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!
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