Lunch: September 16, 2010: Croque Monsieur

Croque Monsieurs are a strange beast. Perhaps their subtle flavors aren't really suited to a cafeteria-style environment; especially when there's transport involved. At its best, I'm assuming a croque monsieur is a hot, crunchy, and slightly sweet variation on a grilled ham and cheese sandwich. The twist is that the bread is treated like French Toast—namely it is battered and fried. By all accounts it should be tasty.

By some accounts, it's passable, however.

THE LUNCH BREAKDOWN

• Croque Monsieur Sandwich with cream sauce topping
• Bowl of Potato Cream Soup
• Diet Coke

REVIEW

This is another one of those Walter Burke meals where the only true vegetable option is the salad bar. This isn't exactly part of the review, but I'd like to point that fact out. Potatoes (which were available roasted and seasoned) were the option, but I consider that more a starch, don't you?

Anyway, on to the food.

There's something not quite right with the croque monsieurs. They're entirely too sweet to balance out their ingredients, but one finds that sweetness tends to benefit a ham sandwich, especially when one looks at the Monte Cristo. Perhaps that is what the Walter Burke Croque Monsieurs are missing: they try very hard to strike a fine balance between the sweet and slightly eggy texture and flavor of the bread, and the savory fillings contained within. Perhaps if they favored one side more heavily—for instance, providing a berry puree with the sandwich, or removing some of the sugary elements from the batter—the sandwich would be more successful.

As it is, the croque monsieur serves the same purpose that french toast originally served, I assume—to revive stale bread. The original term for French Toast is pain perdu (lost bread), and that's what these sandwiches taste like. There's a certain stiffness to the bread that the batter can't quite overcome. Perhaps this is from the staleness of the bread, or maybe the long trip from the off-site kitchen to the cafeteria. Regardless, this aspect of the sandwich cannot be overlooked.


On the other hand, the potato cream soup is a delight. It's rich, fragrant, and is amazingly soothing to the stomach and palate. Notes of onion and cheese are present and they play together with the texture of the potato puree in a lovely manner.

The Diet Coke was, as always, Diet Coke.

SCORE (OUT OF 5): 3 (Average) (could've been 4.5 if I just had the soup)

Return of the Mobile Café

It's a new school year, and that brings with it new challenges and concerns.

We here at the Mobile Café will still review the food of Walter Burke Catering, but it must be said that this year there will be some slack.

Having to prepare food for 250 students is a lot more challenging than preparing for the 60-some-odd students last semester. Secondly, they still have no on-site kitchen. This doesn't allow them the opportunity to make as fresh of food as they desire.

Keeping that in mind, here is a list of things you will not see on this blog:

• Insensitive bitching
  This blog does not succumb to the simple criticism of "the food sucks." We will try our best to understand how and why the food succeeds and fails.
  
  
• Personal attacks
  From those of the staff that I've personally met, the employees of Walter Burke Catering are friendly and personable people. Some of them have made some mistakes, but this blog is about the food.

Starting soon, the regular reviews and features will return.

I thank you all for reading, and I hope you have many pleasant meals.

~The Customer from Hell

Thursday, April 15th Lunch: Nachos

Yet again, we are presented with Nachos.

It seems that Nachos present, in the eyes of every food service I have encountered, the "let's take it easy" day, concerning lunches.

Meal contents (For my meal):

• Tri-color tortilla chips
• "Queso fundito" (we'll get to this one in a bit)
• Black Beans
• Taco meat
• Sour cream
• Half-pint 2% milk
• Cookies (2): Chocolate Chip and Chocolate Chocolate Chip

Overview:

The concept of "queso fundito" is insulting to the students of the college, as well as anyone with sensible food tastes. I've heard many times that Walter Burke Catering goes out of their way to provide us with "fresh-made" food made with "real" ingredients. However, their take on traditional Mexican Queso Fundido provides little to no correlation with the reality of this dish.

Actual Queso Fundido:

















Walter Burke Catering's idea of "Queso Fundito"


















The most intense flavor in Walter Burke's cheese sauce is: Water. There's cheese, there's water, and there's intense bland. That's about as far as it goes.

Let us take the time to remember Bon Apetit, our former food providers. Members of WBC's staff consistently put themselves in a place over Bon Apetit, but we must examine and compare the food.

On nacho days at Bon Apetit (which were, to be honest, rather rare) we had a freshly prepared cheese sauce that was labeled as such: Cheese Sauce. They were honest about the ingredients and composition of the food. At Walter Burke, this is rarely the case. Have you ever noticed how most of the orangeish soups taste and smell exactly the same?

Because we rarely get any face time with the chefs responsible for the cuisine, they have no responsibility to us. We are a captive audience, and we must suffer their concoctions of wildly varying quality.

Anyway: on to the food.

Food Review

Par for the course, as far as Walter Burke nachos are concerned. Watery synthetic cheese sauce, underseasoned and bland beef, and pretty decent beans. I've always been a fan of their black beans, as I find it one their simplest preparations, for the most part. Later, I'll post my "Unified Theory of Food" and explain what it is I mean there. Overall, the meal was fair to poor. One decent element (and inoffensive tortilla chips) cannot make up for the lackluster quality of the meal in general.

The desert was fair. As far as their cookie preparation goes, it's fairly hit and miss. Today the cookies were palatable (the chocolate chocolate chip being the most pleasant, as the straight-up chocolate chip was a little undercooked and doughy).

OVERALL MEAL GRADE (OUT OF FIVE STARS): 1/5

~The Customer From Hell

Mission Statement

Hello, CSF Students, and welcome to The Mobile Café. This is the place to talk about Walter Burke Catering's food service at the College of Santa Fe.

As the service has no real forum for suggestions, complaints, or critique, I, The Customer From Hell, have set up this blog as a place for the students to comment on the food service. What do you like? What would you like to see? We hope to make this publicly known to the Walter Burke staff.

Features will include:

• Meal Reviews

Here, we'll take a look at specific meals. (If any vegetarians wish to contribute to the blog, contact me via the comments)

• Menu Overview and Analysis

We will examine and analyze the weekly menus provided by WBC.

• Highlights and Lowlights

A presentation of Walter Burke Catering does best, and what they do worst.

• Suggestions and Special Comments

Finally, this section will deal with possible meal suggestions from the bloggers and the students, as well as any other features we may think of.

Check back frequently for updates.


Sincerely,
The Customer From Hell