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On Campus Blog
Alex Friedrich

My seasonal lunch at Augsburg

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lunch
Seasonal -- and with a bit of flavor. (Alex Friedrich / MPR)

Now the food is starting to get good.

I'm back in The Commons for lunch ($8)  and joining me are 19-year-old biopsychology sophomore Matthew Kukar of Minneapolis and 20-year-old sophomore Connor Doebbert of Glenwood.

Kukar, who is on the meal plan, gives me the lay of the land:

The chicken breast is a bit dry, but has really good flavor. The pizza is pretty good. The roasted pork loin at the carving station is excellent.

They've also got fish and chips -- with french fries as good as McDonald's, a third student tells me -- a decent salad bar, pasta, deli and a couple of soups. A decent amount of choice.

The guys tell me the variety is standard, though the quality of food as little higher than usual today.

I head to the carving station.

(A carving station? When I was in college? Get outta here.)

I load up on the slow-roasted maple-molasses pork loin, along with some braised kale, wild rice casserole -- even some lentils with vegan sausage. Real harvest-time stuff.

The guy at the carving station was nice enough to give me the end piece -- my favorite -- and even at the thickness I wanted. So I dig in. Really juicy. Kukar was right.

Turns out he and Doebbert headed to the sausage bar, grabbed some fries and a little more meat.

For shame.

otherlunch
Wait till your 30s, guys. (Alex Friedrich / MPR)

I tell them: You can't eat like that your entire life. Hit your 30s, and that'll be a brick in your stomach.

What about the kale? The veggies? The green beans with garlic crunch, for Pete's sake?

They both mumble something about usually eating greens, and Doebbert tells me if he'd known I'd be blogging about what he eats, he'd have "been a little more balanced."