<p>Is dining consolidation a major issue? </p>
<p>The dining consolidations seem to be mostly an issue for students who started befor this year. Many of them miss eating in their own houses. The current arrangement is that you can eat at any dining hall so if you have a class on one end of the campus and live on the other end you don't have to go back to you house for lunch. My D, a first year who lives in a house that lost its dining room in the consolidation, does not think it is a big issue at all. She has a bunch of choices near her house and often eats in other parts of the campus for lunch. She has yet to make it up to the quad to eat, she lives in the lower elm area. She thinks that the food is ok, not great but acceptable. Her house has a kitchen, so she can cook there if she wants to, she made potato soup for her house during finals week.</p>
<p>Is the food good at Smith?</p>
<p>Agree that the dining consolidations are mainly an issue for the non-first years, though an unanticipated casualty seems to be the Thursday evening dinners by candlelight in each house.</p>
<p>As for food, D says that while it's not home cooking it ranges from edible to tasty. Best food is Monday through Wednesday and on the weekends. It sounds as if leftover stocks are expended on Thursday/Friday. Friday also has afternoon tea, which D enjoys.</p>
<p>D's house had had the Vegan dining room, which she and others of her house considered an affront in that her house was the house of Julia Child. Vegan dining has proved popular enough that it's being shifted to a different house with a larger kitchen for the Spring semester, much to the dismay of the residents of <em>that</em> house.</p>
<p>My friends and I thought food was the worst on weekends (with the exception of brunch, but I like breakfast food).</p>
<p>I tried all options at one point. I worked in my house's kitchen five nights a week (we lose our dining next year), so I only made it to Asian once (it was only open the nights I worked), and it was okay. I tried the Smith Favorites about 10 times. I found the vegan/vegetarian not worth it even though I was a vegetarian because the lines were too long (I feel that the school should just offer more vegetarian options at every dining site, and noticed that some food was wasted in our kitchen because the cook made too much meat). I loved Grab-and-Go and often ate it while sitting in Chapin. </p>
<p>I prefer the dinner options to those of lunch (with the exception of Chapin) and I wish I had the old dining experience to compare this too. I did notice that I usually ate with friends, but some of my best times at meals were with an extended group of people, and I probably would have had more if the dining had not been consolidated.</p>
<p>The length of the vegan/vegetarian lines is why it's being shifted from Hubbard to wherever it's going next semester...the lines should be shorter.</p>