Monday, May 18, 2015

Fresh Foods Co at Moody Towers: Not Great food for College Food

Fresh Foods Co.
Location: Moody Towers, University of Houston, Houston, Texas
Buffet or a-la-carte: None
Date of visit: 5/6/2015



Background:
Salam/hey guys! After such a really long time, I am back! The reason for the long absence was because of school. Anyways, I will be writing about Fresh Food Co. at Moody Towers. Last semester, UH Dining started serving halal chicken in the dining hall at Moody Towers at UH. It was started because of the high demand that Muslim students had for halal food availability on campus. At first, it used to be shared with the gluten-free table. Now, it has a separate section with a list of items that are available that uses halal chicken. I decided to go here mainly because of the fact that I was not allowed to go off campus to eat otherwise the delay would have been much longer. Also, Coreanos wasn't on campus and I didn't want to eat Tandoori Nite. I did remember people saying that Moody could be a hit or miss, so I decided that since I would most likely be transferring to Prairie View A&M University (Addressed on Twitter, Facebook, and Instagram), I decided to give a try and see how they are doing. After studying for a while, I went.



Let The Experience Begin!
Well, there is really nothing experiencing about going to a school cafeteria. I just paid $8.66 (tax included) and went in. More description below.



Let's Eat!
Well, what's being done here is incorporating cafeteria style food and buffet together. This means that you get food served, but you can make as many trips as possible. They also have a self-service salad bar. I got the following: Cheese pizza, spinach and ricotta pizza, pasta and zucchini with garlic bread, salad, roasted veggie and feta sandwich, and the halal item, chicken stir-fry with pineapple rice (weird name really). The food was promptly served.



Menu: http://univofhouston.campusdish.com/Commerce/Catalog/Menus.aspx?LocationId=6884
Each day's menu is listed. You just have to click on either Breakfast, Lunch, or Dinner.



Chicken Stir-Fry with Pineapple Rice


The Verdict:
I did have some of the vegetarian items, which were featured on my Snapchat at halalreviewer. Now that they're gone, I might as well describe how it was. The spinach and ricotta cheese pizza, the pasta and zucchini and the roasted veggie and feta sandwich were horrible. They were served cold and barely have any taste. The salad was not that great, but better than the first two items that were listed. At first, the sight of seeing "pineapple rice" really confused me. But it turned out that it was just rice with pineapple flavoring. In fact, the pineapple rice and chicken stir-fry tasted OK. The garlic bread takes the cake for the best item. Overall, two thumbs down for the vegetarian items and one thumb sideways for the halal item.
Service was nothing to write home about. I just got the food and ate. Thankfully the people serving the food had no attitude problems.



Conclusion:
Before actually eating here, I heard that Moody can be hits and misses. Those people are absolutely correct. I hope one day UH Dining actually listens to the complaints students have about the food and fix the food situation. Till then, I would rather use my money to go somewhere off-campus or to go to McAlister's, Jimmy John's, Pink's Pizza, or Cafe 101 on-campus and eat vegetarian or seafood. Needless to say, the quality of the halal food could have some improvement, but thankfully it wasn't as bad as some of the vegetarian items.

Just to clear a misconception, I still review halal places. This place has a separate halal station along with the vegetarian items (it's like a cafeteria)


Grading:
I honestly forgot the exact grading of the vegetarian items, but I remember the average was roughly between 30% and 40%. Since I emphasize using the exact scores I give, the grading will be done solely on the halal item. I also think the feedback would be important to them, since I and a couple of my friends actually met with the UH dietitian and discussed about what should be done to meet the demand a significant number of students had for halal meat on-campus.

Service: 7/10
Food: 6/10
Total: 13/20 = 65% (D)  (Exact scores of the other items would've meant a drop in the overall grade to an F)
Pricing: $$ out of $$$$



Restaurant Information:
Fresh Foods Co at Moody Towers
Moody Towers, Univeristy of Houston, Houston, Texas
Phone: (832) 842-6095
Website: http://univofhouston.campusdish.com/Locations/FreshFoodCompany.aspx
Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/uhdining?fref=ts
Timings: Mon-Thu: 7 AM - 12 AM; Fri: 7 AM - 10 PM; Sat-Sun: 8 AM - 10 PM
Caters: No (Separate catering by UH Dining; called Catering on Cullen)

Feel free to leave a comment below, message me on Facebook or Twitter, or send me an email!

Cheers!
Zain Mohammed

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