The first time I discovered the cafeteria of our school was during my freshman year at PWU-Taft. It was like a food court in a mall wherein there are different choices from beverages, dessert, lunch or snack foods or even those nibblers. The place is quite small to accommodate all the students in our school plus there is no proper ventilation inside but still, many students patronize its food outlets available because of what they call student-friendly services- cheap meals (student meal) unlike if you go to a fast food restaurant and you have to spent a hundred bucks just to eat foam and plastic. I could have 2 choices of "ulam", rice and a bottled water or iced tea for only 50 pesos-later the price rose to 55 pesos.
3 years have passed by and that cafeteria I have known during my novice year have already experienced a lot of changes in their setting - a couple of food outlet closed, some beverages were not available like the student-favorite C2 tea, and lately a renovation of the school canteen plus the exit of some the famous outlets like the Dolky's and that noted neighbor of Dolky's which I forgot the name. All these were not visible anymore in the canteen except for one outlet who started out in the school as a provider of beverages like iced tea and bottled water with a small cafe expansion in the second floor of the Nakpil wing who turned into the sole provider of beverages in the whole school due to the NESTLe lock-out. Now, that same outlet who once has been selling straw and sandwiches in the campus is the only food outlet you will see inside the campus.
I mean they sell almost everything - from beverages to sandwiches to a NESTLE subsidiary of snack foods, ice cream, baby cologne and even sanitary napkins for ladies. The school canteen who is once enjoying a healthy competition among those entrepreneurs of Manila is now a school canteen suffering from an old market situation called MONOPOLY.
Yeah right, there is monopoly in my simple school and we are the monopsony. We are just one chunk of market who cannot do anything but just patronize what is inside. I can't even call it as simple monopoly because I have known that it involves a million-peso agreement between food giant Nestle and PWU administrators.
I just hate that my stomach is being controlled by only one food class whenever I come inside that canteen. Yes, you can tell me why not try to eat outside like at PinkStar but what I'm trying to elucidate here is the market situation itself.
Yeap, if you go to PWU canteen right now you'll see all the improvements from the air-conditioning facility though the other half is still renovated up to the ceiling, floors which are newly painted plus a step-into-the-next-class food with free soup(the "servedora" told me it's "kalabasa") plus still the same price of 40 pesos per diet and a 15-peso allowance for drinks but damn, the taste is just worst. I had my beef with a young corn earlier this morning which when I close my eyes while eating it would be hard for me to distinguish if it is corn or "ampalaya" which I am eating because it is really bitter in taste-the whole food is bitter. The worse thing is the rice- yeah that Filipino-favorite rice looks like a model rice displayed in those mall food court. I don't really have any idea how they cooked their rice. It's 15 percent short of being "lugaw". I actually called it a "molded lugaw" early this afternoon.
I miss the old canteen- that 2 "ulam" which you can ask for a "dagdag"(extra) in your plate, that sweet, Filipino style spaghetti, the Maki which gave me a background to Japanese food and most of all are those customer-friendly people of Dolky's that despite the fact that they have already been earning a lot from those patrons(students) they still not suppress or cheat us in food items and services.
Briefly Noted
Those "servedor" and "servedora" in the new canteen looks like the characters who played in flicks like "Land of the Dead" and "The Hills have Eyes". They really have no difference. Creepy isn't it?
3 years have passed by and that cafeteria I have known during my novice year have already experienced a lot of changes in their setting - a couple of food outlet closed, some beverages were not available like the student-favorite C2 tea, and lately a renovation of the school canteen plus the exit of some the famous outlets like the Dolky's and that noted neighbor of Dolky's which I forgot the name. All these were not visible anymore in the canteen except for one outlet who started out in the school as a provider of beverages like iced tea and bottled water with a small cafe expansion in the second floor of the Nakpil wing who turned into the sole provider of beverages in the whole school due to the NESTLe lock-out. Now, that same outlet who once has been selling straw and sandwiches in the campus is the only food outlet you will see inside the campus.
I mean they sell almost everything - from beverages to sandwiches to a NESTLE subsidiary of snack foods, ice cream, baby cologne and even sanitary napkins for ladies. The school canteen who is once enjoying a healthy competition among those entrepreneurs of Manila is now a school canteen suffering from an old market situation called MONOPOLY.
Yeah right, there is monopoly in my simple school and we are the monopsony. We are just one chunk of market who cannot do anything but just patronize what is inside. I can't even call it as simple monopoly because I have known that it involves a million-peso agreement between food giant Nestle and PWU administrators.
I just hate that my stomach is being controlled by only one food class whenever I come inside that canteen. Yes, you can tell me why not try to eat outside like at PinkStar but what I'm trying to elucidate here is the market situation itself.
Yeap, if you go to PWU canteen right now you'll see all the improvements from the air-conditioning facility though the other half is still renovated up to the ceiling, floors which are newly painted plus a step-into-the-next-class food with free soup(the "servedora" told me it's "kalabasa") plus still the same price of 40 pesos per diet and a 15-peso allowance for drinks but damn, the taste is just worst. I had my beef with a young corn earlier this morning which when I close my eyes while eating it would be hard for me to distinguish if it is corn or "ampalaya" which I am eating because it is really bitter in taste-the whole food is bitter. The worse thing is the rice- yeah that Filipino-favorite rice looks like a model rice displayed in those mall food court. I don't really have any idea how they cooked their rice. It's 15 percent short of being "lugaw". I actually called it a "molded lugaw" early this afternoon.
I miss the old canteen- that 2 "ulam" which you can ask for a "dagdag"(extra) in your plate, that sweet, Filipino style spaghetti, the Maki which gave me a background to Japanese food and most of all are those customer-friendly people of Dolky's that despite the fact that they have already been earning a lot from those patrons(students) they still not suppress or cheat us in food items and services.
Briefly Noted
Those "servedor" and "servedora" in the new canteen looks like the characters who played in flicks like "Land of the Dead" and "The Hills have Eyes". They really have no difference. Creepy isn't it?
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