For first-years stuck with far too big of a meal plan that threatens to waste half your money, roughly ranked according to my tastes. For reference, I've only had Chinese food and frozen Costco food in recent years before Waterloo, so the bar is low, but hey, I was picky enough to compile and stick to this list.

  • SLC/SCH Masala: Best butter chicken I've had, even better than off campus. No line either. I like getting it with the yellow sprinkles on top for a little crunch. The lady serving it at SCH would always correct me that they're "crispy potato thingies". Try it at SCH at least once for the fancy plate.
  • CMH induction station: Basically rotates on a weekly basis between stir-fry, pasta, and curry. I never got the curry, but the stir-fry and the pasta were both fantastic. V1 has the stir fry sometimes as well and it's also good.
  • REV burrito bowls: A rare beacon of light in my dark days at REV. It was just that good. Unlike other burrito places in this list, it had BBQ sauce, and that made a surprising amount of difference. Also only available on a rotational basis :(
  • CMH burrito bowls: A close runner-up to the burrito bowls at REV. Despite the lack of BBQ sauce, they had beef brisket, which was reallyyy good. Plus, it's always available!
  • SLC Teriyaki Experience: ORDER BY APP. It gives you so many more options, like vegetables they actually cook instead of the half-raw broccoli. My order was rice, bean sprout, mushroom, pineapple, and teriyaki sauce + 2 piece gyoza.
  • SLC Quesada: I got the ground beef bowl, but it's very customizable. It's a burrito, you can't go wrong.
  • SLC Shawarma: This is a bit of a hot take, but I don't think they're nearly as bad as their 1.5 stars on Google Maps suggests. Their shawarmas are massive but messy, so I always get a bowl with chicken, fries, and garlic sauce. It was pretty fire.
  • Health building poke: I didn't get this enough because it's a bit out of the way and I didn't discover it until late into my first year, but it was pretty good.
  • SCH Whet Noodles: Very valid noodles place. A bit too flavourful though.
  • CMH/V1/REV pizzas: They were good pizzas. Very good, actually, though a bit much to finish for a small person. More on portion sizes later. Always available at CMH/V1, not sure what's going on with REV. They were doing a little reorganizing when I left.
  • REV/V1 soup noodles: I might be biased because of a funny little story that happened while I had one, but it was genuinely pretty good. Rotates.

Bonus notes, not in any order

  • Jugo Juice: Not sure if it's healthy but very yummy. Also too expensive to buy without a meal plan. I get the wellness boosters or whatever they're called whenever I feel like I'm going to get sick, and it might be placebo but it's decently effective.
  • Starbucks: Good place to burn meal plan.
  • ML basement: I got a crispy chicken sandwich. It was very slow and I was starving. It was the best fried chicken of my life. I never went back.
  • SLC Smokehouse: The poutine with bacon and mushrooms. It was so good but it felt heart-attack/obesity inducing. I literally couldn't walk too fast after finishing it.
  • Oishi sushi around campus: Extremely mid.
  • REV/V1/CMH hot food stations are extremely hit or miss. V1/CMH special servings thing is good though sometimes.

General tips

  • Portion sizes vary a lot by person. Be nice to the person behind the counter. Not because they might give you larger portions, but because it's a nice thing to do.
  • However, in most cases, portion sizes are really big, at least for a girl with a reasonable appetite. I could finish one portion, but I would be really stuffed after. Nowadays I would get two meals out of one portion...
  • Which is why it's not the end of the world if you don't finish your meal plan! If you hate to cook like me, it's okay to leave some for your second year and beyond. Campus food is not actually that horrendous, and they usually come with vegetables.
  • Drinks: fastest way to burn meal plan, if you are so inclined to make the most out of your money. Also the fastest way to gain weight because of all the sugar they put in that stuff. Seriously, I gained more weight in a month of getting a drink with every meal than in a term of eating and exercising the same, but with water.

Enjoy :D