what are the best and worst meals you can get in your work/ school/ college canteen?



(Asked same question in general forum but fell off page before anyone replied.)

Curry in the work canteen, officially called the staff resturant

The 'Pizza' at my works canteen is particularly vile.

They always throw pineapple on it,and the left over sausages from breakfast time are chopped up and placed on the top (To make it look like pepperoni.)

Served with a portion of oven chips, the whole monstrosity costs just under £3.

Absolute rip-off.

I've never eaten a hot meal in the canteen at work, I usually have a sandwich or fruit salad. I have seen other people eat meals though and they always look nice.
Very cheap too, sandwiches are 56p and always taste fresh. You can get a decent meal for around £1.

God, wish we had a canteen. 200 people work at our place and there is a fridge and a microwave.

Our canteen is pretty good.

Breakfast - Choice of fresh fruits and yoghurt, porridge with or without honey. Then an open buffet of Bacon, Sausages, Spam, Mushrooms, Tomatoes, Scrambled Egg, Fried Egg, Boiled Egg, toast, fried bread, black pudding, hash browns, beans and cheese on toast.

Dinners - We have a choice of sandwiches made in the morning, ususal; ham and cheese, egg mayo, tuna mayo, blt, beef and onion, sausage and pickle. We then have a salad bar with a choice of slice and flavoured meats, salads, cheese, cottage cheese, tuna mayo, prawn marie rose. We have jackets available. Then we also have hot meals which rotate daily but we have things like fish n chips, cheese n bacon paninis, cottage pie, roast beef and yorkies, roast turkey and stuffing, beef and ale pie, stir fry, carbonara ect

Usually on any one day we'll have a selection of 5 hot meals, 2 meat, 1 pasta, 1 fish, 1 veg and then were able to have chips, salad and veg with them all.

Meals very rarely come to more then 2 quid. We've got it quite good actually.

In fact in the run up to christmas out canteen also does 3 course xmas dinners in partys of 6-7 for us for around a fiver.

Our hot food is soup, pies, panini or a jacket potato. They don't have a proper kitchen. The woman at the till thinks she owns the place, been there for >20 years and shouts at all the managers if they are slightly slow at paying.


However, the nearest pub, cafe and Italian restaurants are only 5 mins down the road, so people go there instead.

our school canteen was really really good - i actually miss the food there! The woman who ran it had ran it for years and it was real home cooking. She did an amazing savoury rice and little chicken or pork pies with stuffing on top! yum!

Work canteen used to be awful, I only used it once, but i had a backed spud and that was rock hard, never again. other people complained as well. They got a chef in now and the quality have improved, when he is there.

I take my own now, i don't even use the drinks machine, take my own coffee and cup, advantage of not taking milk in coffee.

I don't eat there much these days but our work canteen is not too bad, got around 300 places for a building of 3,000. All meals are freshly prepared and evening though there are plenty of moaning about costs, it is subsidised and you can main and desert for around £3.50 though they do a 'value' meal for £2 and portions are not bad. Their pie and mash is particularly good. And chips are not bad either. They normally have 3 or 4 hot dishes, salad bar, made to order sandwiches, grill bar, one or two soups, etc

They also open for breakfast daily and you can get full english for around £2.50.

We also have a on site costa that does some pretty good paninis.

A small cottage hospital (now closed down by the Tony Bland government) had the best canteen I've every used for both staff and patients. The meals were all made there and the quality was first rate given the budget constraints in place.

Some of the meals I had in the army were first rate given the condition's cooked in.