Bonjour, friendly folks; there’s nothing like supporting fellow classmates, eh?

Well, I recently had the unique experience of eating at a student-run restaurant.

The Tea Room, in 23 MacKay Hall, is supported by ISU’s Department of Hotel, Restaurant & Institution Management and is operated entirely by students in the Quantity Food Production Management class.

First things first — reservations are required for the place. I found out the hard way that the Tea Room usually fills up about two days in advance.

My friend, a senior in dietetics, and I arrived a couple of minutes before noon. As soon as we were escorted to our table, we couldn’t shake the undeniable feeling of deja vu.

The orange decor, cozy fireplace and flower paintings on the wall transported us to Sunday dinner at Grandma’s house!

I “ordered” a skim milk and anxiously awaited my meal. As my luck would have it, on the day I happened to be there, the Tea Room was serving something right out of food service days. Yep — things I had never heard of, let alone tasted before. (It just had Grandma written all over it.)

But, being the non-biased, ever-eager to try new things, reviewer that I am, I told myself to at least try everything.

The salad came first; I had second thoughts. I was served a small dish of Hodge Podge salad. Yeah … OK, it consisted of cabbage, green peppers, onions, tomatoes and lettuce (I think). That’s all I have to say about the Hodge Podge salad.

I had just enough time to count at least nine students busily working in the dining room before the main course was served.

I was given a small cinnamon roll-looking biscuit with some meat on it. The Tea Room calls it a beef and biscuit roll. Good thing it tasted a lot better than it looked; it was actually pretty tasty.

The dessert came right after that. I asked our waiter what it was, but nobody really knew. “Something that starts with a “k” and has whip cream,” somebody said.

I did a little investigative work and it turns out the cobbler-type dessert was peach kuchen with whipped topping.

The peach treat was my favorite part of the lunch (surprise, surprise); I was disappointed that my serving was so small.

My friend, who is registered to take this lab next semester, informed me that the students get graded on everything, including consistent portion sizes.

The atmosphere at the Tea Room was pleasant — not exciting, not bad, just pleasant. I have to give the students a compliment; they were all very efficient. In fact, the whole thing, from being seated to paying the bill took under 30 minutes.

The main drawback to the $3.90 lunch is that you have absolutely no choice in what they serve you.

Take my advice and do a little homework before you go to the Tea Room.

If ham and broccoli rolls, pineapple lime gelatin salad, oatmeal rolls and rhubarb crumble trip your trigger, then call 294-3330 to make reservations for tomorrow.

If you want to support your fellow students or rub elbows with your professors, then I suggest trying out the Tea Room before you leave ISU.

Oh yeah, and ask them if they can put it on your U-bill. (It might bring in more students.)

3 stars out of five.

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Kim Zangger is a senior in advertising from Mt. Vernon.