DFAC

You can't call it a "mess hall" or "chow hall" anymore it is a "Dining Facility" or DFAC. Makes it sound a little more upscale. Our DFAC is pretty good, considering they are feeding a couple thousand people every meal. This picture shows the main food line. For breakfast you can get "made to order" (kind of), eggs. They use real eggs, but the choices are little limited, two kinds of omelets or fried. I'm not sure what the scrambled eggs are, I'm pretty sure they are not real. For the other two meals there are usually 3 choices, and hopefully at least one is what you are looking to eat. Almost always have some kind of chicken and some form of rice.

This is the self serve portion of the main line at breakfast. Which of the five trays in the middle has oatmeal? It's a good thing they put labels above the choices, otherwise, it's hard to tell what things are sometimes. There are two kinds of grits, plain and cheesey, pepper gravy, something else and oatmeal. The two on the far right are the scrambled eggs - plain and western style. For lunch/dinner they usually have hotdogs, corndogs, mini pizzas (haven't tried them, but they don't look very appetizing), polish sausage, and hamburgers (if you can call them that) in this section.

This is the short line, or if nothing appeals to your tastebuds on the main line, this is your last choice line. At breakfast, they usually have some kind of egg dish (I haven't been brave enough to try it yet), french toast sticks, pancakes, waffles or other things on the line. At lunch/dinner the three most common items, not all on the same day, are spaghetti, taco bar, or oriental.

This is where we eat - on the left is the salad bar, always has 3 or 4 salads, sometimes creative ones like German Tomato salad, (not potato) or some kind of brocolli mixture. Then they have the lettuce salad and fixings and always fresh fruit. The fruit has been the biggest surprise, it has been fresh cut, usually cantaloupe, honey dew melon, strawberries, pineapple and sometimes watermelon or bananas. Though sometimes they accidently freeze it when they store it in the coolers after cutting it up. This is only half of the dining area, there is another wing on the other side that is the same size. We also have a project coming up to close in the middle section and add another large seating area.

And for desert, how about a fresh out of the plastic, chocolate chip cookie with a little Baskin Robbins on top. There is always ice cream, not the 31 flavors, but usually 5 or 6 at every meal, and some pretty good cookies, cake or pie. The temptation is always there.

For drinks, at all meals, there is bottled water, 3 or 4 kinds of juice, (as long as the trucks make it in from Pakistan), milk, pop, tea, or non-alcoholic beer. The milk comes in a "juice box" with a straw, but it's not really milk. It is made from reconstituted or something milk, doesn't have to be refrigerated until it is open and then it is only good for 3 days. They do serve it cold and it is not too bad.

Friday nights is always steak night, served with either lobster, crab legs, or fried shrimp. It's good, gives us one meal to look forward to, but keep in mind they start grilling the thousands of steaks at 3 in the afternoon and keep them warm until they are served. And, they are not good Iowa beef that I'm used too. About every third Friday, I get a good piece of steak, that is actually pretty good. I'm not complaining, the DFAC beats the MRE, meal ready to eat or meal in a plastic bag, even on their worst day.

As you have probably concluded by now there is no shortage of food here, but you can't be too picky, it's not home cooking. Every once in awhile, the food is real good, but the majority is what you would expect from a dining facility that cooks for thousands.