Eat Here

A SHORT TOUR DOWN THE COLLEGE'S GULLET.

LET'S TALK DIVERSITY: in Thayer Hall, scene of generations of gustatory ambivalence, is a computer that stores 1,848 recipes. Besides its venerable cafeteria, the College runs two cafes, a pub, an a la carte buffet, and a homestyle eatery, for a total of six dining areas on campus alone. Many alumni can recall a time when visitors were limited mostly to Roast Beef au Jus at the Inn. Now, in Hanover alone, there are two good Chinese places, three pizza joints, an upscale Italian bistro, a fern-bar-cum-American- style restaurant, a pub that offers Indian curry, and Lou's, which now specializes in Mexican food. Even at the Inn, while you can still get roast beef—some nights—you have to look pretty hard, past the Halibut en Papillottee and Quail with Wilted Field Greens served up by Executive Chef Michael Gray.

Considering that institutions, like people, are what they eat, one of the best ways to show the modern Dartmouth is to peer down its collective digestive tract. We asked two peristoltic explorers, Chris Walker and Tig Tillinghast, to do just that. The two undergraduates are best known on campus as the authors of "Road Grub," a highly irregular column of diner reviews in The Dartmouth.

We also wanted one of the alumni body's most discriminating palates, that of Bill Garry, editor of Bon Appetit, to tell us how Thayer food was doing these days. Plane fare from Bon Appetit's California offices to New Hampshire is beyond our budget, so we brought the food mountain to Mohammed, shipping a trayful in dry ice to La Jolla! Naturally, the food suffered in the process. So, apparently, did Mr. Garry. His review appears on page 21. Ed.

How's thayer?" asked George with a sneer. "You go there often?" It's Tig's Christmas Eve ritual. Every year his family treks over to Abington, Connecticut, to visit his family friends, thejacksons. And every year, at least every year since he came to Dartmouth, George Jackson '61 asks him the same question. "How's Thayer?" he asks leeringly, trying to imply a sympathy to Tig's culinary hardships back north—and, of course, his own experience from 30 years back.

"Well, actually, George, I don't eat there much," says Tig. "I usually grab something over at Collis."

"Oh," he says. "Collis?" Yes, Collis.

Give three decades to 'most anything, and it'll change on you.

THE MOTHER OF DARTMOUTH DINING

Where else but full fare, the abundant Alma Mater of Dartmouth dining, could we begin our quest for the eating experiences of Dartmouth and its environs? Full Fare most closely approximates the old Thayer Cafeteria ambiance many alumni will recall. For eight bucks one can sit down to a dinner with about as much food as could Mil a cow. Or constitute a cow.

Quite a distinct culture has grown up around the cloggec passageways and arteries leading through Full Fare. When the hungry customer (necessarily a very hungry customer) walks through the door, he first notices the abnormal size of Full Fare customers. They're big. Some very big. Of course, not every patron sports the Full Fare "joe" around his middle—after all, Tig, weighing in at 13 5 pounds, loves the place but the establishment has taken on a decidedly large, athletic clientele. And that makes sense. Most students aren't willing to, firstly, shell out eight clams for a cafeteria dinner, and secondly, spend the time necessary to sit down and eat it all—unless they need to assuage their 220-pound football linebacker appetites.

The cafeteria serves different entrees every day but keeps a long list of favorites in its daily repertoire. Each and every day, hundreds line up to enjoy unlimited burgers, rice, cereals, salads, ice creams, pies, cakes, puddings, juices, sodas, and omnipresent green Jell-O.

The tendency for people to overeat in this realm-o'-food has become well-known and even well-feared throughout campus. Most weight and health-conscious students avoid Thayer's all-you-can-eat fest. However, since freshmen are required to purchase a particularly rigorous meal-plan, they often frequent Full Fare to take advantage of chits worth one meal anywhere on campus. Hence the "Freshman Fifteen" (see the glossary below).

But Dartmouth students are busy people. Whatever they're doing is far too important to interrupt for a meal. That would take precious minutes, for gosh sakes! More than menu style, students choose their eateries primarily for convenience. Many avoid Full Fare because of its policy of not allowing customers to take food out to eat while they study or write or work or do whatever their busy Dartmouth selves will do. A Full Fare meal is a time-consuming affair, what with all that food to consume.

Also within Thayer Hall reside A La Carte and its next-door neighbor, Home Plate. A La Carte offers Full Fare fare by the dish and lots of other stuff besides allowing students to take the food out of the building. Home Plate lays claim to a health-conscious menu concentrating on foods low in salt, fats, and cholesterol but high in fiber. Both share the same kitchen with Full Fare.

But the Dartmouth student soon realizes there is more to the Dartmouth Dining Services than vats of potatoes, gravy, and endless slabs of meat.

There is Collis.

TWIGS & STICKS AND OTHER HEALTHY STUFF

Because of the disparate nature of the food at the Collis Cafe, the clientele varies from vegetarians and vegans to the likes of Full Fare customers like Tig.

In case you're unaware of what a vegan is, draw up close to the page, and we'll fill you in. Vegans are to vegetarians what vegetarians are to normal, gravy-drinking Americans. Vegans reject not only the oft-maligned red meat and other various forms of flesh, they go so far as to condemn the consumption of all animal products, such as milk, cheese, and even Twinkles. God bless every anemic soul of them. Rumor has it that a splinter group ("vegs"?) has formed which rejects all forms of consumption but for unfiltered water and carefully cleansed gravel.

At Collis, students find a mini-deli next to vegetarian entrees and a salad bar. Customers can breeze through the hallway-shaped "cafe" and exit with all sorts of snackables. Bagels, ice creams, excellent coffees, blueplate specials, and other items round out what is probably the most diverse of the campus menus.

Collis has a reputation, however undeserved, as the healthiest eatery of the five. True, a salad may be procured without too much trouble, but the buyer must pass a tempting cooler-load of caloric desserts before making it to the cash register. Collis's other most noted feature is a cabinet of bizarre breads. New students are surprised by combinations ranging from lemon hazelnut to the mildly weird butterscotch poppyseed.

Most recently, an incursion of environmentalism coupled with a horrible marketing strategy drove Collis managers to replace the plastic forks and spoons with a "spork," a useless piece of plastic that serves neither function satisfactorily. Fortunately, after a deluge of complaints, the Collis staff re-instituted traditional plastic flatware, allowing convenience-oriented customers to enjoy their blue plates with either fork or spoon while letting the environmental among us play with their own bits of plastic. Harmony has been restored once again.

FOOD IN THE FAST LANE

One of the most popular campus eateries is the Hopkins Center's Courtyard Cafe. It's about as convenient as food comes. Students can slip through quick lines with prepared sandwiches, salads, soups, and other hot foods. Many snackable items line hundreds of square feet of counter space. A mainstream crowd hovers about miniature tables set up around the cafe, but many students prefer to take their food out of the fifties-asthetics-stricken Hop to eat as they work.

hen there is the grill. The Hop derives its reputation as a fast-food joint from one hot three-by-five slab of stainless steel. It's a beauty. Customers can order everything from tuna melt sandwiches to char-grilled burgers to toasted turkey clubs from a huge green wall menu. But the most-ordered food item has to be "Hop fries." Almost every Dartmouth student eventually builds up a tolerance for these immensely seasoned, oilsoaked potato novelties. Currently, Walker can put down an entire large order of them, while Tig still reels from finishing the small portion. He's working on it—he's only a junior, for crying out loud.

Couple all that food choice with its convenient location (kitty-corner to the Hinman mail boxes), and you have one of the most frequented joints on campus.

FOR THE KIDS AMONG US

We can think of no food more appropriate for alumni tykes off-campus than diner food. In fact, we must admit, we can think of little food other than diner food most times. Tig remembers his grand-father taking him to Zip's Diner back in his hometown when he was but a little Tig. "This'll put hair on your chest," Grampa T used to say. Up Dartmouth way, nothing will satisfy nascent hardening arteries better than the succulent corned beef hash over dropped eggs with homemade toast and butter at the Hartford diner.

The Taft Diner, off exit 12 on Interstate 91, offers the cheapest eats around, with a full-blown feast costing less than six dollars. Tig scarfed down two scrambled eggs, four pieces of buttered toast, a hot dog, corned beef hash, home fries, three pancakes, four pieces of bacon, a chocolate frappe, and coffee for a mere $5.85. Oh, and a cream pie for dessert. He faltered only in the middle of the cream pie.

The other notable diner is West Lebanon's Four Aces. Although the breakfast food is poor (Tig found little white nodules inhabiting his corned beef hash one morning), the Four Aces is unsurpassed in baked goods. A great continental breakfast can be had combining a beany cup of coffee with a choice from a diverse pastry menu (thusly avoiding dangerous breakfast items).

Do try the Four Ace's specialty, the vinegar pie. Tig tricked Walker into ordering it recently. It combines a mucous substance with a sweet crust, forming an amazing taste. It's bitter, sweet, sour, and salty all at once. It'll put hair on your chest.

Of course, if you already have hair on your chest, don't bother with the vinegar pie.

Best pizza: Q's of Chicago of Hanover, despite the weird slices.

But regardless of your hair status, the Hanover area has plenty other food options that range from magnificent to dangerous. Don't forget, this is by no means a comprehensive guide you've been reading, but merely the opinions of two of Dartmouth's best-educated stomachs. Eat.

FOOD KNOCKING ATYOUR DOOR

Only the most naive believe that Dartmouth students limit themselves to diners and campus fare. And only the most ignorant of students would forego the wide options available only steps away from the campus Green—some of it will even step on over the Green to you!

If Old Man Wheelock were around he doubtless would find a chicken sandwich irresistible, especially after a bout with his New England rum. Although Hanover has sprouted several delivery options since Eleazar's time (one restaurant even delivers breakfast in bed to students), any discussion of the subject must begin with the staple: The Everything But Anchovies Chicken Sandwich. While EBA's, located behind the Dartmouth Bookstore, bills itself as a pizza place, this one sandwich—a suspiciously flat chicken breast topped with bacon, cheese, lettuce, and tomato sprawling carelessly from a slightly sweet Portuguese muffinearns the fast-food crown.

When it comes to pizza, however, the vote is split. While Tiggy favors EBA's pies as Hanover's best, Walker cites an overabundance of dough and a tendency to fall apart as reasons to look elsewhere. EBA's main competition, C & A's on Lebanon Street, is seldom crowded. A probable reason: It becomes immediately apparent that C & A does not stand for Courtesy & Amicability. Legendary for its rough phone manner, C & A's delivers pizza, grinders, gyros, and attitude. The steak and cheese sub tops the Hanover market, but if you don't remember to order your extras, you'll get just steak and cheese. In contrast to EBAs, the C&A pizza holds together better and comes on a thin, crispy crust—not for the grease squeamish. Eating in at C & A's once offered access to Hanover's only working jukebox. But now that's gone.

The neighbors complained.

Hanover's newest, and some will say best, pizza option is Q's of Chicago of Hanover, located in the bottom of the Galleria toward the end of Main Street. Q's offers three types of pizza: thin crust, deep pan, and stuffed. The thin crust is Walker's pick for best Hanover pizza, despite the bizarre quilt-stitch pattern in which they cut their pies. For doughier tastes, the stuffed and deep-dish offer the same product with twice the bread.

A slightly more expensive delivery meal is available now from Panda House, a Chinese restaurant in the lower level of the new Hanover Park shopping mall on Lebanon Street. At dinner time, for orders of $10 or more, Panda will deliver to your door. In some ways it's almost better out of cardboard boxes and plastic bowls, especially the excellent hot and sour soup—the best soup in town.

CHEAP DATES

But where do you go for a more intimate dining experience? Dating may be rare at Dartmouth, but we've picked some places that provide a quiet (or at least interesting) setting for a romantic dinner for two.

Tig's pick for best Cheap Date is EBA's but with a twist. He orders a delivery to an obscure, romantic spot, like the Bema or the crew docks, and brings his latest inamorata there to await the deliverer.

Walker's Cheap Date selection starts with a drive through the countryside down old Route 5 to the Hartford diner in Hartford, Vermont. While the food is definitely not for 6the health-conscious date (and may jeopardize future relations depending on her squeamishness), the Hartford can be an ideal setting for getting to know someone. With the jukebox playing "Tear in my Beer" and a black velvet Elvis painting looking down meaningfully, romance can't help but blossom. The Hartford is away from the Hanover scene, it's open 24 hours on the weekend, and it always serves breakfast. Don't forget to ask for the homemade toast, especially if you want to impress your date with your discriminating palate. They also serve a mean helping of grilled tripe.

STUFF ONLY PARENTS COULD AFFORD

There are a couple of places to check out if you happen to have a Swiss bank account, or for those dreadful situations when your parents want to meet your current love interest. If there was a sure way to make someone love you forever, it would probably be to take that person to Norwich, Vermont, for a dinner at La Poule a Dents at Carpenter Street. The name means "the hen with teeth," but the owners are being modest: food this good is rarer than that. The meals are a daringly brilliant take on nouvelle French cuisine with a strong visual presentation. Of course, we found ourselves ordering EBA's an hour after our visit. It may be the best nouvelle cuisine we've ever experienced, but it is, after all, nouvelle cuisine. The portions were not overwhelming.

On the other hand, you may be the child of an alumnus who wants only to relive his glory days in Thayer. Take him to Full Fare. Impress him with the quantity and variety. Then talk him into a drive to Norwich.

The food in Thayer has more variety, but the Blue Landies still dish it out.

A cafeteria constant: Jell-O, available in Dartmouth green.

One bit of ambiance that the modern Thayer lacks: the unhygienic '50s dog.

The "spork" caused a rift between lovers of nature and the coldly pragmatic.

Ihe Hop's fries are immensely seasoned.

THE DARTMOUTH STUDENT SOON REALIZES THERE IS MORE TO THE DARTMOUTH DIKING SERVICES THAN VATS OF POTATOES, GRAVY. AND ENDLESS SEARS OF MEAT.

VEGANS ARE TO VEGETARIANS WHAT VEGETARIANS ARE TO NORMAL GRAVY-DRINKING AMERICANS.

IF OLD MAN WHEELDCK WERE AROUND HE DOUDTLESS WOULD FIND A CHICKEN SANDWICH IRRESISTIBLE.

OF COURSE, IF YOU ALREADY HAVE HAIR ON YOUR CHEST, DON'T BOTHER WITH THE VINEGAR PIE.

WITH THE JUKEBOX PLAYING "TEAR IN MY BEER" AND A BLACK VELVET ELVIS PAINTING LOOKING DOWN MEANINGFULLY, ROMANCE CAN'T HELP BUT BLOSSOM.