Tufts Blogs

Pictured above: My brother, Ross (Tufts 2020), and I saying goodbye to our beloved dining hall before we left campus in March.

There were a lot of things I was looking forward to this year: seeing my friends again, enjoying time on the beautiful Tufts campus, challenging myself and learning new things, among many others; however, I would be lying if I didn’t admit that one of the things I was most excited for was coming back to my favorite restaurant in the world, Dewick-MacPhie dining hall, a dining hall so excellent that I actually wanted to eat there while I was enjoying my home cooked meals back in Pennsylvania (sorry Mom and Dad).

When I arrived to begin my quarantine three weeks ago, the only dining hall open was Carmichael (Carm), our second dining hall on campus. Anyone who knows me knows that I will hands-down choose Dewick over Carm any day (after all, Dewick has ice cream sundaes on Thursdays and Carm does not), so I was anxious for Dewick to open again. Last Sunday, it did, and boy, was I delighted to walk through those doors. What makes Dewick so special, you may ask?

First, there is Donna, everyone’s favorite meal swiper-inner, who greets you with a smile. After she expertly swipes you into the dining hall and wishes you a good day, you enter the treasure chest of Dewick— the food court section. Now, Niche didn’t give Tufts an A in campus food for no reason. Here are some of the food highlights of my week:

1) Noodle kugel- Something I love about Dewick is that it’s not just pizza— they serve the foods that you eat at home. Whether it’s an attempt to make you feel at home on campus, or whether they just really rock, I’ll never be certain, but when I ate my kugel, I pictured myself devouring my Grandmother’s delicious noodle kugel in her warm kitchen.

2) Hot fudge pudding cake- Is your mouth watering already? It should be! While Tufts dining is all packaged to go this semester, we are lucky in that each dorm room came equipped with a microwave-fridge unit, to accommodate our dining needs in these unusual times. After a long night of reading my psych book, I took my hot fudge pudding cake out of the fridge and stuck it in the microwave. One minute and thirty seconds later, I was in pure, chocolate-y heaven! 

3) Sweet potato fries- Before college, I didn’t appreciate a good sweet potato fry the way I do now. Dewick serves them just right— crispy, salty, and yummy. I started to love sweet potato fries so much that over the summer, I ordered them from a restaurant that has a 4.7 star rating. Their fries paled in comparison to Dewick’s.

It would be unfair to ignore the fact that Carm serves very similar quality food, and in fact, it is the only dining hall that serves fresh berries; however, I stand by my Dewick>Carmichael laptop sticker.

The better the food, the more people will want to sit and talk over meals, and the more motivated you will be to study in order to reach that food break. And so, my Emma’s Advice for today is… for all of the prospective students out there, find yourself a school that has good dining!