that this passes for curry!)
Deliciousness: 2/5

Wow, I feel like such a curry snob. Which is so far from the truth! I like anything with even a smidge of curry-ness to it. I should just carry curry powder in my purse to make instances like this obsolete.

Milk Rice with Blueberry Sauce

I was so pleased with myself today because I was able to read enough of the menu to know what I was getting myself into with Essen 2. Another instance of dessert for lunch: warm, thick rice, like a hot cereal, and sweet blueberry sauce. It was served with sugar, which you can see on the tray to the left of my bowl, which wasn't needed because this meal was sweet enough for me already. I was a little apprehensive, because I don't usually like warm fruity food, but this was really tasty!


Strangeness: 3/5
Deliciousness: 5/5

Meat and Potatoes

Today's meaty essen 2 is brought to you by Xiaolei, one of the grad students helping me this summer. This meal is about as manly as you can get: meatballs and boiled potatoes.


Strangeness: 3/5
Deliciousness: 4/5 (according to our guest contributor)

But wait, there's more! I had essen 1 today, which was quite a treat. Essen 1 costs 2 euros, and you usually get an entree, a side, and dessert. Today's meal reminded me of the hamsters CDS made (tech alums know what I'm talking about): spinach encased by fried polenta, with corkscrew pasta and red sauce. It was served with a side salad and delicious lavender-blackberry yogurt. Overall, one of my favorite meals from the mensa!

Strangeness: 3/5
Deliciousness: 5/5