There is a huge variety of on-campus dining at USC in comparison to other schools. While the food is not always the greatest quality, I will run through the six major on-campus dining spots at USC.

Residential Dining (a.k.a. EVK)
Located inside the EVK complex (the same building as the New and North Residential Dorms), Residential Dining is the all-you-can-eat cafeteria-style eatery where most freshman eat. Not many upperclassmen can be found eating here, as the food is not that great, but it is a step up from most collegiate dining halls.

Food:
-The main area has the "home-cooked" (note the quotes) meals, usually some sort of meat dish, vegetables and rice, other sides, french fries at lunch.
-A salad bar and sandwich bar
-Cereal at every meal
-Mediocre juices, sodas (Pepsi products), and a whole lot of milk
-A outdoor barbeque on weekdays that will grill you hamburgers, hot dogs, veggie burgers, turkey burgers, etc.
-A mexican corner that always has nachos, some kind of beans, and a mexican dish, such as beef tacos or burritos or taquitos, etc.
-A vegetarian corner that often has baked potatoes and pasta. The meals in the vegetarian corner are sometimes found in the main area as well.
-Pies and cakes for dessert (mostly pies though), an Ice cream bin
-Coffee, hot chocolate, mochas, and tea

The food at EVK is decent, and its hard not to find something you like to eat because of the huge variety of offerings. If you can get over the pink trays and strange mix of background music, it's not a horrible place to eat. Plus, the all-you-can eat makes it the most economical if you're hungry.

Cafe '84
Cafe 84 is located pretty far away from the freshman dorms, but is in a convenient location for those who live in Fluor or Webb tower, Parkside or Century apartments, or those who are working out at the Lyon Center, which is next door. 84 has, in my opinion, the best food on campus. This includes:

-Fruit smoothies from Jamba Juice
-Pizzas
-Mexican food
-A grill that makes a bunch of different burgers and sandwiches
-A salad/sandwich bar
-Chinese food that is supposedly the same as The Grill (see below) but tastes much better
-Starbucks coffee
-TCBY Yogurt

The food at 84 is a lot better than the monotonous fare at EVK, and tastes better than the Grill, but can run a little expensive. The guilt factor of watching a bunch of muscle studs working out at the Lyon Center across the way kind of ruins the frozen yogurt sundae experience too.

The Commons
The Commons is a little convenience store type place located in the student union. In addition to the convenience store fare of frozen goods, chips, and soda, there are sandwiches, soups, and four mini fast food places: a Pretzel place (like the one's you'd see at the food court of a mall), Wolfgang Puck's pizza, Colombo yogurt and smoothies, and the Betty Crocker Kitchen.

The commons is a great place to get a quick snack but it can be very busy at times. The smoothies at Colombo aren't as good as the Jamba Juice in Cafe 84. However, the Betty Crocker Kitchen never disappoints. There are delicious desserts as well as fresh bagels and breads, and this seems to be the most economical of the three spots.

The Grill
Located under the Commons, the Grill is USC's little basement fast-food restaurant. There is a health-Mex food place with burritos, tacos and the like, a chinese fast-food place called Rice Garden with tasteless food (it's way better at Cafe '84), and a section where you can get Southern-style meals -- chicken cooked different ways along with sides such as mashed potatoes, rice, cole slaw, etc. The Grill is a good place to go for both lunch and dinner, although it is VERY crowded at lunch time.

Carl's Jr.
There is a Carl's Jr. restaurant next to the Commons that takes meal plan cards. Its just a run-of the mill Carl's Jr. -- I won't go into details.

Trojan Grounds
Trojan Grounds is the USC coffee shop. It is basically a little Starbucks -- they serve Starbucks coffee and drinks, but also serve various food items. Trojan Grounds is open the latest (until 1 a.m. on weeknights) and so it is a popular spot for freshman to "Flex out" their meal plans. While the food varies, you can usually find pizza, frozen dinners, and ice cream in the frozen food case, bagels, croissants and desserts in the pastry case, salads, sandwiches, yogurt, milk, water, Ocean spray juices, fruit, chips, cookies, Instant Lunch Noodles, oatmeal, and small boxes of cereal.

Overall
I am satisfied with the dining options at USC. The fact that there are so many different types of food available on my meal plan is more than can be said for other schools that only allow meal plans to be used at the school cafeteria. The ability to choose where you eat from 6 different places eliminates monotony, and is a great aspect of life at USC. The only real drawback is that because there is no real competition between places, the food everywhere is pretty bland and tasteless compared to outside establishments.





Recommended: Yes