Many campuses only offer dining hall food for breakfast, lunch and dinner. UB has taken steps toward ensuring students are able to choose from a variety of meals and locations at different times.
After sampling a variety of foods on campus, I have compiled a list of the best places to grab breakfast, lunch and dinner.
Breakfast - Au Bon Pain
Au Bon Pain is a bakery and caf?(c) chain with many locations across the country. The eatery serves a variety of breakfast and lunch options that are fit for busy, grab-and-go type of customers.
With the debut of Greiner Hall in 2011, Au Bon Pain was also introduced to North Campus.
Now, students have the option to pick from a number of specialty breakfast items.
For example, there is wide variety of bagels from the Asiago Cheese Bagel to the traditional Cinnamon Raisin Bagel. Au Bon Pain also sells croissants, danishes and fruit.
An American college breakfast cannot be complete without a cup of coffee. The coffee station offers different flavored hot drinks from hazelnut coffee to green tea. Students can personalize their drinks with desired amounts of milk, soymilk, sugar or artificial sweeteners.
When it comes to lunch, soups are by far the most popular item, specifically the chicken noodle soup, according to Au Bon Pain employee Kate Lohouse.
The soup station also has macaroni and cheese in stock daily and a number of other options that rotate every day. In the morning, the station serves oatmeal and toppings.
Au Bon Pain has a number of sandwiches that are premade and wrapped for a "quick grab-and-go" lunch, said Lohouse.
She said the most popular sandwich is the Classic Chicken Salad or Roasted Turkey Club.
The food comes straight from Au Bon Pain's own kitchen and is made fresh twice per day - once in the morning and again in the afternoon.
This way, students are guaranteed fresh and delicious items throughout the day.
Lunch - NY Deli & Diner
On the walk from the lower levels the Natural Sciences Complex to Capen Hall, students pass numerous eateries, including the popular Bert's, which has a self-serve pizza bar, hot grill items a new Edgy Veggies and more.
But down the hall from Bert's is a lesser-frequented shop that specializes in kosher foods.
NY Deli & Diner is a Campus Dining & Shops (CDS) kosher deli that serves a number of dishes fit for people with dietary restrictions.
Alveera Tabbasun, a junior biology major, frequents at the Deli due to her own religious background.
"I am Muslim, so there are a select few things I can eat on campus," said Tabbasun. "This being one of them, so I usually opt to come here."
She usually gets the grilled chicken breast on a lafah, a flatbread wrap.
Wille Haddath and Ely Bokobza are cooks at NY Deli & Diner, and they have both worked in UB Dining for years. They create most of the menu items themselves every day.
Students can find mazo ball soup, knishes and pastrami sandwiches - items that can't be found elsewhere on campus.
Its most popular item, according to Bokobza, would have to be the All Day Breakfast Sandwich. The sandwich is a combination of salami, coleslaw, French fries and fried eggs all grilled on white bread.
At night, he and Haddath take turns creating the dinner menus and often base them off of what students request or seem to like.
Bokobza said a lot of students who frequent the deli may not be Jewish, Muslim, vegetarian or vegan, but still want fresher and high-quality food.
Dinner - Soma Sushi
Located in the quieter corner of the Student Union is where the Japanese delicacy of fish, cooked vinegared rice and seaweed are rolled into one dish - sushi.
Soma Sushi offers primarily sushi rolls, but it also serves other Japanese side dishes.
The variety of rolls include eel and spicy seafood, among the others presented in the eatery's open refrigerated case. Students can also buy sashimi - raw fish. The fish is delivered fresh once per week and is served either in a roll or over rice.
Side dishes include seaweed salad, squid salad and dumplings.
The California roll, a vegetarian option, is popular amongst students.
Ely Cuberos, a freshman biomedical science major, said it's her favorite item from Soma Sushi. She buys a California roll approximately twice per week because she enjoys the avocado in it. She also likes Soma Sushi's dumplings.
Late Night - Perks
Located in Ellicott Complex, the CDS coffee house provides not only coffee, but milkshakes, smoothies and ice cream. On Wednesdays and Saturday nights, from 7 p.m. to midnight, Perks even holds open-mic nights for students to perform in front of their peers.
Some of the most popular drinks include the Caramel Macchiato, Oreo Milkshake and Buffalo Blast, which is similar to a slushie, according to Lois Cultrara, a Perks employee.
Perks even has a holiday menu, which includes a peppermint mocha - served hot, cold or blended - pumpkin pie flavored drinks, an eggnog milkshake and a specialty snicker doodle coffee.
Perks also features dozens of ice cream flavors, which can be ordered in the form of a cone, cup or sundae. The standard flavors are around throughout the year and other flavors, like Cannoli or Strawberry Cheesecake, rotate. The coffee shop will also have seasonal and holiday ice-cream choices.
email: gisellel@buffalo.edu
Photo: The Spectrum Archives
