Soup Showdown

After a week-long break from school and blogging, I'm back!

To begin the week I took comfort by staying on campus and eating lunch at The Riverview Dining Room. The Dining Room is an all-you-can-eat buffet for $5.99 and is open for lunch Monday-Friday 11 am - 2:30 pm. 


As usual, The Dining Room was serving two types of soup. On Monday it was Old Fashioned Chicken Noodle Soup (pictured top) versus Vegetarian Lentil and Spinach Soup (pictured bottom). 

The Chicken Noodle Soup seemed to be a lot more popular than the Lentil and Spinach. When I served myself at 12:30 pm almost all of the Chicken Noodle Soup was gone, while the later hardly had any skimmed off the top. 


However, I preferred the Lentil Soup. It was different than what The Dining Room normally serves. Most of the time they serve Chicken or Turkey soup and I liked to see something new. 


The Chicken Noodle Soup had a strange taste to it. It had the same taste as The Dining Room's Roast Turkey soup. The entire soup has an overbearing roast meat flavor, which actually might be good, if it tasted authentic. Basically, it tastes like someone put in too much artificial flavor. For this reason, the Vegetarian Lentil and Spinach Soup wins. 

Riverview Dining Room: A UM-Flint staple

On Thursday I ate at The Riverview Dining Room, again. It's a great place for students to eat because it's right on campus on the third floor UCEN. The Dining Room is all-you-can-eat for $5.99.

To start I had the Tortilla Soup (pictured right). The soup wasn't spicy, like I would expect it to be, but I didn't mind.

Riverview Dining Room: Meh

I ate on campus of UM-Flint this week on Tuesday. The Riverview Dining Room is an all-you-can-eat buffet right on the campus of UM-Flint. It's located on the third floor of the University Center and costs $5.99. At lunch time they're open from 11 am to 2:30 pm. 


The Riverview Dining Room seems to be hit-or-miss. Some days I want to taste everything they have to offer. Other days I stick with the basics. On Tuesday of this week I went with the latter. 

On this day there wasn't anything offered that was particularly special. It was a choice between Beef and Broccoli stir fry, or Roast Turkey Breast (pictured right). The turkey didn't have a lot of flavor. It was kind of pink too, which really grosses me out. I think it would have been better if they had offered some kind of gravy to top it off. 

Riverview Dining Room: A Look at the All-You-Can-Eat Buffet

To end my school week I ate at the Riverview Dining Room on Thursday. The Riverview Dining Room is located on the third floor of the University Center at UM-Flint. For $5.99, the Dining Room serves an all-you-can-eat lunch buffet between 11 am and 2:30 pm. It's open to all students and staff, and it's even open to the general public. 

While there were many options at the buffet, I chose the cheese ravioli in marinara sauce with a side of broccoli (pictured right). It was decently good, too. The broccoli was crisp and tasted pretty fresh. It wasn't soggy, like it had been sitting out for a while. The ravioli was stuffed full of cheese and I was given plenty of sauce too. I would have liked a bigger portion, but it wasn't a big deal because I could have gotten more if I wanted. The other meal to choose from was spaghetti and fried clams. I'm not a fan of fried clams so I didn't really want to try it. 

Free Food On Campus!

On Tuesday I found the opportunity to enjoy a free lunch at UM-Flint. The Office of Student Life is hosting a series of workshops called "Amaizing Leaders" and this time around it involved lunch with Chancellor Ruth Person. Located in the Happenings Room on the first floor University Center, the luncheon was held from 12:30-1:30 pm and was open to all students and staff.


The food wasn't much, but you can't really complain when it's free. A buffet table was filled with Fritos, assorted breads, mustard and mayonnaise, an assortment of meats and cheese, vegetables, cookies and lemonade. It was basically everything I expected it would be.

I ended up making a Turkey sandwich with swiss cheese, mayo and lettuce. I also grabbed a spoonful (yes, spoonful) of Fritos, four pickle spear halves with a peanut butter and chocolate chip cookie.


I wish that I would have grabbed more of everything though, especially the Fritos. I was third in the buffet line and I felt the pressure of 20 hungry people waiting behind me. It would have been different if I had paid for the food because I would have felt the need to get my money's worth, but being that it was free I felt the need to be slightly modest.


The luncheon was a great opportunity to say a few words to the Chancellor and get to know a little more about her. She told the history of her work and education and afterwards opened the floor for students to ask questions. She talked about her hobbies, that she liked to cook and garden. She told a couple of stories about how her father was an influence and inspiration to her, and she gave advice to students about taking the time to have a little fun in addition to their studies. Finally, Chancellor Person had to leave 15 minutes early because of a scheduled conference call with Governor Granholm.


I found the luncheon to be a great opportunity. Not only was I able to enjoy a free lunch right on the campus of UM-Flint, but I was able to learn more about Chancellor Person and network with other student leaders on campus as well.