Review: Mabee Pasta

Assuming you're getting sick of veggie burgers (I know I am), you might be considering something a little more adventurous. Unfortunately, Trinity doesn't provide any avenues for adventurous eating, vegetarian or otherwise, so your next best bet is the Trinity pasta place.

If you go to Mabee, you know how few vegetarian options they offer. The pasta bar is a haven for vegetarians, providing a variety of vegetables, different types of pasta, and even tofu, giving vegetarians a rare source of protein (the lack of which is the scourge of every vegetarian diet).

However, this wouldn't be a Living La Vida Veggie post without a good pro-con list, so here goes:

PROS
1) The pasta bar provides a large amount of food, meaning that you don't have to try make an entire meal entirely out of side items (a common meal for the Trinity vegetarian). It also provides you with a lot of carbs and a lot of vegetables, forming a pretty complete meal.
2) As mentioned above, it gives you protein, both in the form of select vegetables, and in the enticing possibility of as much tofu as you want.

CONS
1) It's pretty expensive, even by Trinity standards. Adding sauces and meats makes the price tag even more hefty - while the pasta is good, I wouldn't recommend eating there too often.
2) It's good - but like every other food at Trinity, it gets really repetitive really quickly. The vegetables never really change, and tofu will always be tofu. There's also only one type of sauce the vegetarian can get - the meatless marinara - so every pasta ends up tasting the same - pretty good, but pretty dull.

THE BOTTOM LINE
Trinity Pasta is a pretty good choice when you get sick of the veggie burgers. Don't eat there too often though - your taste buds will get pretty sore along with your wallet.

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Review: The Boca Burger

The Boca Burger from the Coates Commons (colloquially known as the "veggie" burger) is one of the few foods available to the vegetarian at Trinity University, and like any vegetarian food, there's a hearty list of pros and cons to go with it.

Pros

1) As far as burgers go, it doesn't taste half bad. It'll never be like the real thing, but if you go to a fast food place like McDonalds, you won't get a burger that tastes like the real thing anyway. Even before I became a vegetarian, I would always get the veggie burger at Burger King, because it tasted a lot better than the real burger. The Coates burger is no different - I'd hazard a guess that it tastes better than a lot of the non-vegetarian food at Trinity, and at a lot of surrounding restaurants.
2) It's a lot healthier for you than a lot of the non-vegetarian food...and even some of the vegetarian food. Sometimes when I can't get a burger, I get mac and cheese and fries at Mabee. Sure, it's vegetarian, but mac and cheese and greasy fries isn't exactly health food. As far as meat goes, there's no chance that a boca burger is worse for you than a greasy sirloin burger. It's also a good source of protein, something vegetarians are always lacking.

Cons

1) It tastes pretty good, but sometimes it's not good enough. Whenever I have a veggie burger, I'm reminded about how much I miss the real burgers...and a lot of other types of meat. Slathering it in barbecue sauce helps, but it can only do so much.
2) For reasons scientists are yet to understand, cooking a boca burger at coates takes forever. I normally wouldn't mind waiting 15 minutes for a burger - it's good food, after all - but it always leaves me scratching my head when my boca burger takes 15 minutes when everybody else only has to wait 5 minutes for their burgers. Don't order this burger if you're in a hurry.

The Verdict

If you have time to wait and are thinking about trying some vegetarian food, the boca burger is a good place to start. It fills you up, and you'd think you were eating a real burger - almost.

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