My first rule of restaurant reviewing is the "growl" test. I study the menu before ever deciding to visit a place -- a new bistro offering braised beef cheeks, a Vietnamese joint ladling up fragrant phô soup -- and if my stomach grumbles hungrily, I'm going.
When asked to review the food at Florence Moore Hall, I had to put rule No. 1 aside. Instead of growling, my stomach lurched as I remembered the spit-it-out-bad food my freshman year at Branner Hall. But that was 20 years ago -- and, I was assured, things in Stanford's kitchens have changed.
Rule No. 2 -- the sniff check -- was no problem. When I walked in at 5:45 p.m., a savory, faintly smoky aroma telegraphed that real food was cooking somewhere.
As for rule No. 3 -- the ambience factor -- forget it. Flo Mo, like most dining halls, is lit to keep you from falling asleep in your marinara and forgoing your Hum Bio homework. The chairs are so uncomfortable, no one could linger. And getting served is a survival-of-the-fittest struggle: grab a tray, elbow your way to the correct food line (I started out in the wrong one, leading to commercial-tasting chili instead of the Peking beef), reach around somebody to get to the beverage dispensers, haul arse to an empty chair.
Feeling conspicuous among students half my age, I nonetheless sampled everything I could: a creamy fusilli pesto with chunks of grilled chicken (that's what I'd smelled), a lemony Caesar salad with tasty croutons, a squishy penne pasta marinara with too much sugar in the sauce, hearty vegan cannellini beans with bits of tomato and red bell pepper. The tofu-and-barley stir-fry wasn't sizzling fresh, but the bok choy was still crunchy and the barley plump and chewy, even if the sauce was salty enough to dehydrate my tongue.
The high point of the evening was a fresh artichoke half, perfectly steamed, with a trimmed-out choke and a meaty heart. I'd have preferred mayo to the yogurt-garlic sauce offered, but I suppose even college students watch their fat intake -- except the generously shaped kid ordering Peking beef, who requested "all meat" and directed the hasher to stay away from the "green stuff." That green stuff was cilantro, and thank goodness she gave me what he passed up, because the pungent herb helped balance the sweetness of this dish.
Servings, as ever, are as big and as many as you want. No wonder so many freshmen fatten up, although in my case I blamed it on only being able to stomach Branner's salad with blue cheese dressing and a side of cookies. Of course, the lettuce was iceberg; now it's "assorted field greens." The cookies are still there, as is the messy, scoop-it-yourself ice cream bar. But judging from my one night at Flo Mo, I'd say today's students have it better than we did: despite a little too much sugar and way too much salt, the food is surprisingly decent.
As for my final rule of reviewing -- going incognito? Ha!
Tori Ritchie, '81, is food editor for San Francisco magazine and host of Food Network's Ultimate Kitchens.
