Every day, hundreds of students get in the lunch lines to get their food. Some of these lunches are better than others, and I’m here to tell you which ones are the best and why
Starting with the top of the list, tacos. You get a scoop of meat, a tortilla, a bag of chips, and if you want, a cup of shredded cheese. Students often make burritos, put the meat and cheese in their bag of chips and shake it up, or just use the chips to scoop the meat. The chips are salty and crispy, with the meat being rich in flavors and warm in your mouth, filling you up to your peak.
Second in line is chicken tenders with waffles. A strong contender for first. With the chicken, you can dip it in complementary ketchup, sweet barbeque sauce, or keep it plain. Either way, the chicken is soft and healthy, easily making you happy just by eating it. Now for the waffle. The amazing, wonderful waffle. Inside the waffle is tiny bits of sugar, making it more sweet than the maple syrup coating it receives at the factory. These waffles are good at any time, any temperature, and anywhere.
Third place goes to the sweet and sour meatballs with rice and Fritos. I won’t go into details about the bag of Fritos because they’re, well, Fritos. The meatballs, on the other hand, are something else. Dunked in a sweet sauce, they ooze onto the rice, giving it a savory flavor. Inside the meatballs are very compacted, giving you your money’s worth of meat and flavor.
Closely following is teriyaki chicken with rice, occupying fourth. Soaked in a new savory sauce made from its own juice, the chicken is savory and tasteful. Your teeth cut right through the soft chicken pieces, revealing a rich interior of perfectly cooked chicken. Once again, the sauce seeps into the rice, making a sweet side to the chicken.
In fifth place is macaroni and cheese with a garlic bread stick. When served, you get a plentiful serving of macaroni, and when you sit down to eat, you can choose to skip the spoon and use the breadstick to shovel all the pasta into your awaiting mouth. The macaroni is very cheesy, creating layers of warm, melted excess cheese that you scrape the bottom of your plate for. The noodles are what you would find in a restaurant, large in size, chewy, and delicious. The garlic bread stick is an amazing addition, as you can put the excess cheese on it to make a delicious new food, or eat it plain and fresh. The bread itself is strong bread, but it caves in under pressure to make a thicker, chewy bread.
Sixth place is teriyaki potstickers. Essentially noodle pancakes that are folded in half and sealed around a mild chicken piece, lathered, dunked, and soaked in a sweet, syrupy glaze. Served warm, you bite into half a dozen of these and dip it in the excess glaze that makes it a sarm, spicy-sweet, delicious meal.
A deserving seventh is the fettuccine alfredo and garlic bread stick. Without greens or additional toppings, these noodles are put into melted white cheese and served with the same garlic breadstick as other lunches. Using the same noodles, the fettuccine is warm and soft on your mouth, with a creamy, deluxe cheese that feels like it’s better than school.
Eighth goes to stuffed crust pizza. It’s a large slice of pizza with a long piece of cheese, melted into the inside of the doughy exterior of the crust. The combination of these two makes the crust its own delicacy, and the only time people eat their pizza crust. The pizza itself is the best they serve here. It has a small layer of crust underneath followed by an equally proportioned layer of sauce and cheese.
Ninth goes to popcorn chicken, often served with corn or green beans. The chicken is in little nuggets, a little larger than the size of popcorn. They are served warm, and you eat them one at a time, dipping into ketchup or sweet barbeque sauce. Either condiment makes them taste like the nostalgic dino nuggets that we all enjoyed when we were younger.
Closely following in tenth is pizza sticks. Served in pairs, these are long strands of warm, melted cheese, wrapped in a doughy exterior, which when baked, becomes crispy so when you bite through, it shatters in your mouth. With the sticks, you are given a cup of pizza sauce, that you scoop up with your food, making an amazing lunch.
Right behind is mozzarella sticks in eleventh. Served in the half-dozen, they are like any normal mozzarella sticks, with a crunchy outside and a stringy cheese inside. You can get a container of pizza sauce for dipping the sticks. Although they are food, they don’t fi;ll you up all the way, so you can get back in the lunch line to grab another six and complete your meal.
Twelfth belongs to rotini with meat sauce and a garlic breadstick. Served hot, it is a combination of meat, sauce, and rotini noodles. They all blended together to make soft noodles with a heap of meat rolled into a ball. Once again, you can use the garlic breadstick as a spoon to get more flavor out of the meal.
In thirteenth is the chicken quesadilla with salsa. The quesadilla itself is two triangles attached together, and inside of each is a chicken meat with small pieces of vegetables that make it semi spicy. The salsa served on the side is red tomato salsa that you dip into with the quesadilla to make it as good as can be.
Fourteenth goes to circular pizza. A small pizza the size of the average person’s hand, with an underside of dough and a top layer of sauce and then cheese, cooked with a crust on the outside. It is large enough to fill your stomach so you can get through the last two periods of the day with ease and without hunger.
Behind in fifteenth is the chicken sandwich on a pretzel roll. The chicken is a chicken patty that they now serve in salads, with a rich inside and a soft exterior. You can choose between a cup of barbeque sauce or ketchup, either of which is good. The pretzel is a solid slab of dough tied up and cooked and then placed on both sides of the patty to make a sandwich, and it’s also good with the condiment cups too.
Finally, in sixteenth, ranchero pizza. This is a strange name and is really just a circle pizza with pieces of meat on top of it. All so similar to the circle pizza, the meat adds to its flavor, and richening it, but taking away from the cheese on top. It is a harsh tradeoff. But it works.
Although the school year is coming to a close, they keep the same menu every year, so take your time and think about what lunches you want next year.
