Deconstructed Salad and Burger at John Harvard's

The first fellow Korean in the Class of 2014 that I met was Jim, who attended an international high school in Korea. We used to occasionally run into each other in Annenberg last year, but now that I am stuck in the quad, I rarely saw him at all this year. I wanted to treat him to a meal, so we decided to have a lunch at John Harvard's.

We started the meal with a bowl of New England Clam Chowder ($5.49). I was disappointed that the restaurant didn't have a bread bowl, but I guess that's more of a San Francisco thing?

We added a packet of "All Natural Oyster Crackers." The oyster crackers taste the best when they have sufficiently absorbed the clam chowder and taste soft in the mouth.

The clam chowder, as you can see, was quite thick! The pepper I added definitely enhanced the taste, but there is no need to add salt because it was already seasoned all right. The clam chowder had tiny pieces of clams--not big enough to impress me. Even though the soup was thick, it wasn't super creamy. Other chowders I had before had large chunks of potatoes, but I think this was a minimalist clam chowder in that it didn't have that many other ingredients.

Jim ordered the Steak House Burger ($12.99), one of John Harvard's All Natural Gourmet Burgers that is built on a Kaiser roll with beef steak tomato and crispy romaine on the side. It was accompanied by cedar spiced steak fries and a pickle spear.

Specifically, the Steak House Burger was a half pounder with Shedd's sauce (I'm not quite sure what that is...), Swiss cheese, and crispy fried onions.

Personally, this dish would be way too heavy for me. I am not a huge fan of burgers nor fried food. I liked that the burger wasn't served on a lame sesame seed bun, but on a Kaiser roll. Also, what makes John Harvard's All Natural Gourmet Burgers different from other burgers, according to the menu, is that these burgers are all natural, using humanely raised, hormone, steroid, and antibiotic free cows.

I usually order the special when I come to John Harvard's, but the day's special was pork chop. I decided to go with the Steak Tip Salad ($13.99).

To be honest, I was quite surprised when the waitress brought the dish. I had expected it to be a regular plate of salad with pieces of sliced steak on top. What I got instead, however, was a deconstructed salad.

The dish had an odd presentation...something just made it look incomplete. There were two skewers of ranch spiced steak tips over crisp wedge of iceberg lettuce, cucumbers, tomatoes, red onions, and waffle fries. I skipped the crumbled blue cheese and had the red wine vinaigrette on the side.

I didn't know where to start with this dish. I just grabbed one of the skewers and got a taste of the steak tip. The tenderness of the meat was not constant throughout. There were some pieces that were moist and juicy, while other parts were dry and slightly tough.

I certainly didn't expect an actual half of iceberg lettuce to be a part of the menu! Also, instead of tomato wedges, I got tomato slices.

I asked the steak to be cooked rare, but it was more medium rare.

It would have been much tender had it been cooked rare! Oerall, though, I was quite satisfied with the salad...that is, if we could even call it a salad! I felt like I was just eating salad with some vegetables on the side.

Korean BBQ and Squash: The Best Meal Since I Came Back to Harvard

There is one dish at Harvard that everyone (except vegetarians) raves about: Korean BBQ. People love it so much that when the dining hall stopped serving Korean BBQ (because it's a seasonal menu), a lot of students got angry and protested to bring it back!

There was a sign listing all the ingredients in the special Make Your Own Korean BBQ section.

The bar included seared marinated beef (which ran out, as seen in the picture, attesting to its popularity!), crispy tofu, sticky rice, green leaf lettuce, kimchee, pickled cucumber, scallions, and ssamjang, or the paste/sauce that you add to the green leaf lettuce and the beef.

A close-up of the kimchee, pickled cucumber, and ssamjang. According to a friend, she saw the dining hall workers opening up a jar of kimchee, suspecting that they bought it from somewhere rather than make it in its kitchen. It must be quite expensive to afford all that kimchee! I don't really understand why the pickled cucumber is there...we, Koreans, don't eat that kind of stuff.

The dining hall lady brought the grilled beef from the kitchen! The sticky rice was literally a sticky glue that you had to scoop it so hard with the spoon to get it. I didn't eat any of the rice.

Someone once told me that Harvard has partnered up with a nearby squash farm, thus the prevalence of squash in the dining hall. I could eat squash all day, so I go absolutely crazy whenever they serve squash in the dining hall.

My two plates full of food! Wow, no wonder I was so full after devouring all this food. I couldn't choose between the regular meal and the special Make Your Own meal. I meant to bring a little bit of both, but ended up getting a lot of both haha :)

The best way to eat Korean BBQ is to wrap the beef and the kimchee into the green leaf lettuce and put it in your mouth all at once.

I was so pleased by the taste of the kimchee! I am sorry Mom, but it tastes almost as good as yours! I especially like the thick, whiter part of the cabbage then the leafy outer layer. Sadly, the green leaf lettuce wasn't that fresh, especially towards the edges.

The Korean BBQ itself didn't meet my expectation. The last time I had it at a different dining hall, the meat was clearly grilled over fire because it had nice grill marks and smell of the fire within the meat. This one, however, tasted almost boiled in water. The meat was really coarse, dry, and tough, though I did like the fact that it wasn't fatty. The meat was cut really big as well so I had to rip it apart.

My second plate was probably tastier because of the squash! I liked the slightly burnt edges. The squash was seasoned in some kind of sticky sweet sauce, which I think is unnecessary because it shields the naturally sweet taste of the squash. I like the more orange, mushier squash because it's easier to chew. The other dish I got was the portabella mushroom stuffed with quinoa, edamame, and cranberries (you can't see the mushroom), which tasted so bland and tasteless. The East Indian Rice & Lentil had pretty nice spices from the curry, but it was sort of greasy.

Exclusively Vegetarian Dinner in Pforzheimer

Luckily the dining hall changes its menu every meal so I don't get sick of it until the end of the semester when they begin to repeat menu.

I usually get food only from one line of the buffet: the vegetarian side. It's not that I am a vegetarian, though I could be if I wanted to. I typically don't eat HUDS meat because it's either the chicken breast that they serve in different variations, or the meat is cooked in a way that makes it super fatty and greasy. Today's vegetarian entree featured three different kinds of rice/grains and brussel sprouts.

The rice had lots of crackled pieces that it tasted like I was eating rice from the bottom of the hot-stone pot. The brocoli was way overcooked that it had no texture while chewing. The brussel sprouts tasted bland that I put in so much salt and pepper. Actually, that's the problem with lots of HUDS food...it's always so bland that I end up adding extra salt all the time. High sodium diet? Oh well.

Indian Curries and Quinoa at Pforzheimer

I had a nice sit-down dinner with my roommate Ash for the first time since we got back. Sadly the dinner wasn't nothing special, but hey, it's HUDS. The line of food I got was, from left to right, Indian curry with peas and potatoes, white and wheat bread rolls, and quinoa with garbanzo beans and raisins, which is the same stuff I got earlier for lunch.

The beef fettucini looked very greasy. Also, the beef served in the dining hall is usually very tough.

Chicken picatta or something? I don't exactly know what it was, but it was smothered with some weird creamy sauce. HUDS loves to serve different variations of chicken breast, ranging from red-spiced chicken (Tobasco sauce) to teriyaki chicken.

My plate of quinoa, sauteed collard greens, green beans, scallions, Indian curry, and hoisin sauce. The raisins in the quinoa added sweetness to the bland grain. The Indian curry lacked lots of spices. The hoisin sauce was too sweet and salty by itself, but of course you don't just scoop it and eat it by itself...it tasted good mixed in the quinoa. And the vegetables...can't really go wrong with them unless they are not fresh.

Ash's plate had a giant bowl of strawberry yogurt that she gulped down in 5 seconds! Haha. I am so proud of her for not drinking diet coke anymore. The fettucini that she had looked very dry.

Exploring Harvard Dining Halls: Pforzheimer House

Harvard has a total of twelve upperclassman dining halls and Annenberg, a freshman-only dining hall. Each dining hall has different configuration, and although the type of food is similar across board, their taste varies depending on the chef's cooking skills. I would say Pforzheimer House falls in the middle rank.

This section is for main entrees (usually two meat dishes and a vegetarian dish), some kind of carbohydrates (grains, rice, bread, potato), and two types of vegetables.

The salad bar is equipped with fresh mixed greens, lettuce, or romaine, cucumber, tomatoes, carrots, brocoli, beans, beets, yogurt, cottage cheese, apple sauce, and pre-made salad.

Fruit baskets full of granny smith apples, red apples, oranges, and bananas. There is a frozen yogurt machine and many different types of cereal.

This section at the back of the dining hall features the special Make-Your-Own bar of the day. Depending on the day of the week, it features a fajita bar, Korean BBQ bar, baked potato and chili bar, greek salad bar, and Peking chicken bar (as seen in this picture, complete with chicken, tofu, mushu wrap, and sauce).

Pforzheimer House is famous for its two-level "double dining hall." The food is on the first floor, but you can bring the tray up to the second floor for more privacy and quiet dining.

Green Vegetables and Brown Grains at Adams House

Because of its proximity to most classrooms and academic buildings, Adams House dining hall gets really crowded during lunch. It is also right next to the Crimson, so I probably spend more time eating in Adams than in my own House. The food line for Monday's lunch included green beans, sauteed spinach, some kind of pilaf with raisins, and roasted red bliss potatoes.

The pilaf was surprisingly tasty! I liked the sweetness from the raisins and the savoriness from the scallion.

The main entree was the pre-made Reuben sandiwch on dark rye bread with corned beef and Swiss cheese. The cheese didn't melt quite nicely and the sandwich looked liked they had been prepared quite a while ago.

Who said you can't have cereal for lunch? I mixed rice crispies and cocoa crispies. I love it when the milk turns into chocolate milk! Since I had a late breakfast, I just got a little bit of the pilaf (I scooped the crusty edges), green beans that were too tough, sauteed spinach that need more seasoning, cucumber (can't go wrong with these), and cottage cheese.

My friend's "healthy" meal that included chicken fingers, pepper pot soup, and salad.

A plate of even "healthier" meat. All the dishes look so dry in this picture/

Coconut Curry and Rice at Pforzheimer House

Harvard University Dining Services (HUDS) tries to cater to the diverse appetites of the diverse student body at Harvard by serving different ethnic cuisines, ranging from Ethiopian stew to Korean BBQ to Chinese stir-fry. This past Sunday, the entree for dinner was seafood coconut curry.

On Sunday, HUDS also features fresh sourdough baguette and whole grain baguette with olive oil dressing. Sometimes the bread is warm and toasty, but usually it's cold as though they have been frozen and then thawed. I really like the crusty shell and the soft inside of the sourdough bread, especially when they have been toasted in an oven.

There are usually one or two meat-based entree (including seafood) and one vegetarian entree. Sunday's meat dish was pork loin. I don't eat pork, but the meat looked really dry.

The white rice and the seafood coconut curry. The sticky rice is always so clumpy and slightly undercooked. If you don't chew it well enough, the rice might get stuck in your throat. The coconut curry shouldn't really called "seafood curry" because the only seafood it had was tiny little shrimps. There were bits and pieces of coconut flakes for an extra coconut flavor.

The vegetarian dish of the day: penne pasta. The pasta is usually way overcooked and there isn't enough sauce.

I had the curry, white rice, cucumber, green peas, and cottage cheese. Some people can't stand it when there food touches each other, but I just pile everything in one plate. The scooper for the curry had holes in it so I only got the vegetables and not the liquid in the curry.