Powered by collegiate dining juggernaut Bon Appetit, Stav Hall is perhaps best summed up by the phrase “hit or miss.” The variety of food the different lines bring to the table is certainly wide, but is any of it good?
Home line frequently steps up to plate with some serious culinary firepower, like the grilled cheese and tomato soup combo, for instance. But just as they seem to be on a hot streak, they unleash some major food felony, like their infamous grilled cod, which I believe is cooked with a hairdryer, and plummet their reputation once again. The burger line, despite their solid fries, suffers the same fate. The burger patties are forgivably vague flavorwise, but are in no way helped by the “buns,” hemispheres of sawdust that immediately convert into applesauce upon contact with any condiment.
The tortilla line and pasta line have solid options which are completely foiled by unhinged serving techniques. Instead of giving you burrito-sized portions, tortilla line unloads excavator-sized scoops onto the one-ply tortillas, which are about as effective at containing burritos as a fishnet. The pasta line has been operating with a pretty consistent four noodles to one gallon of sauce ratio throughout the last few years, and while I respect their culinary conservatism, being forced to use a submarine sonar to unearth the few scraps of carbohydrate submerged in the marinara trench that sits on my plate is suboptimal.
With options exhausted, we are left with the underdogs. The bowl line, for instance, has silently mastered the art of serving the same dish every day. Armed with about six total ingredients (chicken, pork, shrimp, rice, broccoli, and peppers), the bowl line creates the same meal, then assigns it the name of some well-known Asian dish (like beef and broccoli or pad thai), and hopes no one will catch on. On the off chance they bring out something special, like potstickers or orange chicken, they resort to allocating each person about 30 calories worth of food, and you wind up spending more energy sitting in line than you get from the food. Although this nourishing gruel is merely a heavily ingredient-and-flavor-starved version of the real dishes they seek to emulate, this consistency is in some ways a blessing. I can march into the bowl line every single day and get a reliable source of protein and vegetables without having to brave the salmonella minefields of the home and burger line or the galactic portions of the tortilla and pasta lines.
Finally, we arrive at the Oasis line. The food tastes good, portions are normal, and it is usually crowdless. While they habitually sabotage otherwise perfectly fine dishes with turbo-healthy nonsense like kale, it truly is the saving grace of Stav’s frequently barren dining experience — an aptly named Oasis.
