Pope Student Center Dining Hall

A hole for the rapture and seats for hungry students, Pope Dining Hall in Dalton University sure serves some good American classics


Ever wonder to yourself why the Freshman 15 happens? Because of wonderful cafeterias like this one, located in the Pope Student Center in Dalton State College, North Georgia. Who says American food is just food stolen from other cultures? Not Pope.

Atmosphere:

First off. This building sits on an air isthmus, embedded in a one story hill with 3/4 of its sides 10 feet in the air, inaccessible except to Spiderman or Alex Honnold (first solo-climber of El Capitan!), which sort of symbolically sets up its quality. It raises college food to a new level entirely!
The air inside is clear, with good natural and artificial lighting. 3/4 of the walls are floor to ceiling windows, and the roofs are very tall and made of some kind of dimpled concrete, if it were the dimples of a giant. A huge vertical porthole, or skylight, illuminated the middle of this very fresh ground. Very clean looking carpet (questionable and controversial choice, by the way. Seems dangerous (prone to spills (I didn’t mean dangerous as in harmful to health))) and open air environments made it a fun place to just chill in, even if you didn’t feel like stuffing your face with glorious food at that moment. There was a Think big Panera bread, but good and free.

Actual Food:

First off. TWO freestyle machines. Most restaurants only have one, and this place has TWO. Count em, boys. DOS. It was a miracle. Side note: I’ve always wanted to try soda+cereal when freestyle machines are available beside cereal at breakfast areas, but I’ve never been brave enough. There is also chocolate milk, which was like the time derivative of Coco puff milk. I’ve eaten every meal there in terms of tier. Breakfast is usually eggs and bacon and sausage. Biscuits and gravy for the good people. Once my mom went to my church breakfast, got some gravy in a bowl, and started eating it straight. Lovely woman.
Fries looked beautifully sodium-packed. So well fried that they didn’t seep oil, but they still tasted good. The outside was crackly, the tiniest bit structured and crunchy, with a soft starchy inside. The length variety was also important. The short ones were obviously crunchy, but not hard, and not burnt tasting. Everything was very perfect.
Dinner and Lunch are the same, I am about to conflate them. Boom. Dunch. American Dunch, as it happens. It was any option, as long as you wanted burgers, salad, chicken fingers, or personal pizza. And honestly it was amazing. The pizza was enough for a meal, and was standard pizza. No skimping on cheese or pepperoni. The burgers were any of turkey, beef, or black bean. HEAVENLY. Black bean burgers here tasted so so so so so so good. I had it with bacon because I don’t think anyone’s ever ordered a black bean burger with bacon because that would be a sorta anti-vegetarian ingredient along with the veggie burger so I was just trying to be edgy. My order could be abbreviated the BBBB (Black Bean Burger with Bacon), now that I think about it. The beef was a professional, Cheesecake Factory burger level of juiciness. Absolutely phenomenal cooks. They were also there everyday, so I got tight with them. They were super nice and lively! Most workers don’t use energy on their jobs, but these looked like they put in WORK. Anyway. Good selection of burger toppings, everything made to order and buns toasted and toasty.
Dinner usually came with dessert. Once was chocolate cake, once was ice cream. The cake looked picturesque, but was so dry that even the icing couldn’t save it. The ice cream was normal ice cream, but they had hot fudge and caramel. I was very impressed with their quality dessert station.
The only issue I had was the repetitiveness. Sure, your burgers make me want to induce vomiting just so I can order and eat another one, but do I want that every day? The limited options kept me in a very American food cage. A few more weeks of this and, my cholesterol levels would be undefeatable.


Rating:

89/90 BBBBs. An absolutely amazing staff cooking equally phenomenally American food in a beautiful space is hampered only by the tiny but fantastic selection.

Comments

  1. AnonymousAugust 24, 2017 at 12:21 PM

    Because you put your rating in a lighter font, people don't see it as easily and assume it's not meant to be read

    ReplyDelete

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