By Jingsia Hathorne, Staff Writer
I took the liberty of comparing Bryn Mawr’s dining halls to the Haverford equivalent, and the results were predictable: Bryn Mawr’s dining options are superior. Mawrters’ two have the advantage of offering a choice between two different halls, Erdman and New Dorm, whereas Haverford has only one.
Every 2:30 on Wednesday I work at the New Dorm dining hall, where a few HaverBros from the basketball team stop in daily to eat. According to one reticent Bryn Mawr student, the Bros have said, “New Dorm is amazing. It always has everything—glitter monkeys, dancing eggplant… tongue of swine…” Ok, maybe that’s not an exact quote, but New Dorm eating has the diversity of health-conscious pizza to authentic kimchi and the ease of the simple scan ID cards for purchase.
In comparison, paraphrasing another unwilling— er, unnamed source, eating breakfast, lunch, and dinner at Haverford should be described as “substantially mediocre.” Reasons cited included, “They don’t have an area that serves exclusively Asian food and they only have a card swiper.”
The Haverford dining hall is divided into two: the boisterous right side tends to be the choice of the college’s athletic teams, who particularly enjoy sitting at its high tables, while the left offers a much quieter haven for the rest of us. Like New Dorm Dining and Erdman Dining at Bryn Mawr, you can cook your own food, have some garlic bread knots, and enjoy soft serve ice cream at any meal of the day. If you’re stressing hard, come on down—the delicious culinary comestibles are calling your name.
Most meals I’ve had at Haverford include lasagna and salad or hamburgers. Their salad bar is stingy in comparison, but they do have Cinnamon Toast Crunch. Haverford only serves the purpose of feeding college students, and succeeds in that way—but really? Does it?
It’s not only the food that distinguishes the two colleges’ dining halls—the environment certainly contributes too. At Bryn Mawr, a large number of students work at the dining halls along with the staff who cook, clean, and run the show. Walking into New Dorm for my shift, you’ll see anyone from Arthur at New Dorm lifting a stack of 20 plates up and down for his daily arm workout, to Shana making friendly connections with students from past years who have worked at the hall. Meena Thirumurti described Bryn Mawr’s dining hall as a “community.” It’s not that Haverford’s DC doesn’t have a friendly atmosphere, but the connections between the staff and students are noticeably different. You’ll likely see two students bond over their shared love for monkey muffins at Erdman, or their obsession with peanut butter at New Dorm, and it’s usually just the beginning. Then again, being a Bryn Mawr student myself, I admit to some bias.
Haverford has the advantage of offering an area where you can drop your bag off and eat, and the two separate sections in a dining hall to sit in is a nice option. Overall, both schools’ dining halls are solid. Everyone working at the dining halls keeps the food warm, cold, and neat. The fact of the matter is that we’re all privileged to have comfortable, well-organized, and delicious areas to eat with each other—regardless of your preference for Cinnamon Toast Crunch or kimchi.
Image credit: Haverford College
