After ARAMARK sacked Radzwiller and her new-fangled menu (Maggie, I had the double-thick pork chop, the vegetarian quesadilla with a nice Merlot; you can cook at my apartment anytime), the dining institution that is the Oak Room became a little more institutionalized.
ARAMARK, no stranger to St. Bland and a fervent worshipper of St. Creamy (not to mention an ardent believer in St. Salty--eat their Wake Forest University food), has stripped away all of the improvements that Radzwiller made and given us Great Hall food with office chairs--and a horribly out of place wine bar.
Beth mentioned that last fall we sampled a garlic-y, but very tasty, artichoke dip. This time, we ordered the same dish--well, it was labeled as the same dish on the menu--and had a different result. Not only did they cut the garlic--they also cut out all of the other taste. The dish embodied all that was bland and creamy--replacing the taste was an excessive amount of cheese along with pieces of artichoke that tasted a touch foul. A theme was developing: Better last fall.
The quesadilla continued in this theme. There was no discernable difference in the ingredients of the current quesadilla from last fall's (Maggie, they may have axed you, but methinks they kept some of your
Some other choices in our second visit were even less inspiring. Beth ordered something called Baked Potato Soup--supposedly a mix of cream of potato, bacon, cheese, onions and sour cream. It appeared to contain those ingredients but tasted like a salt lick and had the viscosity of warm sour cream.
Some aspects of the new Oak Room experience were enjoyable--the house salad and sweet house vinaigrette were fresh, and the service was both aware and polite. A polite server, not to mention hostesses, has always been a trademark of the Oak Room--it may not have been fast or exactly what you ordered, but there was no hubris among the staff. However, after seeing the life sucked out of the food, I am unnerved to see what the ARAMARK boys--who insist that they are not a hard, cold, captain-of-the-industry type--do to the Oak Room's staff. I fear robots.
It seems that the Oak Room last fall was not given enough of a sell-job. When McDonald's opened on this campus, there was hoopla. When the Radzwiller Oak Room opened, there wasn't even "la."
Students may have said that they wanted better food at a lower cost, but once it opened, someone needed to tell them--a little ARAMARKETING. There are three facts about students that ARAMARK and their puppet advisory board, the Duke University Student Dining Advisory Committee, need to learn:
Duke students like good food and will eat good food on points if it is promoted and tasty.
Duke students will spend many dollars of food points (parents pay for them) if there is well promoted tasty food.
Duke students rely heavily on word of mouth--if you change a restaurant every two years and offer spin like "revamping" or "exciting changes" you will have no word of mouth.
If this were one of my columns, I'd be offering a solution by this point in my diatribe. But after my last meal--and make no mistake, unless the Oak Room does something truly dramatic, that was my last meal--all I can think about is that they really wasted a wine bar. Perhaps Chick-fil-A could use one.
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