Cafeteria

Scraping the bottom, eh?  Come on. 

According to Wikipedia, a cafeteria is “a type of food service location in which there is little or no waiting staff table service, whether a restaurant or within an institution such as a large office building or school; a school dining location is also referred to as a dining hall or canteen (in British English). Cafeterias are different from coffeehouses, despite being the Spanish translation of the English term.”  For that matter, I found the Wikipedia entry to be fairly useful and informative, so I’ll refer you there and try to avoid simply repeating its contents.

I think of a cafeteria as simply a dining hall specific to a large location such as a school, business, government building, etc., but the Wikipedia definition seems to be, place where you stand up and push your tray past, workers give you food that way, you bring your food to the cashier at end, and pay for it – as opposed a restaurant where a waiter/waitress takes your order and brings your food to your table.  By that definition, the fast food places at the New Jersey Turnpike rest stops (e.g. Roy Rogers) qualify - in fact, due to its setup, so does Chipotle - but most standalone Roys do not.  I consider my definition a bit more consistent with real-life experiences.

As for that: this week I had to drop off paperwork at the Fairfax County government building around noon, and hunger compelled me to visit their ground floor cafeteria.  It was pretty much the same as the one in the Fairfax County courthouse.  I just picked up potato chips and a fountain drink, so I really didn’t give the staff a chance to shine or impress me with their institutional cooking.

Schools.   Probably the bane of these.  In Paris – the American School of Paris - I’d just get French fries, a Coke, and a Raider bar (Twix to us Americans).  I never ventured further than that.  We had no real alternatives within walking distance, as I never even sampled the fare at the café across the street from the school. 

University of Maryland, College Park (UMCP) had its huge Dining Services, with several huge dining halls across campus, South Campus being my general base of operations.   In senior year, before going off to White Flint Mall for an LSAT prep course, I sampled the steak & cheese sub, and got hooked ever since.  I haven’t been back to UMCP to eat at the dining hall since summer 1990.  I do see that the Eateries at the Stamp Union have been replaced by a food court of mainstream fast food places. 

Government.  Government buildings have their own unique cuisine, very close to hospital cafeteria in nature.  In the past we’d visit the cafeteria in the Dept of Commerce building in DC, which was as generic as any other and probably served as my baseline.  A special shout out to the National Shrine cafeteria, which is odd when you think about it: a CATHEDRAL with its own cafeteria?  GET OUT OF HERE.  However, as cafeterias go, it’s normal and ordinary.

My favorite.   Not merely nostalgia and loyalty, but also outright quality: that has to be the US Embassy in Paris, in the basement of the main building at Place de la Concorde.  My favorite meal was a hamburger “au point” (medium rare), fries, and a Coke, plus maybe a hot fudge sundae for dessert.  The dark and smokey lounge next door served cold roast beef sandwiches.  Nice.  Unfortunately, I haven’t been there since 1990.  Because it’s a US facility, the lounge could not serve alcohol to anyone under 21, while you could go outside the embassy to any French bar and be served if you were over 14. 

The only other embassy cafeteria I sampled was London (US), which was VERY substandard; the Navy Annex next door was County Fair quality, but still better.

I suppose an Army mess hall is the ultimate “cafeteria”, but never having served in the military I can’t comment thereon by firsthand experience.  I do have extensive experience eating in PX facilities, though, which are often open to civilian dependents of military personnel (my mother is a retired Navy officer) such as myself.  Those would tend to pretty much mimic standard cafeteria food you might find anywhere else.  Lately many of the PX locations are subcontracting to mainstream fast food places such as McDonalds (Bethesda - USN) and Burger King (Henderson Hall – USMC).  I lost my PX privileges when I turned 23, so it’s been a rare occasion since then that I’ve been able to go back.  But I will make one comment…

At the Raymond Hotel in Mons, Belgium, which catered to US personnel – military and civilian – they had a kitchen which made pizza.  This was a strange and unique mozzarella pizza which bore no resemblance to any pizza I’ve ever experienced anywhere else.  Not Domino’s, not crappy cafeteria, nor any European “you call this pizza?” variant.  In Brazil they make a pizza that seems to be crust and cheese with no sauce – “oh, here’s ketchup”, they tell you if you inquire about that – which is the closest I’ve found, but the Raymond Pizza did have sauce, it was the cheese that was utterly unique.  If anyone has the recipe, let me know.