Return on Ingredients: Lunch Catering Power Ranking

By: MaryAlice Peng

With the latest barrage of Fall events in full swing, planning your calendar is nothing short of a Herculean effort. Is it worth attending a full hour presentation when you could be pretending to work on the Spanish Steps? Should you run the risk of accidentally sitting next to someone whom you’ve definitely met but can’t remember their name? But the only question that truly matters to us unemployed students is: what will be served for lunch? Here are the best Kellogg-approved catering options, ranked

1.        10Q Chicken

Glorious bowls of tender chicken or flavorful tofu served with a salad over a bed of white rice? Hit the CampusGroups RSVP immediately. The KBBQ sauce is just the right amount of sweet and the Fire sauce is mild enough for the majority of Kellogg (sorry spice lovers.) Best of all, because each bowl is individually packaged, you don’t have to fight with someone taking all the protein leaving latecomers to peck at sad sides.

2.        Picnic

Picnic salads

We have questions about how your club has enough funding to order Picnic, but regardless, we’ll be there. This is the healthiest option on Kellogg’s catering list with enough greens, grains, proteins, and veggie toppings to actually get you full. Make sure to try the Za’atar chicken, charred carrots, and marinated cannellini beans. Picnic’s cookies are also surprisingly tasty and decidedly unhealthy, thank goodness.

3.        Tomate

Tried and true, the Tomate burrito is always a welcome sight. These burritos are wrapped with German precision and Mexican-American flavor (it’s still Evanston, alright?) While the burritos may be carb heavy, it’s much better than the messy DIY taco option. Tomate also provides generous portions of salsas and guac, so grab some extra napkins and sauce up your burrito. Side note: if you take two burrito halves before everyone else can grab at least one, a hex upon thee.

4.        Honorable Mentions: 

Habibi Inn

Pita Inn and Habibi In are also delicious, but clubs have had mixed experiences with getting them delivered on time. Besides, why are we not ordering La Cocinita (Venezuelan), Nando’s (Peri-Peri chicken), Mensch’s (Jewish deli), and Badou (Senegalese) more often? These are Kellogg-approved vendors but are almost never seen on campus. Wake up, sheeple!

5.        Dishonorable Mentions: 

An Operations class needs to study why Siam Splendour is perfectly acceptable when ordering takeout but terrible at scaling their food to catering sizes. What little flavor is left is completely overwhelmed by grease and soggy textures. Lou Malnati’s also needs to be banned—the similarity in name to Illuminati only furthers my conspiracy that some nebulous force keeps ordering this mediocre deep dish despite nobody liking it.

About the author:

My o̶v̶e̶r̶l̶o̶r̶d̶s̶ editors asked me to explain why I'm qualified to write a food column. Simply put, I eat a lot.