At the University dining room

Oleg often has dinner at the University dining-room. It is a self-service dining-room. It means there is no waiter or waitress to wait on students, and they get the dishes themselves. Oleg has to pick up a tray and push it along a counter. The food is displaced on the counter and there is a menu from which he can choose whatever he likes. At the dining-room he can have dinner table d’hote. Its cost is usually cheaper than a la carte (when he orders each dish separately from the menu card). It includes three courses for one price: soup‚ main course and dessert.

Of all possible soups he prefers cabbage soup with meat or sour cream. Sometimes he takes noodle soup, or rice soup with meat or potatoes.

There is a great choice of second courses at the dining-room: fried fish‚ chicken‚ roast meat, cutlets, beefsteaks, rumpsteaks, chops, pancakes with mashed potatoes‚ buckwheat porridge‚ rice‚ sour cream, and what not. Oleg always has mashed potatoes with whatever dish he orders. Then he gets some appetizers (entrees). For appetizers he takes salad, sauerkraut, sometimes herring or caviar.

For dessert he usually takes cranberry jelly, juice‚ compote or tea with lemon, ice-cream or fruit: apples, tangerines, etc.

Sometimes when Oleg stays at the University quite late he goes down to the dining-room or to the refreshment room to have a bite (to have a snack). It is usually a sandwich or a bun with tea‚ coffee or cocoa.

The dining-room is quite neat and clean; the tables are covered with white table-cloths. On the tables there are knives, forks, spoons (table-spoons and tea-spoons), glasses, salt cellars, pepper and mustard pots.