• Format
  • Publications (documents)
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• Source institution
  • Western Carolina University
• Identifier
  • HL_WesternCarolinian_2010-07-02_Vol76_No08_05

Page 5 WEST ERN CAROL NIAN July 2, 2010 CAME > VIEWS China Dragon offers decent variety but cant. compete with Peking Gourmet II Jay Strong | WC Intern If you live in Cullowhee and enjoy Chinese food, a popular place to go is the China Dragon, located at 3050 Old Cullowhee Rd, not far from Papas Pizza and the Laundromat, offer- ing an extensive take out menu as well as lunch and dinner buffets. The dinner buffet, for $8.50 (including tax) is all- you-can-eat, is very tasty, and has a lot of variety. It includes Won-Ton soup, fried rice with vegetables, General Chos Chicken, sweet-n-sour chicken, broc- coli with beef, assorted fried vegetables, sesame chicken, egg-rolls, and many dessert options, including Chinese donuts, fresh fruit, and small cakes. When 1 go to China Dragon, generally I get the dinner buffet, and most of the time Im. satisfied. However, the last time 1 ordered take out from the China Dragon, | have to say I was disappointed. I or- dered Pork Dumplings, and a platter of General Chos Chicken. According to the menu, when you order Gen- eral Chos Chicken, you get a side of either fried or steamed rice, and a side of all kinds of Chinese vege- tables that contain broccoli, mushrooms, carrot, water Freshman Fifteen, Pound 12 China Dragon is located at 3050 Old Cullowhee Road chestnut, bamboo shoot, celery, baby corn, onion, green pepper and zucchini. When | opened my con- tainer of General Chows Chicken, I found four or five pieces of brocolli, noth- ing else. There was no sepa- rate container with all kinds of vegetables, which was what I was led to believe | was going to get. To make matters worse, the next day | was eating the leftovers, and while | was biting into a piece of chicken, | felt something hard. Luckily I didnt bite into it, but instead fished it Students enjoy lunch at Courtyard Dining Hall last Spring Lex Menz | Staff Writer It was only a matter of time before the Freshman Fifteen touched upon the infamous courtyard dining hall. College food has been a topic of mass discussions from its conception. Is it good? Is it bad? Is it tipped with laxatives? Where does it all come from? Well, this is not an expose on the West- erns breakfast, lunch, and dinner; it is an opinion on and of all sorts. First there is breakfast. Breakfast is one of two meals that students are allowed to eat by themselves and not get the why are you all alone stares. On weekdays, break- fast is a quiet experience with your typical breakfast foods of eggs, bagels, donuts, ba- con, etc. On the weekends, however, breakfast time is a party and begins when the dining hall opens two hours later than usual and ends at | p.m. that afternoon. Person- ally, | am not a partier or a late nighter. So, walking into breakfast twice on both Sat- urday and Sunday once at 9 a.m. and again at 12 p.m. does not make my weekend very enjoyable. I am a picky eater, and | like variety to my meals. Apparently, that makes me a bad college stu- dent and I must accept the fate of eating my breakfast in the afternoon hours after sleeping away half the day. Lunch is a_ free-for-all of French fries, any kind of sandwich you could possi- bly desire, pizza, or one of the many cultural dishes one can try at the Home Zone. If none of these appeals to you, there is the 24/7 cereal canisters and salad bar. On hot days, lunch is the perfect way to hit the rare sunshine with a cake cone topped with soft serve ice cream and sprinkles without paying half of your DB points at Fresh- ens downstairs. Lunch, like breakfast, is also a possible eat alone meal because all of your friends could be in the middle of class or you your- self are making a pit stop to refuel before shipping back off to Psychology 150 or Global Issues. Let me take a moment to praise the kitchen staff for their amazing hamburgers, which are usually served at lunch! Let me say to the cooks at the Grill, your burg- ers are awesome! I do not over China Dragon. out with my tongue, and the small object turned out to be a piece of hard plastic. If] had accidentally bitten into it, it probably wouldnt have chipped my tooth, but it probably wouldve hurt. Overall, | have to recom- mend Peking Gourmet Il It isa further drive to Peking, if you live in Cullowhee (it is located in Jackson Plaza, next to the Pawn Shop), and the prices are a little higher ($9.00 for the dinner buffet), but the food is undoubtedly better. Peking offers a Mongo- Photo by Jay Strong _ mathematics _ ics they rammed into our - brains _ Fifty. years later, and there _hasnt been a single mo- _ment when Ive thought, Oh if only I could re- | member higher algebra! ersonal charm eats out smarts Garrison Keillor | Contributing Writer My time is short and | so is yours, so why not tell the truth: A person can get along very well in | life without one bit of the and phys- in high school. No, it isnt smarts, its | personal charm that pro- pels you forward in this world and I, who grew up on the windswept godfor- saken plains, know this for a fact. We Midwesterners have a charm deficit from day one and never catch 'up. Southerners have it lian Salad Bar, something that China Dragon is sore- ly lacking. out is not known for being | Chinese take | extremely healthy, but if. you're paying almost $10. for a buffet meal, it is nice | to at least have the option of | having a salad. Both restaurants have | relatively comfortable at-_ mospheres, but from my | experience Peking does not play the awful techno-pop | that China Dragon always | has playing. For my money, food, 'd rather make the | drive to Peking Gourmet II. Photo by Mark Haskett know how you cook them or what is in them (probably better not to tell me the lat- ter or else | might enjoy them less), but never have I ever stumbled upon a restaurant, fast food joint, or neighbors grill that matched the awe- someness of my mothers burgers until | came to West- erm, so you rock! Dinner is family time. The group of friends you have found to be in your extended family scream at each other over everyone elses screams to decide which table to head for then break off into pairs to the particular station with the best food. One can always tell who has the best food be- cause that is the longest line. It makes me wonder whether the cooks have popularity contests on who can get the longest lines based on what they are cooking. If you have a big group, you are lucky to find a table for all as the hall packs up fast, especially on special dinner nights. Then like you would with your family back at home, eating begins at the selected table with chatter about the day, getting to know one another better, and drink mixing. Yes, drink mixing! Sudden- a fe yf A ee eee A ee ae a ee ee ly, the Dr. 'Ppper you were drinking becomes Dr. Pep- | per/2% milk/Mountain Dew/ | orange juice with a touch of | salt and pepper. Well, back to the drink dispenser. On special nights with Night, the dining hall stair- case is overflowing with stu- dents. With Steak and Shrimp | Night comes a real treat: real _ knives! What could be seen - as a possible weapon and is usually locked up in a hid- | den drawer in the kitchen is | now readily available for the usually overcooked and over seasoned steak with a side | of shrimp. A man in a mon- key suit, a suit | might add | that has nothing to do with | steak, shrimp, or the schools |, ining that cream rises to mascot, walks around and... well, yeah, he walks around. Oh look dinner and a show! | Mardi Gras was interesting and fun with coin-shaped | _ essarily so. The swift stand _a better chance if they are _ also beautiful. was cooked crawdads, which | my friends enjoyed hiding | setts wrote to me saying in my food so I nearly fell | . | they want to give me an backwards out of my chair | ees 8 bubble gum, Mardi Gras beads, and colorful decora- tions. Dinners main course as the lifeless eyes stared me down. A fun dining experi- | ence, though not my favorite _ meal! second dorm. You live there, why? mountains of food, and there are two things every col- lege student lives on: sleep and food. Maybe the dining halls menu is not everything we students wish it was. You can never replicate Mas home cooking, but at the end of the day, the dining hall is a good place to get a hot meal and congregate with friends after too many hours of school work. Whether or not there are laxatives in the food, well, that is for the Ru- mor column! Ee a RE ie ae | A at ARAN hale dill the adhd ti conde which, as you know, The dining hall is like a _ those who have suffered in spades and many big city people and Texans | and Unitarian women and | Hispanic folks and black _ church ladies and hospital | nurses and Jewish moth- _ ers, of course, but we prai- | rie dogs are solemn and _cold and people do not | gravitate toward us and I, _having been brought up _ fundamentalist, am a cold- er fish than most. Thats what drove me into the ra- dio business. the next time I want Chinese | And I admit that | have often hired musical per- _ formers for my radio show (heard weekly by more Alone s wioge than 400 people) because EA pi a OVINSMUNGYOS ISiphow as fli Goo e _those performers were pleasant and smiled and were Fun To Be With. I _ used to hire brilliant trou- bled artists, but I dont anymore. They are a pain _ in the wazoo and usually / more troubled than bril- themed dinners like Seafood | liant, and whats the point? A terrific smile will take you a long way in this | world. If Barack Obama had grown up fundamen- talist in Minnesota, he would not be the Leader of the Free World; hed be reading the news on an _ AM station in St. Cloud _ tight now and doing com- _moercials for fertilizer and | used-car lots. I was brought up imag- _the top, merit wins out, | the race is to the swift and riches to men of under- standing, but it aint nec- Someone in Massahoo- award for something and wrote back, saying that | am unworthy, etcetera, is true. Awards should go to for their art and not to one who has had a whale of a good time. But then 1 thought, What if they dont insist? What if they say, OK, you are right, we made a mistake there. Sor- ry. I might never receive an award again. So I tore up the declin- ing letter and said Thank You instead. Awards are notoriously unfair and some of the best people go unrecognized and some of the deadliest and dopiest get one Lucite trophy after another, but awards are major jujus in the world you and I live in. In the writing trade, if you win a Pullet Surprise, this is the Heisman Tro- phy, Get Out Of Jail Free card and Magic Twanger all rolled into one, and though its awarded by a roomful of large enchila- das at Columbia Univer- sity in New York, and The Upper West Side Prize would be a more accurate brand name, nonetheless it has juju power all across the land. People bow low and tug on their forelocks when a Surprise winner walks into the room. Dogs are silenced. Fresh flowers are strewn. Maidens offer themselves. This is how the world works. The lonely striver with bad hair and serious overbite who is scratch: | ing out her thoughts: the Omaha Public Library is facing a wall of sheer granite a thousand feet high and luckily for her she doesnt know it now but someday she will and my heart goes out to her. This Massahoosetts award should go to her, | guess, but its not mine to give, only to receive, and it is blessed to receive an award though my upbring- ing tells me that probably the day after the award ceremony | will be struck by a speeding bike and get a broken leg that will need replacement, knee and hip, with titanium joints and I will never polka so gal- lantly as I do now, but if fate dictates, who am I to protest? If your kid flunked out of school, dont worry about it. Teach him to love his life. Teach her to do good work and not expect recognition. Not smart? No problem. Be useful. That may be better for humanity than to be bril- liant and troubled. And it wouldnt hurt you to smile more. Just do it. Thank you. WE WANT YOU! The Western Carolininian is currently looking for strong writers and editors with a knowledge of AP style for the fall semester. Please e-mail Editor-in-Chief Justin Caudell at we@weu.edu or by calling his office at 828- 227-2694. kl Woe tl ited 6 thal ate) ks imi

The Western Carolinian is Western Carolina University's student-run newspaper. The paper was published as the Cullowhee Yodel from 1924 to 1931 before changing its name to The Western Carolinian in 1933.

• Creator
  • Western Carolina University
• Format
  • Publications (documents)
• Type
  • Text
• Date
  • Date original: 2010-07-02
• Extent
  • Dimension: 22.75" x 12.5"
  • Pages: 10
• Subject - Topic
  • College student newspapers and periodicals
  • Cullowhee (N.C.) -- Newspapers
  • Universities and colleges -- North Carolina -- Cullowhee -- Newspapers
  • Western Carolina University -- Periodicals
• Location
  • Jackson County (N.C.)
  • Cullowhee (N.C.)
• Source institution
  • Western Carolina University
• Source Collection
  • WCU Students Newspapers Collection
• Identifier
  • HL_WesternCarolinian_2010-07-02_Vol76_No08
• Repository
  • Western Carolina University Hunter Library