Foodworx — Restaurant in San Diego

TL;DR: Slightly below-average for HDH. Unless you're in the Apartments, it is not worth the solo walk. Try the Poke bowl (salad station). The personal pizzas are second only to Oceanview Terrace. There's only two registers for everything (on the south side, away from Matthews Field), so expect a wait for checkout during peak times. /TL;DR

From campus reputation and hearsay, the food at Foodworx is unpleasant – "the worst on campus". However, Foodworx's personal pizzas are also apparently the best on campus.

Having tried most of the HDH dining halls, I can say that Foodworx is not the worst place to eat. It exists, and it provides food purchasable with dining dollars.

The cost is standard HDH, which means it's pricy by a student's standards. There is one menu item with acceptable value though: the Tuna Poke bowl.

Available only on Tuesdays and Thursdays, the Tuna Poke bowl is priced at $6.95. What gives it its acceptable value rating is the rice that comes with it. Practically nothing on campus is as filling as a nice bowl of rice – but no places are kind enough to provide more than a measly standard scoop, and at a painful premium of $2.00. Carbohydrates are the foundation of a filling meal, but with dining dollars, you're normally hard pressed to find them at anything but a budget-breaking price. The Tuna Poke bowl gives not just one piddly ball of rice, but enough rice to cover the bottom of the standard black plastic bowl. And given that your money also covers a couple chunks of tuna, some other vegetables, and some sauce, this is as close to a complete single-item meal as one can obtain for less than $7 dining dollars.

Those readers familiar with the horrors of Housing, Dining, and Hospitality may wonder what hideous defects come complimentary with this bowl. What has been omitted?

First, there's the sauce. It's the standard sauce – Dragon, if I remember correctly – and it tastes atrocious. Low-grade teriyaki, plus an unbalanced quantity of hot spice is my best description. I recommend asking for only a half or quarter ladle of this – just enough that you taste something, but not enough that its taste can massacre your taste buds.

The next complaint is a bit more expected. As usual, HDH skimps on the good stuff. Don't expect a full dollar's worth of avocado for your money. Be glad that you get a quarter or two.

There's one more complaint. As the Robert Frost poem goes, "Nothing gold can stay." This applies doubly to Foodworx, which is run not by nature, but by HDH. I wouldn't call this bowl gold, but it's a close enough approximation for a hungry student on a budget. Thus, it should surprise nobody that the bowl is limited, and only available on Tuesday and Thursday, and sometimes even not then. Notably, Thursday October 4, 2018 did not see any Poke at the Sixth restaurant.

Hundreds of words on Poke aside, there's more to Foodworx than an intermittently-available bowl. There's the breakfast items, the salad, the soup, the sandwiches, the pizza station, and the grill.

The breakfast bar notably has fresh strawberries for your waffles, though at an expected premium ($1.35). There's also the usual grains.

The salad and sandwich stations are largely forgettable – if you want a salad, go to 64 Degrees in Revelle. You'll get two bowls there for the price of one here. Sure, there's avocado, but it's at the expected premium, and there's probably a line. And if you want a sandwich, expect a hefty premium. Go for the Ciabatta bread – it's by far the most filling.

As for the grill, the same advice largely applies. If you want a burger, go to Revelle. I cannot testify as to the quality of the grill's steak, which occasionally appears on the menu, but it is definitely expensive ($10).

Finally, there's the Pizza. When fresh, it tastes decent. When left on the hot plate under the heat lamp, it still tastes decent to a hungry (2:00 lunch) student. Both of these, by the way, come from personal experience.

This review has reached the character limit, so I will leave you with one final...

The best place to eat on campus, it is usually made as people order the food. They always have sandwich, soup, salads, wraps, and pizzas. On top of that they always serve something different for lunch and dinner almost everyday. No other place can stand up to foodworx, foodworx will crush every other...

while the food isn't horrible, it's nothing to write home about. The menu is unchanging throughout the year, with slightly inflated prices for the quality of food & service offered (as is typical of all HDH dining halls). Only recommended if in the immediate area and convenience is the...