Job Discussion Forums

KingKong2008 · Joined: 01 Dec 2007 Posts: 6

How do you like their meals? tasty, delicious? nasty, greasy?
or is it better just to bring your own lunch or buy somethin elsewhere?

its seems a great convenience of having that option, but if the food is garbage, maybe its not so good of a perk...?
hows ur experience been like?

latefordinner · Joined: 19 Aug 2003 Posts: 973

Your mileage will definitely vary. The college I've been with since September has a pretty good faculty dining room, the best I've experienced yet in China. I've also eaten slop, and found excuses to avoid it. Just about everything in between as well.

sheeba · Joined: 17 Jun 2004 Posts: 1123

I lost weight and feel healthier than in England cos (I believe) rice is helping my system. I eat loads of mi fan. fuggin love it. In England I ate too much bread. Also I drink a lot of green tea. This place is really good for healthy options IMO.

kev7161 · Joined: 06 Feb 2004 Posts: 5880 Location: Suzhou, China

I've only taught at two schools and both have had (mostly) lousy food. Limp, oily vegetables, msg-laden everything else. Always lots of rice and watery soup on hand though. I've taught at several summer camps and it has been even worse there. I say hope for the best, but prepare for the worst. I tend to bring my lunch and eat in my classroom, but these days have been so busy that it's easier just to go to the canteen. I've got to get out of that habit!

MGreen · Joined: 22 May 2007 Posts: 81

Is this part of the contract? Is this a perk that they're offering?

Like latefordinner said, the quality can vary. But it depends on your taste and what you like. I usually eat at the faculty dining hall at my university once a week, some of my colleagues more and others less. One of my colleagues can't stand the food, she thinks its too greasy and unhygienic.
So, it really does depend on you; however, this would be the last thing on my mind when negotiating a contract in China.

Songbird · Posted: Sun Dec 23, 2007 12:54 am Post subject:

My school doesn't provide meals for free but I bought a canteen card anyway, it's SO convenient, especially days when I have classes or something else on both morning & arvo. The meals are good, I definately have my fave dishes...and a fairly good variety. I just had Shaanxi noodles yesterday, freshly made and put together in my 'cup' (I am so Chinese!), bought it back home- it was just as good, if not even better, than the ones in the local market outside. Cheaper too.

With hot dishes though, I will not eat it until I reheat it in the nuker, just to be safe. Also be aware that they will use up the rice the NEXT day if there's still some left. I've had a couple of fabulous rice poisionings this year Confused

...pot luck really.

I have also noticed the dishes have really gone up in price, with all the inflation this year. And I'm definately cutting back on the meat dishes.

eslstudies · Joined: 17 Dec 2006 Posts: 1061 Location: East of Aden

School food is cooked hours before serving, sitting in warming dishes at way less than recommended temperatures. The rice is even worse, having been cooked at 6 am. If you lose weight in China, food bugs are probably the reason. Some "perks" aren't worth it.
Compare this unhygenic slop with what you'll get in a managers' dining room when you work corporates. Freshly cooked, top ingredients, fresh fruit to finish.

Jordean · Joined: 12 Dec 2006 Posts: 238

malu · Joined: 22 Apr 2007 Posts: 1344 Location: Sunny Java

School meals at my school were abominable but have recently become OK (at lunchtime anyway). When it works well, having a decent lunch at school is a real time saver and it helps the laowai from different departments to get to know each other. It took a bit of a fight to get a decent school lunch, however.

Our standard school food is absolute pig swill. If you are fortunate enough to find a fragment or two of lean meat among the fearsome shards of crushed bone your companions will become jealous. Vegetables seem to be variations on the theme of fried lettuce with occasional Unidentified Floating Objects that sometimes appear to wriggle. It all tastes so uniformly of MSG that it is only the texture of the food - spikey bits of bone, rubbery bits of gristle, slimey or sticky goo - that varies between meals.

Just aside from the staff cafeteria is a hitherto sacred inner sanctum that is the international students' buffet. Set up after vicious protests from mainly Korean parents (don't those guys know how to bellyache!), the 'international buffet' provides real protein, nicely cooked broccoli and even mange tout along with a selection of Korean and SE Asian specialities. It took months of complaints, meetings, angry emails, petitions and even civil disobedience before FT's were allowed to lunch at the sacred buffet but it was well worth the fight in the end.

Lunch arrangements may seem like a very unimportant fine detail but it's one of those things that can make or break a happy working day. Like I said, it saves so much time if you don't have to cook or scavenge around neighbourhood eateries, and lunching together is a good way to build up a circle of friends in a new job.

eslstudies · Joined: 17 Dec 2006 Posts: 1061 Location: East of Aden

jammish · Joined: 17 Nov 2005 Posts: 1704

the chinese school food i've had has ranged from utter gash to pretty good.

At my school in wuhan, there were two schools, the Main School and the Branch SChool. At the main school, the meals were mostly awful. At the branch school they were, at times, reasonable.

At my present school, we must pay for the meals, but only like 3 RMB or so (depending on which things we choose) and they are actually a good standard, in some cases no worse than small cafe food.

vikuk · Joined: 23 May 2007 Posts: 1842

Leon Purvis · Posted: Sun Dec 23, 2007 3:06 pm Post subject:

Generally good experiences here. At the last school one of the cafeteria windows had a guy working at a coal-fired wok making dishes as-you-wait. Everything was fresh.

My present school serves a really nice variety of fresh food served HOT. The faculty cafeteria serves excellent food. And, unlike my previous school, the cafeteria help is actually FRIENDLY to Mr. Roundeyes.

vikuk · Joined: 23 May 2007 Posts: 1842

Leon Purvis · Posted: Wed Dec 26, 2007 3:40 am Post subject:

Actually, the food wasn't oily at all. The wok stayed very hot throughout meal time, and no oil was used. The food was actually steamed, not fried in oil.

My present school's cafeteria is quite clean, and many of the dishes appear to be baked. It's institution food. Anyone who ever attended an American university and had an on-campus cafeteria meal would prefer what is offered by my new school.

The faculty kitchen provides excellent fare as well.