Rating UCalgary Dining Centre Hacks

Here are three fun things you can make in the UCalgary Dining Centre and my ratings of them (also known as the Landing among other things)!

By the way, my numerical ratings are in comparison with average food from the university dining centre, I'm not saying anything is Michelin-worthy, just that I really enjoyed it as a student with a meal plan!

Ice Cream Sandwich

Inspired by the Marble Slab ice cream sandwiches where the outside is cookies instead of soft chocolate wafers, I grabbed two chocolate chip cookies from the dessert area and added two small scoops of classic vanilla ice cream on one of them.

Then, I sandwiched the ice cream with the other cookie and sprinkled some crushed Oreo toppings from the pancake area onto the ice cream.

Visuals

I would rate this hack a 8/10 in the visuals department. It's a little bit rough but doesn't look too far from an ice cream sandwich and honestly seems delicious to me!

Taste

Paired with milk, this ice cream sandwich tastes like an 8.5/10. I mean, is it even possible for any ice cream sandwich to not be good? Personally, I prefer the original chocolate wafer type of ice cream sandwich because I felt the cookies were slightly too sweet in combination with the ice cream, but this was still delicious and had the great ice cream sandwich feeling of being able to bite into something nice like a cookie but still getting that cool ice cream in the middle! MIAM MIAM.

Cinnamon Oat Chai Latte

For this hack, I first made a bit more than half the mug of tea with a Chai tea bag from the tea area (any black tea should work) and hot water. I then added honey for sweetness.

Here's the cool part: in the mini fridge near regular milk, there's usually some alternative milks including oat milk. I vigorously shook the oat milk box and it became frothy! I poured it in and it gave a nice top to the tea, and I sprinkled some cinnamon on top as well.

Love the foamy top!

Visuals

It's not the most beautiful cup of tea, mainly because I wasn't able to sprinkle the cinnamon very evenly and the mug doesn't look the best, but it doesn't look bad at all. I would rate it visually a 6.5/10, not bad but not great.

Taste

The taste was not as good as I was expecting because the flavour of the tea was not very strong, but this is probably because it was my first try and I should adjust the water/milk/honey ratio. It still tasted pretty good and has a lot of potential, I would rate it a 6.8/10 in miam-ness.

Breakfast Congee

This one is a bit more day-dependent since there needs to be a congee available at breakfast. My personal favourite is the fish congee, so I ladled some of that into my bowl and then went to the egg station to ask for one egg over easy, plopped right on top of the congee (maybe not in those words).

I seasoned with sesame oil and added some green onions from the congee area.

Before mixing

After mixing, with some delicious liquidy yolk

Visuals

I thought it looked pretty nice before mixing, maybe a 7/10 giving me cozy anime vibes. Post-mixing it definitely didn't look as nice, maybe a 5/10, but I could tell it was going to be delicious. 

Taste

This one is definitely my favourite hack taste-wise so far! The egg went so well with the fish congee, and the sesame oil added some saltiness and additional flavour. The green onions added freshness and a different texture and it was very warm and filling. I would rate this one a 9.3/10 in the taste department and it's an awesome breakfast option!

Let me know in the comments if you want more blog posts about dining centre hacks and your opinion if you try any of these out :). Until next time!

Ana