<p>may i please have a rank of the dining halls judging from its food/atmosphere?
thanks</p>
<p>BeNice,</p>
<p>take a bag or something, and wrap stuff in like, paper towels and stuff, and you could leave with an assortment of bagels. Lots of people do it. Also, cereal is easy to sneak out, as well as pastries for breakfast. Not that I condone any of it, nor did I steal a bunch of silverware and bowls/plates to use privately in my room…</p>
<p>ranking?</p>
<ol>
<li><p>Kimmel. Great food–those sandwiches…omgomgomg, AMAZING VIEWS (when the weather is nice), well decorated. Con–not all you can eat, but better quality.</p></li>
<li><p>Hayden–Food can be hit or miss, great personalities for the people working there. Cute freshman girls eat here. Vegan options. Nicely remodeled, comfortable chairs, awesome Chocolate Chip cookies. All you can eat. Sometimes the food is disgustingly bad, and not the cleanest.</p></li>
<li><p>Palladium–Amazing brunch (they have salmon!), pretty good other food. Kinda depressing, since there isnt much light. I randomly found myself eating here on friday nights when nothing else was open by myself after work, lonely, with random other people that couldnt find a time to eat dinner until 10pm. Kinda a weird atmosphere, lonely dinerish. Furthest from freshman dorms.</p></li>
<li><p>Alumni. It is really just a dunkin donuts, but is delicious. Limit to 2 meal combos per visit, I think.</p></li>
<li><p>Upstein. Decent, you choose from chik-fi-a, quiznos, salads, and a breakfast bar. Not all you can eat, but ok food. Open till 1am on weeknights, which made eating it heaven after in the middle of a late night study/hw sesh.</p></li>
<li><p>3rd N. Same food as Hayden pretty much, but farther. They do, however, pick up after you!</p></li>
<li><p>Downstein. Bleh. Ugly, gross, and the only thing open on sundays. Smells funny.</p></li>
<li><p>Rubin. They have steak night, but everything else is pretty bad. Nice place though, I only ate here 2x, but I liked the look of it.</p></li>
<li><p>Never ate at alumni.</p></li>
</ol>
<p>My list would be the same, but switch Hayden for Kimmel. I also believe Hayden is the only dining hall to have green tea ice cream in the freezer in the all-you-can-eat area.</p>
<p>What meal plan is recommended. The 14 meal plan one is so expensive. Any recommendations?</p>
<p>175 flex. I have written about this many times, even on this thread. If you are in a traditional freshman dorm and are required to get a plan opt for the 175 flex. You never lose a meal.</p>
<p>I think the 14 meal plan actually comes down to a bit cheaper per meal than the 175 flex. Should I get the 14 if I’m pretty sure I’ll be eating at least 14 meals a week from NYU dining?</p>
<p>Get what you like, the only problem is if you dont eat the 14 meals per week you lose them and they don’t carry over. The 175 flex allows you to eat whenever you like, and you can carry over week to week. You can even swipe a meal for visiting friends.
there is roughly 13 weeks per semester. the 14 meals/week =182 meals at 10.93 per meal.
the 175 meals per semester is roughly 10.65 per meal. You still get 150.00 dining dollars both plans. If you run out of meals with the 175, which you won’t based on past reviews from other students right here on CC, you can always use campus cash or a debit/credit card.</p>
<p>@milkandsugar</p>
<p>I’m a senior (as you probably know) and thinking of getting a meal plan. If I have a kitchen, would you still recommend 175? Or will 113 be enough? 113 has the 250 Dining Dollars. I’m just curious if you also crunched the numbers for the value of the 113 plan.</p>
<p>How many weeks are there in a single semester? I estimated 15 weeks and the 14 meal/week plan came down to about nine dollars per meal while the 175 flex was ten. </p>
<p>Man… Almost thirty dollars a day on food… I seriously need to learn to cook for myself lol.</p>
<p>It’s about 15 weeks. 13 is a little short, it depends on when you move out in December. Also, if you move in on the first day of Welcome Week, that’s a whole extra week. Meal Plans activate on Move-In Day, not on the day of first use.</p>
<p>@MAP, I don’t know how to advise you. My D was in Palladium last year. For fall semester she got the 75 flex, so that she could at least have lunch while in school. She ended up only eating dinner in the dining halls.She couldn’t wait til her meals ran out. She begged me, NO meal plan for spring. She and her roomates ended up making dinner in their room and having “dinner parties”, everyone taking turns amongst their friends in their dorms. They saved money this way and my daughter did end up losing weight(30lbs) by not having enough food. She was happy about that, but I was concerned that she wasn’t eating enough, even though she could afford to lose the weight.</p>
<p>If you have a kitchen, but you want a meal plan, i would opt for the 113 flex. The 75 is enough for 5 meals a week (lunch while at classes). the 175 is approx 11.6 meals per week. It just depends if you will have enough time to prepare dinner and if you like to eat out.
You can always do the 113 flex and if you run out just use campus cash, debit credit card and for the spring semester, upgrade to a larger plan.</p>
<p>@dreamoremoney, you are right it is 15 weeks, but I still would do a flex plan rather than fixed.</p>
<p>113 flex =10.48 per meal plus 250.00 dining dollars
175 flex= 9.80 per meal plus 150.00 dinig dollars
14 meals /week = approx 210 meals= 8.76 per meal plus 150.00 dining dollars
10 meals/week= =approx 150 meals= 10.76 per meal plus 250.00 dining dollars
75 flex =11.13 per meal and 150.00 dining dollars.</p>
<p>Just a rough idea.</p>
<p>As I look at these number, it just goes to show that NYU can’t even charge a flat rate for a meal, they have to charge you more if you take the lesser plans.</p>
<p>milkandsugar, good work ^^^,</p>
<p>(As an aside, briefly, did your daughter like Palladium living compared to other dorms?)</p>
<p>MAP, Unless you are going to be super busy senior year, it seems to me the 113 flex is something to consider, even with the higher rate per meal, compared to the 175 flex.</p>
<p>You can opt to cook or there appears to be a lot of cheap eats around. Also, by senior year, you have to be getting sick of some of the NYU Dining choices? What would be nice would be to share some simple things to “cook” up on the spot for busy students and others with kitchens 
.</p>
<p>@evolving, daughter loved Palladium, It is a good location. Trader Joe right there, a gym in the building and a dining hall too. Plenty of shopping and easy access to subway. I must say though, I hated driving down 14th street past 5th Ave, those crazy taxis and buses have taken over the street.</p>
<p>This is probably way “too long, didn’t read”, but. . .</p>
<p>@evolving</p>
<p>I’ve tried SO HARD to do the “healthy eating/cheap eating” thing and I just can’t do it. I’m taking GREs, applying to PhD programs, interning and taking 18 credits next semester. If I can walk into a dining hall and stuff my face with healthy things and not have to worry about grocery shopping/cooking, I will be so much happier. I have friends who have actually been EXCITED about me getting a meal plan, lol. (Broke seniors, gotta love 'em.) </p>
<p>The last two years, I have just blown a lot of money on JUNK from Trader Joe’s and gaining weight. I have not had a meal plan. My parents just load money on Campus Cash. So I am not sick of NYU dining yet. I LOST weight the summer I was on a meal plan in Goddard. I’m not the norm, but I know that I would actually do better with a plan. Heh.</p>
<p>I lived in Palladium and I really liked it. I had a room facing 14th Street and it was not too noisy. If I had the window open at night, however, I would hear crowds of people walking down the street to the bars. I am living in special interest housing now, unfortunately. That was a really nice dorm.</p>
<p>@milkandsugar</p>
<p>THANK YOU SO MUCH! That really helps. </p>
<p>It’s nice to know that I can get advice, just like everyone else on the NYU CC forum. <em>grin</em></p>
<p>MAP,</p>
<p>Well, you certainly sound like you qualify for the easiest way out, based on being super busy and with your hx of actually LOSING WEIGHT with the NYU meal plan. It may very well be convenience and lack of hassle above all else.</p>
<p>The reason why I inserted that “UNLESS YOU ARE GOING TO BE SUPER BUSY” is that I know all about being super busy. From the end of a professor (I retired from the profession recently), I realize that once the semester is in gear, you are just happy to have food, any food shoved in front of you (so long as you do not have to cook, shop or clean up!).</p>
<p>Well, it seems you are making clearer what is best for your own needs. Good luck with your decision and the best to you in the coming academic year!</p>
<p>milkandsugar,</p>
<p>Thanks for the feedback on Palladium. Just thinking ahead a little for sonny, though I am sure he will get a great idea from being a NYU student which dorm to request as an upperclassman. I know about the crazy driving in the Union Square area. It is one of my least favorite areas of NYC for driving, along with Times Square.</p>
<p>I agree, flexplan is the way to go. As was pointed out, the meals are cheaper if you get more. One way I looked at it was, what was the incremental cost/meal for the next plan up? I ended up getting D the highest flexplan her freshman year because the incremental cost of the next 50 or so meals was only $5/each. (She has blood sugar type issues, so I wanted to make sure she could eat whenever she wanted.) Flexplan is great. The last day of the school year (last year), Weinstein was about the last dining hall that was open. That last hour there were hoards of kids coming out with lots of to-go boxes, trying to use up their meals. They were running out of food, and some kids just ended up with apples.</p>
<p>Keep in mind that the dining halls are closed during breaks, even Thanksgiving break, so don’t count on using it if you stay after the last class or final. (Housing does stay open, thank goodness.) Also, you get about 3 weeks into the year to change your mind as far as the level of meal plan. So if you find you use the meal plan a lot (or not) during your first several weeks, you can always move up (or down). Two years ago the deadline to change was around September 12. And I believe you can change it for the 2nd semester.</p>
<p>^</p>
<p>i actually calculated the per meal cost of each plan, using 15 weeks semesters, and including dining dollars as 6 dollars a meal (which in introspective, was probably too optimistic). If my math wasn’t too off, the cheapest meal plan was actually the 14 meal per week, at a little over 8 dollars per meal. Surprisingly there didn’t actually seem to be a correlation between cheaper incremental meals and bigger meal plans.</p>
<p>I’m tempted to just eat quizno sub specials all day everyday for like 5 bucks each instead of the meal plan lol.</p>