<p>hey guys, just wondering for anyone who knows, how is the food at carnegie mellon? I have heard conflicting reports about their food and just wanted some feedback.</p>
<p>Thanks</p>
<p>The meal plan is pretty outrageous. Make sure you get the minimum meal plan because they will always let you upgrade but will NOT let you downgrade.</p>
<p>There are like 10 places to eat, and out of those most people will like about 4 of them. Ginger's makes good sandwiches for lunch. Sequoia Grill makes burgers that aren't bad. And Taste of India isn't bad either.</p>
<p>The three "main" eating locations are Shatz (which is a buffet), Skibo, and the Underground (you place and pick up orders when they're ready at the last 2). I don't really eat at Shatz because I don't like the food. Skibo isn't bad, and it's open till 2am. The Quality of the underground is debatable.</p>
<p>Basically, the food isn't good, but it won't kill you either. If you live in an apartment, I highly recommend getting on the commuter plan (1 meal per day) and then cooking dinner or bagging lunch.</p>
<p>Unlike 99 % of the posters on this forum, I actually think Schatz food is quite good (or at least it was the last time I ate here, which was in 2005). One of the problems may be that menus at Schatz do not follow exactly the "ordinary American food" model, having more of an international/gourmet flavor (that's true BTW in other CMU locations as well). Since I don't particularly like plain American food , it was OK for my personal taste.</p>
<p>are there any chinese restaurant in CMU?</p>
<p>If there's Indian food and pizza my son will be happy.</p>
<p>Mathmom, your son will be happy! My freshman son thought the food was OK til he came home over winter break then decided it wasn't so great! These are all of the on-campus dining locations:</p>
<p>The food choices look fine to me. This kid is a picky eater, but he doesn't require variety and he's not that choosy. Both my boys fell in love with the pizza at Caltech - however I don't think anything is going to live up to it!</p>
<p>We visited Caltech's "cafeteria" and I don't think any other college anywhere can match what they were offering! Not even in the same universe as CMU.</p>
<p>Umm... Have you been to Cornell?</p>
<p>OMG! The food at Cornell will blow you away. And the ice cream.... :D</p>
<p>Lol Caltech is significantly smaller though, so that would make sense...</p>
<p>what about vegetarian options? i'm guessing if they have indian food most of it will be veggie..?</p>
<p>I was a pre-college at CMU, so I only have a sampling of restaurants but....</p>
<p>IT SUCKED. I thought I'd be okay. No. I spent 500 bucks on food alone over the course of 6 weeks, because the cafeteria sucked so much and we were only given 10 bucks a week for Skido (at the UC) and the Underground (under Moorewood).</p>
<p>CMU's food was ranked one of the worst on Princeton Review's list.</p>
<p>Just to throw that out there. Great school though!</p>
<p>We all got free soft serve on the Stanford tour since I kidded with our guide (hot day) and she got it OK'd with the cafeteria.</p>
<p>But CalTech had a very unique "food court" with fantastic options - can't remember the details now but do remember being highly impressed.</p>
<p>We didn't go to Cornell but WUSTL was pretty nice.</p>
<p>LOL a "best food" thread. There was a housing director in a temp position for part of this year - at Parent Orientation he said one of his goals was to get off Princeton Review's bad food list - don't think he made his goal!</p>
<p>Agreed CMU's food is not very good but there are plenty of options at least - it's like a giant food court scattered all over campus - you can pull up the menus to see details. I'm sure there are plenty of vegetarian options, not to mention at least one full salad bar in the University Center.</p>
<p>There is 'chinese food' on campus- Asiana in Newell-Simon has food that I think is neither Americanized nor authentic... just sucky. I'm still trying to sort out why they have some sort of yellow Indian-tasting curry. I know people who like it, though... There's also Bento Bowl in the UC, where they'll make you fresh, stir-fryed (overpriced more than usual) food, but usually it has no flavor, and just tastes like grilled (overpriced) vegetables on basmati rice or Uncle Ben's (no, I do not understand why they can't have Chinese/Japanese rice).</p>
<p>There exist vegetarian options, and CMU is trying to exapnd them.</p>
<p>My complaint with Schatz is not that they have food with an 'international flair', but that they try to and do a pretty bad job of it. It still tastes like cafeteria glop, just with a little bit more spice or something. They also tend to run out of things because they don't make enough because no one wants to eat there. Their weekend brunches are pretty good, though.</p>
<p>I have a good number of Taiwanese friends here at CMU... for Asiana, a lot of them say it's "okay" or "not bad" whilest a lot of my non-asian friends hate it... to each his/her own. Asiana actually uses rice cooker rice, unlike Bento Bowl (Uncle Ben's rice... ew), although I have definitely tasted better rice cooker rice. And they have a tendency to drown everything in sauce, so if you hate that (I do) it's best to ask for rice on the side :P</p>
<p>So, i don't need to worry there's no rice to eat in cmu.
I LOVE RICE~~~</p>
<p>
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But CalTech had a very unique "food court" with fantastic options - can't remember the details now but do remember being highly impressed.
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</p>
<p>I don't remember all the details either. But my boys had the pizza and it was incredible. I had grilled salmon cooked to order and as I asked for it (rare). There was Mongolian stir fry where you pick the ingredients and they fry them up for you. And there was some sort of make your own taco. I was also amused to see cold cereal by the checkouts. May have been some other choices too. You could eat in or take the food out - a number of kids were eating outside and when we toured a dorm there was a group lunching in one of the common spaces.</p>
<p>The food varies. I found that the majority of it was pretty unsavory and borderline edible. Avoid the Carnegie Mellon Cafe at all costs, the only food edible was french fries and pre-packaged ice-cream sandwiches.
We found Asiana to be quite all right, comparing against the other food places, agreement about drowning in sauce though. We found volume good for its price. Taste of India is good but SPICY (for me at least) curry. They had a vegetarian option there. The rice was nicely Indian-esque and it was also a frequent lunch place. </p>
<p>I spent six weeks at CMU (summer program). Essentially, the food is PRETTY BAD. Get the lowest available mealplan. It doesn't seem to be worth it. Eating out was a pretty neat exploration of Pittsburgh and CMU's surrounding areas. Some places were cheaper but the majority cost a decent amount. </p>
<p>Hope this helps.</p>
<p>the food here is really not bad. i just visited yesterday. the only bad thing is some of the food is really greesy.</p>
<p>There was sushi! (But I didn't try it, having had too much recently.) I thought having so many choices, so scattered around the campus makes eating a very different experience than it would be at most of the other places my son applied to.</p>