I absolutely love the Silliman dining hall, with its huge vaulted ceilings and massive windows. In the winter, eating in Silliman is like eating in a beautiful ski resort–snow falling outside and a delicious cup of extra-creamy Sillichocolate in your hand. But sometimes, you gotta shake it up. Over the past three years, I’ve eaten at every college’s dining hall, and also at every place on campus that you can use a meal swipe. (Meal swipe=the amount of money you get per meal when you subscribe to the dining plan.) At lunch, you can use your meal swipe at any dining hall OR at Durfee’s Sweet Shoppe (the name makes it sound like an old-timey candy store, but it sells everything from pizza pockets to dental floss and has possibly the most distinct smell of any place anywhere), The Thain Family Café in Bass Library (basically a snack stand), or the brand-new Steep Café on Science Hill.
The turket reuben is with creamy swiss and tangy sauerkraut. Mmmmmmmmmmmmmmm…
Steep Café! Is! Miraculous! Did somebody say FRESH PASTRIES? Did somebody say SMOKED SALMON on toast? Did somebody say MATCHA and TURMERIC LATTES? Yes, you can get it all at this elegant, light-filled, hyper-efficient new spot next to the Science Library!*
I am not a STEM person. I am so not a STEM person that I initially could not figure out where this café was. People kept saying, “It’s right by Marsh,” so I went all the way up Science Hill to Marsh Hall, which is an outpost of the School of Forestry, and walked in on a bunch of graduate students eating some kind of grain out of an aluminum-foil tray. I looked at the tray and wondered if it could possibly be Steep Café. But no, I was just at the wrong Marsh–Steep Café is actually near the Marsh Lecture Hall, which is, remarkably, an entirely different thing.
And dessert options? You gotta be kidding me!
The deliciousness of Steep has lured me back to Science Hill again and again, despite the fact that none of my classes are up there. Sometimes I’ll see people I know there, and they’ll say, shocked, “What are YOU doing here?” But anyone can go to Steep Café. Actually, I’m winning, because other people think they have to do math to go there. But NO–I am eating my quiche AND not drawing a parabola. Win-win!
Also, the lighting is FABULOUS.
*don’t know what a Science Library is, don’t care to ever find out.
