Currently being a TRU student, have you ever been tired of waiting in the long lines at Starbucks or Tim Hortons on campus or fed up with the same kinds of meal you order every day from those café? If the answer is yes, this post is for you. Even if you are not a TRU students yet or going to be a part of our TRU community soon, you may find in this post some awesome places providing healthy, convenient and delicious lunch breaks on campus. When thinking of a dining place on campus, most TRU students think of Tim Hortons in House of Learning and Starbucks in Old Main Building as their first options. This leads to the long line up and it would be not so nice when students are rushing for their classes or suffering the hunger during school time. We, Elly and Regina, want to show you that TRU is a cool university offering many other awesome food and beverage places on campus more than just Tim Hortons and Starbucks with less waiting time.
The Scratch Café
The Scratch Café is located in the Culinary Arts building on TRU campus. What makes it interesting is it is a student-run dining place and the food is made from scratch and sourced locally, sustainably and ethically wherever possible. The Scratch Café is open during the school year, September to December, and January to April, from Tuesday to Friday for the public and university community from 10 a.m. to 1:30 p.m. It is served in buffet style, which ready food are displayed according to the sequence in the main area and guests will serve themselves and take whatever quantity of food they want on their own tray. The name of the dishes is displayed in front of every item. All menus are subject to change daily. There is a variety of food to choose from:
- Hot entrées
- Salad bar
- Soup
- Sandwiches
- Egg dishes
- Vegetarian dishes
- Meals to go
- Artisan breads
- Cakes
- Muffins
- Cookies
- Desserts
- Locally roasted coffee, teas, and soft drinks.
This is our both first experience dining here and we find it a cozy place, well-decorated and friendly service served by Culinary of Arts Students. The most important thing is we did not have to wait long to get our food.
We shared our dishes together. For appertizer, We selected beef and cabbage soup . It is winter time and nothing is better than having a hot bowl of soup to warm up. We are both big fans of healthy lifestyle eating and this place is beyond our imagination with different kinds of veggie dishes there such as Creamy Cole Slaw Salad, Mixed Fruit, South West Black Bean Salad, Roasted Red Potatoes, Cucumber Salad, Quinoa Salad, Lentil, Grilled Vegetables etc.After having our soup, we decided to have some Cole Slaw Salad and Devilled Eggs and were really satisfied with them. Fresh salad and daily made soup were perfect healthy dishes to start our lunch. They costed about $10 and that is a very reasonable price.
For our entrée, we chose Salmon Baked in Filo White Wine Sauce. It costed us $11.40 and this is pretty cheap for a salmon dish. In a fancy restaurant, we would probably pay about $20+ for the same dish.
Salmon Baked in Filo White Wine Sauce, also known as a Salmon Wellington, is a delicious red fish, baked with mushrooms under a crust of puff pastry. This dish is served with roasted vegetables. Culinary Arts did a good job in preparing this dish. Salmon was well cooked, juicy inside with a crispy crust on the outside. Fish retained its natural fats and moisture. However, the taste is not reflected at all. Vegetables also tasted really good. They had some sort of tart bitterness that goes well with added spices.Wine sauce, that was poured on a plate, secured food composition and added a touch of perfection.
For dessert, we had cheese cake which was about $3 a piece. It was thick and elastic. However, it did not break and did not crumble. Cheesecake gave a rich creamy taste that was enriched with a big portion of sugar as our energy booster for hectic college life .
The Common Ground Coffee
Our group chooses to mention The Common Ground Coffee. We both fall in love with the romantic view from the front window there. As you can see in this picture, no one can resist having a hot cup of coffee or tea while having a comfy seat bathed in light and looking at the mountains.
Common Grounds is the only student-owned and operated coffee shop on campus striving for superior environmental and ethical standards by offering organic products and friendly-to-environment cups and containers. It also usually does not take us that much time to wait in line, which is great whenever we need to run for our classes. Best of all, if you bring your own reusable mug, you get a 50¢ discount and contribute to saving the environment. We highly recommend this place for anyone who wants high-quality, affordable coffee with exceptional environmental and ethical standards products.
Those mentioned above are our favorite cozy spots where offer healthy lifestyle meals on campus with reasonable prices and high-quality products. We hope people would enjoy those places as much as we do!
