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Monday, December 23, 2013

Sweet teeth--Easy homemade Nougat with Marshmallow

How to make chewy Nougat with marshmallow at home--Super easy version!


I read about this recipe long ago but didn't have chance to try it out. Here comes the holiday season and how wonderful It would be if I can make some holiday themed candy for my friends? Then I instantly think about this recipe. Not only because it is super easy, but also I really missed the Nougat so I can have some "chef treat" from the edges and ends. Let's do that!

Basic formula:
Unsalted butter: 30g
Original mini marshmallow: 150g
Pinch of salt
Fat free dry milk : 90-100g (depends on how soft you want your nougat and what additive you have. And, supermarket brand preferred rather than Nestle, I will explain later. )

You can make endless flavor combinations or design developed from here. This time, to make it holiday theme, I made 3 color/flavor nougat:
Red/white: Cranberry peppermint crunch
Green: Matcha(green tea) peanut
Brown: Mocha pecan

Let's go over the ingredients one by one:
No matter what flavor you make, the butter, marshmallow and salt won't change.


For Red: 
Dry milk: 90g,
Cherry infused dry cranberry 60g (divided to 40+20g. 40g chopped for mixing into the nougat and 20g slightly chopped for topping)
Mini Peppermint sugar cane: 10*, chopped into small pieces

For green:
Dry milk: 80g
Matcha powder: 8g (I bought this in China because it is not so easily found in the U.S.. But I found some online in ebay. also on Nuts.com. The pure powder is quite pricy but the pre-made matcha tea mix also works. So you can use this Matcha tea mix or similar kinds you can bought in Asian/international grocery store)
Peanuts: 80g, toasted and chopped into small crunch

For Brown:
Dry milk: 75g
Coffee grinds: 8g (instant coffee also works)
Cocoa powder: 5g (natural or dutch processed both works)
Pecan: 80g, toasted and chopped into small crunch)


Steps:
You will need a non-stick small skillet pan, a rubber spatula, two pieces of parchment paper, a rolling pin and a knife.

1. In the pan, heat up the butter until just melted

2. Pour in the mini marshmallow and adjust the heat level to medium at the same time, stir and stir until they  are coated with butter. After a couple of minutes, you will observe that the small "puffs" begin to swell.

3. You don't need to wait until every thing is completely melted, just when there is no obvious chunk of "puffs", pour in all of the rest ingredients. Adjust the heat to low and stir quickly.

4.  When there is no obvious milk powder and it will form to play dough-like consistency with a shining appearance. You may need to lift the pan off the heat during the stirring process if you see some crystal like trace on the surface of the dough or there is too much add-in which cost too long to mix. Those are area that lost too much moist and will make the candy over chewy even hard after cooled down. So we don't want it to be heated too long. 

5. Pour the dough onto a parchment paper, cover it with another paper. Roll the dough out with the rolling pin to about 1/4 inch (about 1cm) thick.

5b. For the red or any kinds that you want to put some decorations on top, sprinkle them now and re-roll the top after covered with the parchment paper to "press" down those toppings.

6. Wait for about 10-15min until the dough cooled down to just a little warm. Use the knife to cut into square/rectangular/diamond shape as you like.

7. Further cool them down and store them into jars or Ziploc bags. They will last for weeks but since the nuts tend to become rancid. Don't wait too long. (I am sure you will eat them up before that happened because they are so so delicious!)


Notes:
1. Like I said before that the milk powder is adjustable depending on how chewy you want your nougat. The amount I provided here is on soft side. So they tend to stick together while storage(not solid sticky, just adhere together but still take no efforts to separate them apart). You can add a little bit more milk powder to make them hold their shape better.
2. I mentioned before I preferred supermarket brand rather than Nestle/Carnation milk powder. Because I found the supermarket brand has some bigger powder clusters rather than just super fine powder. This really give the nougat another layer of texture. Slightly crunchy with burst of milky flavor. Yum!
3. There are endless flavor combinations: except for nuts and dry fruits that you can go wild, for flavoring/coloring part. you can choose coconut powder, cocoa powder,  fruit juice powder. Just remember if you add powdered form additive. Decrease some of the milk powder to make sure it's not over chewy. Also I suggest not to go too crazy about powder form additive because the milky flavor is till critical for this candy.
A lonely nougat...

So, Merry Christmas and happy new year everybody!
Have fun!




Wednesday, December 18, 2013

INdulgent Nonweekend special --Siam Square

INdulgent Nonweekend special --Siam Square 

One of my best friend in collage came to Indy to visit me earlier this week. Happiest day recently! We were all born in Beijing. 
She is now studying in the University of Rochester and she showed so much jealous for "City-feeling" here. It was funny that when we compared several cities, Indy actually did a pretty good job in nearly every way. At least very balanced. From public area maintenance to traffic regulation, from not huge but pretty sufficient grocery shopping choices to high quality dinning selections. I feel more and more satisfied for Indy recently. Maybe I started to have the feeling of belonging here...

Ok, back to the topic. After discussion, we decided to give Siam square a try since she didn't quite have Thai in the U.S. before and it was also a good chance to have a night tour around downtown. BTW, Siam Square is located in Fountain square area, so a little southeastern of downtown.
So here we come!

First of all, except for several pepper/chili based dishes like green curry that I am going to mention later, most of their dishes have spiciness choice: mild(not spicy), medium(default), hot(a small dab of Thai red chili paste), Thai hot(a big dab of Thai red chili paste). Based on my feel, the "medium" is not spicy enough for a spicy lover. But reasonable as a "spicy dish". The "Hot" is just right for spicy lover. "Thai hot"...is...really spicy! But basically the secret is just the red chili paste and you can adjust to taste.

We ordered a Thom Yum (冬阴功) soup which is a featured sour spicy soup in Thai cuisine. If the restaurant can nail down Thom Yum, it passed the very basic test. 

First impression, there are not so many things in it. Compare with the price ($9.5 for a bowl, maybe 3-4 serves), maybe not that valuable. The flavor is ok. Not as complex and sophisticate as the one I had in Beijing. But still relatively refreshing and Thai-like. It just passed I guess..as fair..LOL

We also ordered an appetizer called Chicken Satay ($6.5) which basically has 5 chicken skewers marinated with Thai spices, fried and paired with peanut butter sauce and a pickled cucumber sauce. Sorry I didn't have the sauce picture here.

This tastes really pleasant. The skewer and both of the sauce. Maybe a little bit over sweet? But still within acceptable range. The good thing is it's not heavy at all and the chicken meat (I think they use tenderloin rather than just breast meat which is good!) is quite tender and juicy.

Then comes the entree. My friend ordered the Drunken noodle ($11.95+2 for shrimp) which is suggested by the waitress and I also read about this online a lot. Basically it is tomato-basil intensified Pad Thai. But with really wide rice noodles rather than linguine-type rice noodles (Of course the type of noodle used in Pad Thai depends on restaurant).

It looks really appealing from the appearance, and it also tastes pretty good. Again, maybe a little over sweet. The basil is regular basil rather than Thai basil. Maybe they want to show friendliness to Americans. The sauce is rich but not heavy. The ingredients are quite generous and shrimp is also good.

I ordered the Green curry with tofu ($12.95). For some reason I fell in love with green curry and tofu recently.
It is a coconut milk based soupy dish with bamboo shoot, green beans, basil and green eggplant. It comes with a bowl of steamed jasmine rice.

There are not so many ingredients either, but the soup is quite rich (again, good thing is it's not heavy) so it's ok for portion size consideration. The best serving way is to soak the rice with soup. So delightful!  

Dessert! Dessert! Dessert!
We ordered Thai ice cream with sweet rice ($6. Taro flavor ice cream this time) . They also have coconut and mango choices. 
The purple is kind of too drama because typically Taro flavored stuff is just a tinted purple in my mind. But it is impressive that I can tell this is house-made ice cream because there is still little taro chunks in it! The sweet rice is soaked in coconut milk balanced with slightly saltiness.  Great thumb up for this dish! 

I found it's a little difficult at first to explain the plant Taro to the westerns. It's a root vegetable with the size similar to butternut squash (also varied from 6-inch to 10-inch length-wise). The cooking and eating way is quite similar to sweet potato. So it can go savory or sweet. But it doesn't have strong flavor itself other than really subtle aroma and sweetness. After boiling/steaming, the texture is creamy and starchy just like Russet potato. 
Taro is quite popular as a vegetable in southwestern China and Southeastern Asia. Taro is also a popular flavor all over china and Asia. There is actually mashed Taro in Asian cuisine. And I had Taro flavored ice cream since I was really little and it reminds me of my childhood a lot.
 

The plant Taro!You can buy them in international/Asian grocery store like SARAGA, Asian mart and Viet-Hua market if you are in Indy area. Most of them sell it as fresh produce version (shown in the picture), peeled and vacuumed bag version or frozen version. I preferred vacuumed version.



The ice cream I had since I was really little! Miss it so much....But see the light purple color?


As a summary, Siam Square is a good choice for American Thai. The ingredients and flavor are great. The environment and service is good. A little sweet for Asian taste bud but who doesn't like reasonable sweet?


Talking about Thai restaurants in Indy, actually I tried several ones and here is my ranking list:

1. Thai Spice: 2220 E County Line Rd, Greenwood.
2. Sawasdee: 1222 W 86th St, Indianapolis
3. Thai Taste: 5353 E 82nd St, Indianapolis
4. Siam Square: 936 Virginia Ave (Sorry for putting this far behind because it's still American in my mind)


Another fun fact is: if you pay enough attention to dinning news around downtown area. There is a new contemporary-style Vietnam Sandwich shop called Rook in fountain square area. I visited there when it just opened earlier this year. It is a really artistic place with pretty affordable great taste food. Although Americanize Vietnamese, still definitely worth visiting! I probably will post another review for Rook.

And the point is: I found the Rook and Siam Square actually have the same owner! And their locations are just across the street...



Wednesday, December 11, 2013

INdulgent weekend--Barcelona Tapas

INdulgent weekend--Sunday Brunch in Barcelona Tapas  Downtown Indianapolis


Last Sunday, I went to Barcelona Tapas in downtown Indy with my roommate. This is the Official Site and the regular Full menu which is available Monday through Sunday for lunch and dinner except for Sunday lunch (which is the Sunday Brunch we went to this time). For weekdays, it also has lunch buffet for $9.95.

It was a snowy day and there were not whole lot of people in the lobby. It was called Sangria Sunday brunch, so there must be SANGRIA!!! This is included in the price and they have options for red and white. The waitress told me the red one is less sweet so I went for this! 

Red Sangria: Pretty good taste! 
With a bunch of cubed fruits like apple, orange, mellon and grape fruit. 

Now for the main dish! They have 4 made-to-order choices and they are all Spanish style: 
French toast, Omelet, Egg benedict and Specials (this time is the Savory and Sweet pancake).
I was attracted by the description of the Omelet and Egg benedict, so here they are! 


Spanish Omelet: 
Bacon, Ham, Chorizo, Grilled red pepper, mushroom, onion, spinach, tomato, Manchego cheese
The egg is a little crispy instead of soft/cloud texture in french style omelet but I like this a lot! The filling slightly reminds me of a Chinese stir-fry type dish but pretty mellow and balance. The cheese is not over-loaded, just the right amount of richness. The chorizo is definitely the star shining here with a good smoky chewy bite. Thumb up! 


Spanish Egg Benedict:
The egg cooked perfectly! The hollandaise sauce is average, has a little spiced flavor but very subtle. Instead of the traditional Canadian bacon, this one has a somewhat softer version chorizo which tastes like smoked sausage. And the English muffin is standard. All in all, this is not as shining as the omelet but still, they did a pretty good job!


Then comes the buffet part! So excited because there are a lot of options:

The cold/salad section which included: spiced candy nuts, coleslaw, potato salad, cottage cheese, green salads, Dried figs/Dates, Green Olives, et, al.
This is my favorite: Curry chicken salad


The warm/main dish section which included: classic American's like 


Spanish classics: Bean stew with Chorizo, Chicken Paella
These two are really delicious, make sure you try them if you come!


Spanish breakfast choicesEmpanada, Fritata
The Empanada is good but the Fritata is a little bit salty.


The Cheese plate with cured meat: This is succinct yet really high quality. I am not a pro in cured meat but the cheese is amazing. Freshly cut and mellow aroma. Not too strong, not too shallow, just right!

The far left is the Tortilla Espanola which is also really good!
(if you are a newbie to Spanish cuisine, this is a classic dish in Spain. It is made by layering sliced potato and some veggies/a few meat choice in the iron pan, then pouring in beaten egg mixed with extra spices like paprika plus S&P to cook on stove top. This is also sometimes called Spanish potato pancake)

Meaty corner! Slow roasted top round beef, sorted aioli and salmon sashimi?
The beef taste fantastic! The salmon is a little disappointed. I don't know whether it is supposed to be like this or I missed something, but firstly it is room temperature even a little warm probably because of the bulb. So it ends up to be really greasy. A pretty presentation though. So I probably would recommend putting it by the cold section instead of here. 
BTW, the staff here taking charge of slicing the meat, is super friendly! 



The dessert/pastry section: Sorted fruits, Tres Leche cake, Blueberry muffin and.... 

Jam stuffed Churros!!

I am quite satisfied with the sweet table here. Everything has a really good flavor and high quality over all! 
And this is the first time I tasted a restaurant Tres leche cake. I know it is a really rich cake because the method required soaking the cake in a mixture of sweetened condensed milk, evaporated milk and milk (3 diary, Tres leche). But surprisingly, the cake is not overly sweet and milky. It is kind of refresh and have superior moist texture. (Well, that is the reason of soaking...Duh...) But anyways, it is really worth trying!

So, as a summary:
Environment: 5 
Selection: 5
Food: 5
This is definitely a 5 star choice for overall rating. Of course it is a little pricy but I think I will visit back occasionally.  
















Saturday, December 7, 2013

Dare Connoisseur--Japanese Instant noodle

Dare Connoisseur--Myojo Ippei-Chan Yakisoba Japanese Style Noodles


Today, I am very excited to share this item with you which is a Japanese style instant noodles. I accidentally found this "Ramen Rater" guy who did over 1000 instant noodle reviews from all over the world and generate not only "Big List" which is a dynamic ranking list including all of the noodles he tried but also "Top Ten List" which gives a quick start to some good noodles in different categories.

This Myojo Ippei-Chan Yakisoba noodles is #6 in 2013 top ten list. (The original review). And I was attracted initially by the name which literally means "the late night eating diner in a place called Ippei-chan?" I guess...And "Yakisoba" means both a noodle cooking style and the sauce for this type of noodle dish. (Plus the bold design of the wrap! Thumb up!)

Firstly with some fundamental info:

Available shops (Indianapolis, IN): SARAGA international market, Viet Hua Asian market
Flavors choice: This dark sauce version, and a lighter version which is called "Oriental flavor" (I will show the picture at last.)
Price: $2.99 (Kind of expensive...)
Weight: 135g
Calories: 600

The Ingredients list:

I assume you are generally familiar with instant noodle types. If not, they are basically divided into 3 main categories: Steep (doesn't need cooking on stove top, just pour boiling water and soak for several minutes); Boil (require short stove top cooking, similar to quick pasta) and Dry-stir (variation of steep/boil type but ask for draining the excess water after steeping/cooking, then add the flavoring stuff)

So let's begin!
This is a "dry-stir" steep type instant noodles in a foam tray. 
When I unwrapped the plastic paper, look how Japanese this is! Neat graphic design with clear instruction.  


Peel off one corner, there are 4 packets inside: 
dry vegetable, spice, sauce and mustard mayonnaise. 


Add the dry veggie (As the ingredient list mentioned, it's all cabbage, looked pretty high quality though), pour in the boiling water and close the lid! 


Wait for 3 min...It's time to drain the excess water.


I really like this considerate design of the drain outlet! 
The mesh will prevent noodles and veggies from leaking out.
I add the spice which contained a lot of dried seaweed, sauce which is mainly Worcester sauce and vegetable oil, and the mustard mayonnaise (Pretty standard one. And I only add about 1/3 of the mayo, so don't feel bummed about the tiny portion of mayo showed here. ) 


Stir and Stir!


Here is the finish vision of the noodles. 
I am sorry I happened to hide all of the cabbage, it's actually pretty generous amount.

Analysis in depth:

First of all, this is quite a large portion size instant noodles and actually based on the nutrition fact list, 40% of the calories are from fat. When tasting it especially with the extra boost from the Mustard Mayo which I do feel it is on "rich" side generally. 

But, it has a quite balanced flavor of salty, smoky, sweet, mustard tangy, umami from Teriyaki-type flavored sauce, seaweed scent spice (I think it has black pepper and ginger powder at least. But it only vaguely marked as "spices" in ingredients list.) and the mayo. I think I would give a big thumb up for this one comparing to other "average instant noodles". 

Actually I think seaweed is one secret ingredient in nearly all of the Japanese cuisine for it lending the umami flavor which is basically makes food taste better and mellower. This is also a good idea for our daily life cooking! For example, making meat balls, fried rice/noodle, soup and even bread and savory cake.

For the noodle itself, it's not that stand out but still in really high quality side. As the ingredients showed, it has hydrolyzed protein from some fish which is kinda unique and interesting. This might be the reason for its little chewy texture. Not the gluten-type chewy but meaty chewy. I enjoy it very much!

The cabbage is really good as well! After steeping, they all unwrap and re-hydrate pretty well. They didn't lend a lot flavor but definitely good texture!    

The only little thing that didn't mingle quite smooth is the gingery flavor from the spice. Maybe it means to provide the warmth, but I think maybe should be a little milder.

Summary at a glance:

Overall value: 4.5 stars
Flavor/taste: 5 stars
Worth of the money: 4 stars
Highlight: The Mustard Mayo is definitely the super star here! It gave this Japanese noodle a western swirl and matched really well!
Bottom line: I would buy it again.

At last, the other flavor:
This looks pretty good as well, maybe I will try it sometime in the future

Last of the last: I highly recommend the SARAGA international market. The first one opened in Bloomington, IN. After the big success, the owner opened another two in Indy. One in 38th street and one in near south. (I recommend the 38th street one. Bigger and better) 
It looks shabby at first sight and some of the products are indeed shabby...But, but, there are definitely some hidden gems and not to mention some hard-to-find ingredients if you are a "dare foodies" or "homesick-er in food "like me! LOL...I will have other bizarre reviews of stuffs I bought from here in near future. So stay tuned!

Hope you give this noodles and the market a try. Have fun searching!
  

Sunday, November 24, 2013

Holiday special--Cranpeapple sauce




Cranberry is called the ruby of north America. Not only because of its shining crystal red color, but also for its rich nutrition. Ocean spray has a lot of info on their products wrap, so I would rather not bother babbling all of those commercial cliche. But anyway, cranberry is good for your health and also, given the sourness, it's a good "kick" for those palate who are spoiled by those over-sweet American dessert.

Today, I will share with you my own cranberry sauce recipe which is mingled with a touch of apple and pear. This combination gives the sauce a more creamy texture, and mellow aroma. The most important thing is I can decreased the sugar in half compare to traditional recipe but still get a reasonable sweetness. If you are concerned about the 'jamming' reaction which calls certain amount of sugar to extract enough pectin, by no means add more sugar please. But since it's called "SAUCE" instead of jam...You know what I mean:)


Materials:

1 medium pear (any kind)

1 medium apple (any kind)

1 12oz cranberry

0.5 cup sugar in the raw (or to taste)

0.5 teaspoon pie spice mix (mainly cinnamon, ginger and nutmeg)


A few words before the steps:

For apple kind, I recommend aromatic variety like Jonathon, Jonagold or Gala (at least not Granny smith, I also not recommend Fuji) because the texture here is not important, all I need is the fragrant scent and "apple sauce-like" creaminess from the apple. So it would take too long to cook those too crisp apples but with no bonus to the flavor at all.

For sugar kind, I used sugar in the raw because it is a medium browned sugar. So it has a slight caramel taste in it which matched really well with the pie spice. This will give the whole sauce a more warm and mellow overall taste note.


Steps:

Peel and core the apple and pear, cut into small chunks;

Rinse the cranberry under tap water briefly;


Add around half cup of water into a sauce pan, pour everything into the pan, stir and stir;


Bring to a boil and then turn down into low heat and simmer for about 15min with the lid covered.


You may need to add a little more water in between until get the desired consistency.

When it reaches a relatively consistent texture with no obvious apple/pear chunks, it's done and you can store them in jar, Pyrex or any kind of glass/ceramic container. The acid in the sauce is too harsh for metal. As for plastic ware, they are too low-end OK?




NOTE: The cranberry will "pop" while the heat going on, when the sauce is getting thicker, it also tends to splash. These two things can be extremely dangerous. So be careful, always keep the lid around you or just cover the pan as a shield.


The sauce has the most gorgeous reddish color I have ever seen in the world! Also, my recipe is kind of tart, so taste it before done, if it is too sour for you, add another tablespoon of sugar.



Have fun! Let me know what do you think and happy holiday season!


Saturday, November 23, 2013

Visiting the new FANCY dining place in IUPUI--INdulgent weekend

Tower Dining--Visiting the new dining place in IUPUI

Finally!!! I am very glad to share with you this new dining place in my campus in IUPUI called "Tower dining". I heard about this on a student activity meeting earlier this semester and the rumor said it was pretty GOOD. And here I come! 

It features "all you care to eat" buffet type service. I think the price is relatively reasonable. 
$6.49 for breakfast and LATE NIGHT. (This is kind of impressive! So they opened until 11pm during week days which would good to have a little fuel-up after hard studying)
$7.49 for lunch, dinner and BRUNCH. (This is also kind of interesting! Maybe I will try that out sometime in the future.)
Here is the link for the "Official information" and their "Weekly menu". 

I came this Friday for dinner around 6:30pm. So $7.49.
Here starts the trip!

The atmosphere and environment:

It was definitely decorated towards contemporary and modern feel. Instead of just arranging lines, rows of single kind of dining furniture, there are lots of "sub-area" with different decorations and types of chairs. Here are some examples:
This type of chair is really comfy! But maybe a little showy because there is no table...



I like the ceiling design because I will show you later that here is also where the fresh salads located. So pretty match the "colorful variety of choices" theme around here.

The overall lighting is OK but I probably would prefer just a little bit brighter.

There were not so many dinners this time so it didn't feel crowded but the table spaces is quite spacious anyway.

Overall rating for the environment: 4.5 stars!

The choices/menu selection: 

There are basically 5 parts:

Fresh market: Greens (mainly salads)
The kitchen: routinely changed everyday and every meal based on the menu. Mainly variety of American, Mexican, European et al. 
Baker's Crust: traditional American meal including burger and pizza. Minor changes.
Eat, Learn and Live:  routinely changed based on the menu. Mainly stir fry or grill style like Mongolian beef, Greek Gyro type stuff
Pantry: all day long "breakfast" choices including bagels, sandwich breads, cereal, milk, juice, coffee and ICE CREAM with cone (not waffle, just "card board type")! 

The Pantry and Baker's Crust will open all day long with only small changes; 
Eat, Learn and Live will provide special breakfast, lunch and dinner also based on the menu;
The other 2 will only open for lunch and dinner.

Some snapshots:
First comes the greens:

There are lots lots of salads items in fresh market to choose from which is great!

Then, the traditional parts:



Baker's Crust is not so impressive if multiple choices for Burger could count...And i am surprised that this section will open all day long especially LATE NIGHT which means if you study hard late and came here with full of craving and hope. Except for a super early "breakfast", all you can choose is burger and pizza...Be healthier please...

(Sorry I didn't have time to take pictures of the Kitchen because they closed toward 7pm and I arrived pretty late this time. But basically nothing really special. This time they had a taco bar with some grilled veggies.) 

Eat, Learn and Live:


Stir fry type section! Looks pretty good and delicious!

The last but not least, Pantry!
There is also several jars of bagels which I didn't have pictures here.


See that toaster there? I hear they will also have INN type waffle in the morning.



The choices are plenty but I have to say remember to toast your bread because they are dry out. Probably because it was nearly the end of the day.

Overall rating for the selection: 4 stars

The food:

Smart me...when I finished taking pictures, other than the pantry and pizza, everything else were closed. So I paid the dinner price but got a LATE NIGHT food (although I did get some salads)...Anyway...
Other than the ice cream, everything else were still pretty "cafeteria". Not so impressive. I can clearly tell the ingredients are exactly the same from Reliy and Simon cancer center. Just a little bit more choices. 

Also, I found it's interesting since I volunteered twice at hospitality position for national swimming championship contest last and this year (in the Natatorium). The bagels tastes exactly the same (I can even tell the brand!) which means the whole mass scale catering system in IUPUI is the same one. I guess it's for economic consideration which is understandable.

Overall rating for the food: 3.5 stars

Other observations:

Since they advocate this dining place with an "all you care to eat" theme. They do have healthy flyers stick everywhere and nutrition fact for every dish. They also have a pretty cool dirty dishes recycling window.

These little considerations win me back maybe 0.5 stars maybe from... the food part.

So, as a summary:
Environment: 4.5 
Selection: 4
Food: 3.5
Others: 4.5
I would give them 4 for overall rating. 

Buzzing afterwards:
When I first heard about this place, I was quite excited and full of hope that this may be a pioneer for an upscale, healthy yet reasonable priced dinning choice in a school context. I am not very disappointed but I guess it's still a "cafeteria" and how fantastic you can expect from a cafeteria? 
But listen Jaguars, this place is still really cool and worth checking out!

Leave comments please if you have any thoughts or tried their breakfast and brunch!