Visitors to our esteemed site may have noticed that our Points Calculator was MIA for months and months. It was therefore been very difficult for us all to budget considering a typical Swings meal costs the same amount as an upscale restaurant. But the time for change has come at last.
This is an updated repost of michelle’s repost of sophie’s repost of maya‘s repost. Please note: this is by no means an exhaustive list of eating options in Middletown, as this perfunctory Yelp search will show you. Feel free to add your own recommendations in the comments!
This is part of our 2021 Unofficial Orientation Series. A quick reminder that you can check out the welcome post here and past years’ series here.
Middletown has so many fantastic dining options that at first you might feel like this turtle: faced with an almost insurmountable mountain of deliciousness. Much like the above turtle, though, you’ve got to start somewhere. We’re here to give you a head start.
From coffee-shop casual to awkward-family-dinner upscale, there’s food in Middletown for every occasion. This is our guide to some of the best places to eat in town. Prices are on a $ to $$$ scale. Also worth noting is that a lot of Middletown restaurants accept Middletown Cash, so save up some of that laundry money for your dining excursions. Wesleyan also provides a nifty guide to restaurants in and around Middletown, if you need more guidance (though theirs doesn’t come with student feedback and that special Wesleying flair)! Read all of our food list after the jump!
This post is an updated version of Sam’s update which was an updated version of wilk’s Eating and Drinking orientation article.
This is part of our 2021 Unofficial Orientation Series. A quick reminder that you can check out the welcome post here and past years’ series here.
Eating and drinking is a necessity for all living beings, even during your hazy college days. While we all have to adjust our food standards from delicious home-cooked meals to university food, trust me, it could be worse. This year Wesleyan is ranked #15(we were demoted from #7, sad) in college food on Niche out of all the colleges in the U.S. so you know it’s going to be good. Wes has many options for dining that you can enjoy regardless of your dietary orientation. We’re even ranked #2 by One Green Planet for Most Vegan-Friendly Colleges. There’s a plethora of awesome vegan food and our friends at the Mongolian Grill are always willing to cook up a chicken tortilla topped with cheese if it’s protein that you want.
This is the part of the orientation series where we remind you to eat your veggies.
The Contenders
College is the time in your life for shit food. You’re in a place where you can’t really cook for yourself, but you also don’t have anyone there to cook for you anymore. But just because you have to eat shit food doesn’t mean you don’t deserve the best shit food. And that, dear reader, is where I come in. For your sake, I have taken on the burden of trying all of Weshop’s microwavable mac and cheese cups to definitively determine which one is the best. I chose this specific combination of salt and carbs because it’s one of my favorite shit food options, and what is a more quintessential college food that microwave mac and cheese? (Yes, I know, RAMEN, but if I tried every ramen option at Weshop I would have a heart attack and die from all the sodium so I’m not doing that. Yet.) Each mac will cooked and tasted, then rated via the following criteria:
Ease of Preparation: How many steps are involved in cooking it, and how difficult is it? Could you make it while inebriated?
Mouthfeel: How is the pasta texture? Does the sauce have a good consistency?
Cheesiness: This one doesn’t need much explanation
Bang for yer Buck: Does it feel like you’re getting a full meal out of this cup? Is the Weshop price reasonable for what you get?
General Vibes: Just the feeling I’m getting from it, y’know?
In the end, only one will reign supreme. But who will it be? The answer lies under the cut.
It’s fall and you know what that means: Pumpkin Fest!
FREE and open to the public!
Grab your friends and family and join us at Long Lane Farm’s annual Pumpkin Fest, Saturday, October 13, 2018, from noon to 4 pm! Featuring live student bands, farm tours, crafts, baked goods for sale, a pie-eating contest, vendors & student groups, FREE veggie burgers and cider, and much more!
Visit wesleyan.edu/coe for more info. Sponsored by Long Lane Farm, the College of the Environment and Bon Appetit.
Rain date: Sunday, October 14, noon to 4 p.m.
Date: Saturday, October 13
Time: 12:00 PM-4:00 PM
Place: Long Lane Farm
Facebook Event
This is an updated repost of sophie’s repost of maya‘s repost. Please note: this is by no means an exhaustive list of eating options in Middletown, as this perfunctory Yelp search will show you. Feel free to add your own recommendations in the comments!
This is part of our 2018 Unofficial Orientation Series. A quick reminder that you can check out the welcome post here and past years’ series here.
Middletown has so many fantastic dining options that at first you might feel like this turtle: faced with an almost insurmountable mountain of deliciousness. Much like the above turtle, though, you’ve got to start somewhere. We’re here to give you a head start.
From coffee-shop casual to awkward-family-dinner upscale, there’s food in Middletown for every occasion. This is our guide to some of the best places to eat in town. Prices are on a $ to $$$ scale. Also worth noting is that a lot of Middletown restaurants accept Middletown Cash, so save up some of that laundry money for your dining excursions. Wesleyan also provides a nifty guide to restaurants in and around Middletown, if you need more guidance (though theirs doesn’t come with student feedback and that special Wesleying flair)! Read all of our food list after the jump!
This post is an updated version of Sam’s update which was an updated version of wilk’s Eating and Drinking orientation article.
Eating and drinking is a necessity for all living beings, even during your hazy college days. While we all have to adjust our food standards from delicious home-cooked meals to university food, trust me, it could be worse. This year Wesleyan is ranked #7 in college food on Niche out of all the colleges in the U.S. so you know it’s going to be good. Wes has many options for dining that you can enjoy regardless of your dietary orientation. We’re even ranked #2 by One Green Planet for Most Vegan-Friendly Colleges. There’s a plethora of awesome vegan food and our friends at the Mongolian Grill are always willing to cook up a chicken tortilla topped with cheese if it’s protein that you want.
This is the part of the orientation series where we remind you to eat your veggies.
For Educational Purposes Only:
Mongolian Grill (Barbecue) has a slightly misleading name since it is a stir-fried dish that was first developed in Taiwan during the early 1950s—not in Mongolia surprisingly. However, stir-frying meats on a large, open surface is supposed to evoke Mongolian foods and Mongolian traditions. The preparation can also be traced back to the Japanese-style teppanyaki, which was a very popular food choice for the Taiwanese back then. Interestingly enough, some American Mongolian Grill restaurants claim that soldiers of the Mongol Empire actually gathered large quantities of meat, prepared them with their swords and cooked them on their upturned shields over a large fire.
How it works here at Wesleyan:
A few weeks back, I wrote a feature ranting about Usdan’s hummus. The next day, I very sadly paired my sad Usdan salad with sad Usdan hummus, and it was not a highlight of my life.
I’m finally settled into my home for break, which means a few things: I have not left the house unless it’s for work or for IKEA, I have eaten approximately 567 loaves of bread, and I’ve spent a particularly significant amount of time in the kitchen.
“Making my family proud of my ability to take care of myself,” aside, my house is currently under construction and the kitchen is one of the only places where I can’t either fall through a ceiling or trip over some wood planks.
On the way home from IKEA, I force my mom to make a pit stop at the local halal market. Once home, my mom gave me her recipe, and I cross-checked with some Turkish recipe site for measurements, and I made a…beautiful…batch of hummus. Seriously, it’s really good. I posted a short recipe on Instagram, but I decided this recipe deserves a home on the blog because of my past writing on the subject. Here we go:
It’s been four semesters since I’ve had home-cooked Turkish (oh, wow, here’s Melisa talking about being Turkish….again) meal, and to be completely honest, at first it was great. There are only so many times I can manage to “enjoy” kale stew (side note: kale translates to “decoration cabbage” in Turkish) and I was infatuated with the copious amounts of coffee and soft-serve ice cream that I was honestly blind.
It’s been four semesters, and the coffee and soft-serve ice cream can no longer make me complacent. As Wesleyan’s local and very vocal Middle Easterner™, there’s a very serious matter that we need to discuss: the “hummus” that is offered at Usdan. It’s time to call it for what it is, and that certainly isn’t fucking hummus.
If you weren’t aware, Usdan offers hummus on the kosher line, oftentimes paired with some sort of panini. See, I was super fucking excited when I saw this, because I didn’t grow up with ranch or cranberry vinaigrette (?), and I wanted to supplement my bland salads with the spread that is responsible for my sanity. And so, wide-eyed first-year me walks onto the kosher line, excited to get a taste of home. Why I thought that this hummus would remotely resemble home considering the general lack of spices in Usdan (seriously, WHY DON’T WE HAVE RED PEPPER FLAKES ANYWHERE? And don’t tell me about that bullshit red pepper that’s by the pizza) is beyond me. I was hopeful that perhaps Bon App got things right for once.
Oh, was I wrong.
Here are some general notes about the hummus that I have succumbed to time and time again at Usdan, in which each time I have considered just transferring to any school in Turkey based exclusively on food:
