When I first came to Georgia Tech, I wasn’t sure what to expect from the dining halls.

Until now my meals have consisted of normal Chinese food (mostly rice and meat/vegetables, dumplings, etc.) but I’m no stranger to American food, having eaten from the cafeteria in elementary school for a few years.

Georgia Tech has three dining halls: Woodruff, Brittain, and North Avenue.

North Avenue is said to have the best food. Brittain has free snacks you can take if you’re on the dining plan. Woodruff is supposedly the worst, I’ve never been since I never visit the area. However, my roommate Francis says that the food is of average quality and there is not much of it.

First, the good things: The food is actually edible and halls are open later during the night to fit students’ busy schedules. North Avenue has stir fry and noodles. Brittain has burritos. There are also ice cream machines and dessert options. The stir fry and noodles are my favorite part about dining halls. I also get bottled water from Brittain to go every day.

Unfortunately, not everything is perfect and there is no reason to expect a dining hall to be as high quality as a restaurant, otherwise it would be a restaurant and charge more. However, there are things that are extremely difficult to overlook when it comes to Georgia Tech’s dining.

1. Dining halls open at 10 AM in the morning on weekends.

Dining halls are almost always closed on holidays. This seems contrary to the idea of unlimited meal plans, which is that food should always be available. I’m used to eating breakfast at 8 or earlier on the weekends. By the time 10 comes around I’ve been awake for a few hours and don’t even feel hungry anymore.

2. Plates. Where do all the plates go?

I’m used to walking around the entire hall two or three times to get a plate but having more people walking around looking for plates only increases congestion and chance that people will collide and spill food everywhere. Same with forks and spoons.

3. Juice.

I understand that juice is more expensive than soda and that soda is probably discounted even more since we’re next to Coca Cola world and such. What I don’t understand is watering down the juice to a point where it is almost clear and tastes like sour water. Whether that is intentional or not I have no clue, but I see a lot of disgusted people dumping their cups of water back into the machine and going to get soda. Not a very good way to encourage healthy eating.

4. Rice.

I first cooked rice when I was 12. The dining hall staff cannot cook rice. It is a dark time when the Asian man (or woman) cannot enjoy eating the food they’ve eaten nearly every day since childhood because they fear chipping a tooth on a raw rice (yes, raw) grain in their rice. So far I’ve won the lottery three times, actually chipping my tooth once on a particular grain of rice so raw it could have been planted and harvested.

5. When there isn’t food.

I went today at 1 PM, a perfectly normal time to eat lunch. I ended up eating two biscuits and thankfully some pizza, but I wouldn’t call that a very healthy or filling meal by any means.

I’ve learned to work around these things. You can’t be a picky eater if you’re on a dining plan—I don’t ever check food labels or calories. I grab some bananas to eat in the morning on weekends. My mind contains a map of every plate station and the fastest routes to each so that I can secure my meal. I’ve started analyzing the juice content of my drink before I chug it. And I chew my rice very, very slowly and keep it on its own plate like it’ll infect the other food when I do eat it. If you want to eat rice, I suggest you buy a rice steamer and make it yourself.