Critic Te Ārohi conducted a survey to answer what some have called “the most fundamental question of student existence”: On which day can you get the best $4 lunch?
Opinions varied in the survey, however Monday was deemed the best lunch by 15 students, piping Wednesday by a whopping 5 students to become the unequivocal champion. Monday’s landslide victory may be a shock to some students who would’ve expected a tighter race, yet the results were definitive. The fact that the survey was conducted on students eating the Monday $4 lunch shouldn’t lead you to any conclusions about the validity of these results.
Tandoree Garden (who run the $4 lunches) serve up ‘Chickpeas and Rice with Potato and Vegetables’ on a Monday, proving that chickpeas aren’t just the disgraced older brother of lentils like so many have claimed. Wednesday’s ‘Dal Makhani with Rice and Potato Curry’ fell into second place with 10 votes, with Tuesday’s ‘Vegetable Pasta’ and Thursday’s ‘Vegetable Soup’ following at 4 and 3 votes respectively. In last place was Friday’s ‘Mixed Dal’ sitting on a meagre 2 votes (though these voices sung passionately in the dal’s defence). Overall, participants conducted the survey with hearty enthusiasm, showing a relatively unhealthy interest in such a mundane task.
OUSA’s $4 lunches originally began in 1997, run by Jane Beecroft of the Hare Krishna community, who retired at the end of 2021. As such, the past year has seen OUSA’s $4 lunches completely rebranded under the banner of Tandoree Garden. Despite the change, the lunches have carried on swimmingly, with some days bearing witness to lines stretching all the way down the stairs. So are students just getting poorer and in dire need of food that’s not three day old leftovers? Or have the $4 lunches’ rebrand struck a chord with a new market of students?
One OUSA employee said “the greatest thing about them is the price…The lunches are wholesome and cheap, what’s not to love?” And student response backs this up; while many students involved in the survey had a particular slant towards which day of the week served them best, an even larger majority cited two or three days as being “particularly good”.
Students lumped praise onto the meals unflinchingly, even while a few begrudged participants claimed that the lunches pre-2022 were “much bigger in size.” These complaints were few and far between, though, signalling the widespread success of the rebranded Tandooree Garden $4 lunches. Maybe the whingers were just hungry, in which case, boy do we have a suggestion for you.
Critic Te Ārohi’s survey may have been flawed in nearly every scientific regard, but ultimately it telegraphs the surety of what has been deemed by one student, Robbie, as a “living legend on campus.” Student consensus has shown that, while opinions on favourite meals may waver, the OUSA $4 lunches are a seemingly eternal institution in the student community.