Welcome to Round 1 of what I like to call, “Using The Big Green as an Excuse to Try Out New Restaurants.” Working title.

But let me explain. I spent a little over six months living in Washington, D.C. during last spring and summer. D.C. is a great city, and one of the many things it’s known for is its ethnic food. With the help of Yelp!, I experienced some pretty great meals – everywhere from food trucks to kinda fancy (but still within my intern budget) sit-down places and every cuisine from the ubiquitous Thai to Vietnamese, Indian, Middle Eastern and Ethiopian. I miss it. I want to go back. But I can’t afford the plane ticket.

Solution? I’m going to seek out the best ethnic places in East Lansing and Lansing, take one for the team, and go try them out. Hopefully they’ll be places you haven’t ever been to or didn’t even know existed, and you might be inspired to try one out. If not you can just be jealous of me.

Round 1 led me to Thai Village in Lansing, located at 400 S. Washington Square right near the capitol building.

I think that Lansing is underrated. I don’t know if it’s the distance, the number of options for food, the entertainment here in East Lansing, or the fact that there are not many students wandering around downtown — which the rest of us take that as some sign that we’re not allowed — but most people I know never bother to take the five-minute drive downtown.

I talked to a friend to the other day who said he had literally never been to Lansing, and he’s been here for four years. It’s kind of a shame because there’s a ton of cool stuff down there. The capitol is awesome, and you can take tours for free. There’s cool events like Oktoberfest, which just went on last month. There are coffee shops and places to study where you don’t know anybody who’s going to distract you. Most importantly: there’s good food.

The Starters

Yelp! recommendation in hand, I headed downtown with three friends on a Friday evening. If you’re worried about parking in Lansing, don’t be. There were plenty of metered spots near the restaurant, and meters in Lansing are free after 6 p.m. Thai Village looked slightly sketch from the outside, but I find that most good Thai places do. Also, have you ever noticed how all Thai restaurants have to have “Thai” in the name? I know of a Thai Inn, Thai Fortune, Thai 102, Thai Kitchen, there’s that new No Thai! Place in EL. C’mon, guys. Creativity.

We were one of only a few tables of people in there that night – not as good of a sign. Maybe they do a big takeout business? Anyways, the menu was pretty big, and we all decided on something different after a short dispute about who got to order the pad pak as I had forbidden anyone to order the same thing for the benefit of this story. By the way, I won.

I also ordered a Thai iced tea, which if you’ve never had one before, you should stop reading right now and go find some because they’re really, really good. It’s kind of like milk tea you would get at a bubble tea place but sweeter and with a stronger flavor. Basically, it’s a cold drink that consists of strong, dark tea, condensed milk and sugar, sometimes with some spices like anise mixed it. Thai Village’s Thai iced tea was definitely worthy of anything I ever had in D.C., which is to say it was great. Also, at $2, it was just about the same price as ordering a Coke and way, way better, and its creaminess is a great match for spicy Thai food.

Next up, miso soup, which came free with all of our entrees, a really nice plus. Normally, I don’t order miso soup because I’m not a fan. It’s kinda gross and watery and has that weird…miso-y flavor. I know, but still. But I had free soup in front of me, and I’m poor. There’s no way I was turning that away. And surprisingly, I really liked this variation. It was a thicker broth than I’ve seen before, and the flavor was more spicy than miso-y, and it was actually pretty hearty with tofu and mushrooms.

The Entrees

I had the pad pak for my entree, which consisted of broccoli, pea pods, mushrooms, carrots, baby corn, napa and bamboo shoots in a brown sauce. I added chicken, but if you can’t tell, I ordered it basically because it had the widest variety of vegetables and I’m usually too lazy to make anything but the occasional salad or side of broccoli for myself at home.

Sidebar: We had a serious debate about baby corn while deciding what to order. I mean, baby corn is weird, right? It looks like a tiny corncob, but you can eat the whole thing which is unnatural. It tastes good, but still, how the hell did they engineer that?

Anyway. It was really good. I ordered it hot, and it was definitely spicy but not over the top. The mix of vegetables was great and the sauce had great flavor. I’m trying to come up with another adjective to describe it other than great, but I can’t. Sorry. I’m obviously no Ruth Reichl. Basically, I’m telling you it was good so you should just go try it.

Everybody else was pretty happy with their meals as well. One of my friends had the drunken noodles (“I get it everywhere and I wasn’t disappointed,” she said. “The veggies were cooked perfectly but it could have used some more basil”), another had bell peppers and Thai holy basil with shrimp (“Could have used a lot more basil and some more shrimp, but otherwise good”) and the last had the sinn pak delight with tofu (“Delightful,” she said. Just kidding. “The tofu was cooked perfectly and the mushrooms were really good” was what she actually said).

So I guess maybe they’re really good chefs but have a basil shortage? On the plus side, the portions were huge, definitely big enough to take half home for another meal, which is basically the best part of any restaurant meal as any college student knows.

Prices weren’t bad either. Most of the entrees are between $8 and $9 for dinner and between $6 and $7 for lunch, and come with a choice of chicken, pork, tofu, beef, shrimp, scallop or squid.

Conclusions

My conclusions about this place:

-       Food was great (I don’t own a thesaurus)

-       They have a mysterious lack of basil

-       I am now craving Thai iced tea

-       I wish I still had the other half of my entrée left but I ate it at 3 a.m. the same night

-       I should probably have more vegetables in my diet

So there you have it! You should eat probably eat here if you like Thai food.

Lemme know if you have any suggestions for more places I should check out.

Leah Kelley smiles as she eats her vegetarian meal in Snyder-Phillips dining hall

TBG sat down with Environmental Studies and Agriscience freshman Leah Kelley to talk about the challenges and benefits of being a vegetarian.

Q: Why did you decide to become a vegetarian?
A: The initial reason was to lower my carbon footprint. Eating lower on the trophic level means that it takes less energy to produce the food that you’re making. If we were going to feed 1,000 people, you could feed them with grain or you could feed them with cow meat. It would take way more environmental detriment to feed them with beef because of the land that it takes and because of the greenhouse gases.

I do believe that the way we fill the animals that we serve as meals…chocking them full of different drugs to keep them from being sick. That can’t be beneficial to us and the hormones to make them grow faster…just the fact that cows are supposed to be grain-fed and they’re not.

Q: How long have you been a vegetarian?
A: For two years.

Q: Has being a vegetarian made any difference in the way you feel?
A: I think I generally feel healthier. I don’t know if that’s necessarily because I’m a vegetarian or because I eat a lot of vegetables.

Q: How hard is it to find something to eat at a restaurant?
A: It definitely depends on where I go. I feel like it tends to be that if I go to a restaurant that is ethnic, I can find something. But I think that in the American culture, meat is very prominent and so if I go to an American restaurant it’s usually pretty hard to find something to eat, which is unfortunate.

But it’s a good thing that I like ethnic food. I love Chipotle because I can just get the vegetarian burrito. And I also like the sandwiches at Potbelly’s. They have a vegetarian sandwich that’s got a lot of mushrooms on it and I’m a big mushroom fan.

I also am allergic to sesame seeds, which sometimes comes into factor from this because a lot of people [say], “Oh you’re vegetarian. You can have hummus and pita,” but tahini is sesame and that’s what’s in hummus. I would go to Woody’s because it usually is a good place for vegetarians, but I can’t have hummus and they put sesame on a lot of things.

Q: What challenges do you face when you eat in the cafeteria?
A: In Snyder- Phillips, in the Gallery, I can always find something. I try to make sure that I’m getting a complete protein. They always have black bean burgers, garden burgers and soy chicken at the grille. And there’s always salad, so I’m constantly able to get something if they don’t have another meal for it.

I lived in Hubbard Hall last semester and it was a little tougher there to get something that I wanted and that was vegetarian. I think you can always get something vegetarian but it’s just making sure you get the complete protein and that it’s something that you want to be eating.

I think I have more trouble with the combo exchange. I’m really busy a lot so I need to get combo exchange for a meal sometimes and the options that they have there for vegetarians are not very good. They have a vegetarian Mediterranean [wrap] that’s much less than delicious and the egg sandwiches are the same—really not good.

Q: Have you ever considered going vegan?
A: It was not my end goal when I started but I’m not opposed to the idea. We’ll see later in life if I’m in a position where I would be able to do that because it takes a lot of time and a lot of money to be vegan.

Q: How have you influenced others by going vegetarian?
A: My sister barely eats meat now. That could’ve been a choice she made on her own but she read a book about how humans weren’t designed to eat meat. She doesn’t eat red meat and she doesn’t make it. You eat meat and it stays in your system for about three days. Meat at that temperature for three days…that just doesn’t seem like a good thing.

Q: What’s your favorite vegetarian recipe?
A: My mom makes really great fajitas and we do home-make the salsa and it’s really delicious. I think my favorite part is the grilled vegetables. Grilled vegetables are amazing. The salsa is so full of flavor and the rice and black beans make a complete protein.

Q: Do you find it difficult to buy vegetarian items at the grocery store, like Boca Burgers, because they’re more expensive?
A: That is something that I would like to see change: the cost of vegetarian substitutes because I absolutely love Morning Star burgers. They’re delicious. It’s really frustrating how expensive they are. It’s nice that I can get them in the cafeteria because they are more expensive than some of the other things.

Mainly, I just go for the sale items and once you do get the food that you need for getting the substitute of protein, just ration. There is a Foods For Living [store] in East Lansing. It’s a lot like Whole Foods…it is more expensive but it’s a good place to go. They’ve got a lot of vegetarian items. I go in there and it’s like [an] overload of excitement for food.

Q: How do you fulfill your daily food requirements?
A: I’ve started taking B-12 vitamins as a supplement because that’s the one vitamin that vegetarians can’t get it [in] any of their substitutes, at least not in a viable form. I know that sometimes supplements aren’t the viable form also, but I feel like it’s better to take that than to not.

Q: What keeps you motivated on a daily basis to continue being a vegetarian?
A: This isn’t the only thing that keeps me motivated, but one of things is that I do have a lot of vegetarian friends. My roommate is vegetarian. I’m really involved in Greenpeace and whenever we have events…where we’re going to need food, I know that there’s going to be vegetarians there. It seems to be that lots of environmental activists are vegetarians, probably because of the same reasoning of the lowering your carbon imprint.

Q: Do you miss or crave any food that you can’t have now that you’re a vegetarian?
A: Sometimes I babysit the kids next door when I visit home. They would have…chicken nuggets in the shape of dinosaurs and I tried so hard to find…them and they don’t make them. I think that’s the one thing I miss.

Q: Did becoming a vegetarian require you to learn much more about nutrition?
A: I was figuring I’d just make sure I ate beans and rice because that makes a complete protein. My mom was really encouraging me to find more things, so I would buy tofu. She would not make anything with it because she doesn’t like tofu, so I would have to make something with the tofu. I generally eat healthy, so other than the protein factor, a lot of vegetarians just end up eating carbohydrates all of the time. I’ve tried to stay away from that and just eat vegetables. ..that’s what I eat most of the time.

Q: What advice would you offer people who want to become vegetarians but haven’t made the transition yet?
A: Do your research. Make sure that you’re reasons are correct and that you’re not just going off what someone told you in passing one day. Also, you can just try it out for a week and just see how you like it.

Click here to see how to make Leah’s favorite vegetarian recipe.

See the video below for Leah’s three things everyone should know before becoming a vegetarian.

While MSU educates nearly 45,000 students per year, the university’s cafeterias feed approximately 150 times as many mouths.

MSU feeds approximately six million people each year, nearly 25,000 people per day, said Associate Director of Residential Dining Bruce Haskell.

A student goes through the salad bar in Yakeley's cafeteria (photo credit: Emily Lawler).

Many students first view the massive cafeterias as an endless array of options, putting the home cooked dinner table to shame. Others notice the dangers of overeating or contamination often associated with feeding such large numbers of people.

“There were more choices than I expected there would be, so it was exciting eating in the dorms at first, but getting sick my freshman year made me aware of the less appealing side to dorm food,” said biosystems engineering sophomore Matt Crowder.

Crowder was one of 29 MSU students affected by the E. Coli outbreak in East Complex in fall 2008 from a commercial lettuce contamination.

“I would not wish E. coli on my worst enemy,” he said. “It was the worst sickness I’ve ever had.”

MSU division of residential and hospitality services collaborating with the Ingham County Health Department reacted immediately to the outbreak, pulling together all infected students to work on determining the source of the contamination.

“I spent five days in the hospital, and the health department visited me there to interview me about exactly what I ate for the last week,” Crowder said.

MSU’s response to the E. coli outbreak was crucial; the university immediately informed students through e-mail and provided updates on their website.

“We took every precaution,” Haskell said. “We even pulled turkey because many of the sick students said they had eaten turkey sandwiches with lettuce. We went through a lot of testing looking for a common thread.”

The Detroit-based vendor, Aunt Mid’s Produce Company, was eventually identified as the source of the outbreak.

“I first became aware of the E. coli outbreak on Sept. 15, and we did not reintroduce lettuce from a different company until Nov. 11,” Haskell said.

Although it was the first MSU residence hall contamination in 30 years, the contamination was covered nationally in the days following the outbreak.

“We took a big hit on that even though E. coli was happening all over the country, but the whole experience taught us a lot so when the Norovirus hit in April we were prepared,” Haskell said.

Norovirus, the second outbreak of the academic year, hit Shaw Hall on Apr. 1.  Approximately 30 students were hospitalized with Norovirus symptoms.

“Norovirus wasn’t foodborne, but to be safe we switched to full service of most every item to prevent cross contamination with students in Shaw and installed hand sanitizer dispensers,” Haskell said.  “We provided sick packets to residents so they wouldn’t have to leave their rooms; we were just taking care of our residents, really just doing our jobs.”

The campus cafeteria system had two bacteria breakouts in the 2008-2009 school year (photo credit: Emily Lawler).

As an effect of the two recent dorm-related illnesses on campus, students often relate bulk foods to dangers and recalls.  According to MSU food science professor Elliot Ryser, cafeteria food served in bulk is no more likely to be contaminated than any other food source.

“When feeding a large number of people it is easier to notice contamination,” Ryser says.  “If 400 people eat potato salad in a cafeteria, you can see the outbreak, but if 400 people buy potato salad at a grocery store and scatter and serve it to people in their homes, then it’s harder to tell where the contamination came from.”

While bulk food is not more susceptible to contamination, it is easier to detect when contaminations do occur, allowing for action to control the problem.  MSU has been known to react quickly when problems do occur.

“We live in a day in age where there are occasionally recalls and we follow very strict protocols on what to do if they occur,” said Joe Petroff, MSU residential and hospitality occupational health and safety officer.

Preventing outbreaks starts with the training and enforcement of food handling procedure.

“Before the food is put out it is as safe as any other source of food; it becomes dangerous when it sits out and is handled,” Ryser said.

MSU follows the Michigan Department of Agriculture’s food codes for food storage and handling and are inspected regularly. All MSU food service employees go through an extensive training when they are hired as well as an annual recertification, said Petroff, who is responsible for training residential employees.

“All employees go through a significant training to learn how to handle food and keep things clean and safe.  The staff is well-informed not to come to work if they show any sings at all of illness and are not penalized for that,” he said.

While food contamination is a main concern of students and staff, cafeteria food safety also encompasses the sustenance of the menus and nutritional value of the food offered in the MSU cafeterias is continually developing.

“Studies that I have done have shown students eat healthier in the residence halls than when living in off campus,” said Sharon Hoerr, a food science and human nutrition professor. “It is very possible to eat very healthfully in the residence halls; people just need to make some choices.”

While the cafeterias offer healthy options, the options force students to make difficult decisions regarding maintaining a healthy diet.

“Understanding what is healthy helped me have a balanced plate while my friends had entire plates of mac and cheese with Cheetos on the side,” said Nicole Goldman, a food science senior and former president of the Food Science Club. “My plate was always balanced, and the dorms make that easy with so many choices like the large salad bars with lots of fruits and veggies.”

The 13 MSU dinning halls aim to provide healthy options as well as the typical college cafeteria staples.

“People say that want to eat healthy but burgers and pizza still rule, so healthy is a hard thing to nail down; it is always different what people consider healthy,” Haskell said. “People acquaint healthy with fresh, so we have a lot of made to order food.”

The cafeterias follow the American Cancer Society’s “The New American Plate” as a nutritional tool and aim to buy local fresh food including entirely Michigan grown apples and are working towards Michigan meat products and more fresh than frozen vegetables.

“I like that you can see people making the food, and it’s not in a back room somewhere; everyone can see it, so that makes you feel more comfortable about what you’re eating,” Crowder said.

While there are healthy options, making the nutritious choice can seem daunting.  Maintaining a healthy diet while eating in cafeterias has less to do with what you put on your plate and more with how much of it, Hoerr said.  Controlling potions can be difficult in the cafeteria setting, but portion size is crucial for a healthy lifestyle.

“Portion size and eating rate are most important; anything in access causes serious problems,” she said.  “With unlimited service there is a risk of over eating since students feel they need to eat their money’s worth.”

Whether they frequented the soft-serve ice cream or stuck to the salad bar, most students agree the convenience of prepared meals anytime of the day is missed once they shift to off campus living.

“Living off campus I definitely miss the dorm food but less for its quality and more for its convenience,” Goldman said. “I liked that there was a wide variety of foods available to me at any time in the day because sometimes I’m just too tired or busy to cook.”

Tips for Staying Hot and Healthy While Eating Dorm Food from Food Science and Human Nutrition Professor Sharron Hoerr:

1) Slow it Down and enjoy it:  “Eating slowly helps, try to take at least 20 min to finish meal,” she said.

2) Good-bye Trays: While many cafeterias are going trayless, even if yours is not choose not to use one to help control your potions.  “Going trayless helps because can only eat what you can carry.”

3) Save the best for last: “If you eat your veggies and fruit first you are less likely to overeat.”

4) Slow down with the Cheese: “I notice that cheese is something that students love to use and using it as more of a flavoring agent rather than something you’re going to fill up on would be smart since it has so many calories.”