Diversity Center dines out

October 15, 2008
By Armando Vega
Staff Writer

Friday the Diversity Center’s monthly Cultural Cuisine Dine Out Club featured Mexican-themed cooking.  For $7, students were given the opportunity to carpool to Cancun restaurant in nearby Sherman, IL.

The food was excellent.  The taco salad fajita with grilled chicken was especially sumptuous, served in a deep-fried shell formed like a taco as opposed to the more blasé bowl-shape.  Colorfully loaded with grilled meat, vegetables, and guacamole, the dish may have come across as the perfect combination of healthy and flavorful…if not for the deep-fried shell itself. 

Another popular entrée? The Shrimp Chili Colorado.  A thicker, salsa-based chili, it came loaded with chopped shrimp, served up with sides of tortillas, rice, and beans.

Another popular item of choice for students present was the fajitas.  Served with your choice of beef or chicken, the fajitas came with green peppers and onions, and guacamole, pico de gallo, and tomatoes served on the side.

Also available were the nachos al carbon. The nachos are sorted around the plate with beans and steak.  On the middle of the plate, patrons help themselves to lettuce, sour cream, guacamole, and tomatoes.

The restaurant serves up very good Mexican food, but don’t come looking for anything out of the ordinary or terribly exciting.  The atmosphere of the restaurant could have also stood to have drawn upon more of a Mexican theme as well, instead coming across almost as an only slightly more exotic version of Bennigan’s.

Afterwards, students were shepherded to an unknown, surprise location, only to find upon arrival at the state-fair grounds that they were being treated to a haunted house expedition.  Ghouls and goblins would come up behind patrons to give them surprise scares while waiting in line. 

Characters were dressed as chainsaw-wielding maniacs, Death, pig-faced mutants, and as the doll from the movie Saw, to name a few.  Once inside, the surroundings became pitch-black, and guests were forced to make their way through a maze full of dastardly surprises, choking, narrow passageways, and all manner of shrieks and creepy noises.

Aside from the events themselves, the experience was also a great opportunity for students from the UIS community to bond with one-another and perhaps meet new people and make new friends.

The Diversity Center’s Cultural Cuisine Dine Out Club treats students to different ethnic foods and experiences every month, for only $7.  The events will generally take place between 5:30 and 10pm on Saturdays, with next months trip featuring Thai food.  To register, students should check their emails for updates and visit the Diversity Center in the Student Life Building, room 22.  Call (217)206-6333 for more information.