Yablokoff-Wallace Dining Center

This is my second year as a UC Merced student and I have a lot to say about how disappointing the DC food is.
The DC has lots of room for improvement. Most food served at the Blue Plate, which is a daily changing American food service station, is left to sit in its own cooking fluid. This leaves whatever veggies or meet that they’re serving to be soggy and gross. Dinner options at Blue Plate change regularly but the breakfast options are always the same fake egg omelettes that are merely reheated, greasy bacon/​sausage, tasteless and reheated frozen potatoes, wet ham, and either hard waffle sticks or biscuits and gravy. This has yet to change from their daily breakfast options. As for their other food stations, the Client station serves Mexican food with daily changes in the type of meat that is offered. A personal problem that i have is that it doesn’t seem like the employees get training in how to make a quesadilla or burrito, which result in the quesadillas bing overstuffed to look like flat burritos and the burritos being overstuffed as well to the point where your food comes out or the tortilla rips. There is another personal problem that i have which is that they barely cook the quesadillas. Quesadillas are cooked only to the point where the cheese just begins to melt and the tortilla is still soft. I would prefer that the tortilla have a bit of crunch to it but if you ask the server to cook it for longer then you end up waiting in the line for a while. The Grill is a food station that sells a variety of burgers with a daily special burger for every day of the week. This station is also okay but you can never rely on the quality of the fries since they change brands so often, and the meat is already pre-​cooked and the patties are left to sit in some sort of warm fluid that they then take a patty out and «re-​cook» it. Maybe this is just how the food industry does things, but it still doesn’t look appetizing to watch. Another problem is that wherever they get their bagels, some of them are already stale by the time they put them out. The pre-​made salads always have way too much dressing or oil and are left to sit in the open air so the salads are always soggy and gross. I honestly don’t know who eats the pre-​made salads at the salad bar.
All in all, while the DC is your only option if you live on campus, the available food is not at all good. Most of it is either greasy, oily, or wet in general. Your safest bet is to either only eat at the mexican food station or the deli station where you can make yourself a basic sandwich.

A UC Merced student’s review.
The food isn’t great, and neither are the prices. It’s outrageous that they can get away with charging so much for the food they sell. I really wouldn’t eat here, but I’m almost forced to because of a lack of competition. The closest places aren’t close at all. I just hope this school gets bigger so that a big name fast food place will set up a franchise on campus.
This is my punishment for not making my own food.

This place is 70% meh 10% takes like dirt and 20% ok sometimes. Overall I highly dislike my dc experience. Its not service or anything. Its just the food.

If you’re health conscious then this is not the place for you! A salad will come out to $ 10, meanwhile the items off the grill are $ 5. I’d much rather get the quality ingredients and go to in n out for a burger. Meanwhile the salad is the only choice I go with, ever.

Okay food but not a lot of selection. The dining room was small and loud. Their food was pricey for what you got and they charge by the entrée and not by the meal.

I work at UC, so I am somewhat of a captive audience. The place is limited.. .very limited. Makes me pine for my days at UCSB. They have a pizza station, grill, salad bar, soups, Mexican station, rice bowl station, and blue plate special. Once I went vegan many stations had to be eliminated. Safe bets are rice bowl with tofu, salad bar, or beans with rice. Blue plate special routinely sneaks in cheese and I can’t trust the soup bases. Things here are pricey for a college campus. I regularly spend $ 7 for lunch.
* You can get a side dish as an entrée and that seems to lower the price. Good luck, bobcats! May you eat well.

Good, overpriced food when you’re hungry. Awful, overpriced food if you’re not.

If i can do no stars, i would put that. The food is terrible and if they mess up on pizza, what do you think everything else tastes like?

I just transferred to UC Merced, so I’m still getting to know what’s good and what’s not at the chow hall. So far, it seems like the bad food outweighs the good. The pizza is bland, the blue plate is hit or miss (although the meat lasagna this week was okay). The Asian section is atrocious, and I’m appalled at what they call phở and banh mi. The one thing that is actually decent is the super burrito. Not too bad.
I haven’t tried the grill yet, so I may yet update this review.

Gets tiring.

The food here is pretty tasty compared to most university cafeterias. There are salad bar, Mexican, Deli/​Italian, Burger, noodle/​rice bowl, and home-​dinner style, dessert, pastries, and fruit options along with a variety of drinks for sale.
Prices are not bad at all EXCEPT the salad bar, which is way more expensive than it should be. The different stations mix it up by having different items on the menu every day.
The cookies were best during the school’s first ~2−3 years, then they hired a new baker or changed the recipe or something. Now, they’re still good but the old cookies were heaven. They were the best cookies I’ve ever had. Bring Back The Old Recipe!!!

I just transferred to UC Merced, and was hoping that their dining center had something better to offer than the below-​average barely-​edible food available in Merced County. I have been somewhat disappointed. Although housed in a nice building, it’s your typical college dining hall complete with do-​it-​yourself salad and sandwich bar (.38 cents per ounce), and sugary cereal and waffle stations. There’s also areas with pizza, 6 $ hot sandwiches, just ok soups, overpriced «blue plate» specials, burrito and rice bowl bars. Stay away from pricey items.
The food isn’t terribly disgusting as I’ve heard some students lament, but it isn’t all that wonderful for the price. Save yourself some money and buy a meal plan for tax-​free eating. The healthier and smaller-​portioned items tend to be more affordable, but be cautious of the pay-​by-​weight salad bar because it DOES add up!
I’ve added one more star because they charge an additional fee for to-​go containers that are completely biodegradable! This definitely cuts down on waste. I wish they would connect with local farmers and offer more flavorful, organic, less-​processed foods. Use some nice jasmine or brown rice instead of that bland white stuff for the rice bowls! And why not some actual fruit for smoothies instead of a sugary base? Whole grains? Save money by packing lunches and snacks.

This is UC Merced’s Cafeteria. You have a bit of variety with American grill, Chinese, Sub Sandwich station and a pizzeria with a salad bar. That’s a good mix, but it’s been that way since last year and some people are getting tired of the food very quickly. The prices are OK for students with meal plans but are a tad expensive for those without one. For example, a large salad for 6.99 ?
This is a great cafeteria for about a week until you start wising up and pack a lunch instead. My advice is to drive downtown or brown bag it.