The University of Texas at Austin Texas Union Catering Services

nice venue. i just stopped in real quick. parking is a disaster on the drag but what can you do?

UT Union catering makes me cry. I roll on the floor wondering what sins I committed for this kind of torture. My taste buds are angry. They go on strike. All because UT catering makes a mockery of food.
I’ve had UT catered meals several times. The first time was as a serving wench at the UT Madrigal dinner sometime in late 1999. As a green Foodie, I thought the food was okay. Some of the dinners served to the cast and crew were downright disgusting, but it was a step up from Jester cafeteria. I remember taco dinner meat looking like predigested chili swimming in a vat of oil. Gross. Only poor students would it eat, and I did.
The food served at the UT Madrigal dinner wasn’t so bad. It was London broil, steamed veggies, bread and butter, and wassail. Not too bad considering again it was free to the cast and crew. Bread and butter rock! Mostly because it’s butter. The cast and crew stuck our fingers into the left overs and ate like starving natives of some tropical island. Savages we were.
The last meal I had served by UT catering was at the Engineering department’s Honors Day event. My friend had no one to take, so he brought me. I went because he said free food. I heart free food. The meal was pasta, bread sticks, and brownies. Not bad. I would actually give this meal 3 stars.
The worst meal I had was at the Society for Behavioral Neuroendocrinology (SBN) conference. Please also note that this is the only meal I paid for that was hosted by UT catering. $ 25. $ 25 wasted. SBN is a small group of researchers, most from Japan, Mexico, Canada, and Europe. There’s maybe 200 of us or less around the world. Seeing that the 2005 conference was in Austin of all places, I hoped that the International researchers would get a healthy dose of American culture and food.
I was wrong. I was disappointed. I was really embarrassed by the quality of the food served. The menu consisted of fajitas, beans, rice, and some Texas desserts. The fajita meat tasted like and looked like it came off a cadaver. The tortillas were dry, smelled like lard that had been left out for 3 days in the Texas heat, and fell apart because they were so stale. Bummer. I was embarrassed that this could be called Tex-​Mex.
The desserts were worse: Jack Daniel’s pie and Flan. This flan had the consistency of cottage cheese. It was sloppy. It was goopy. It was sad. A little piece of me died inside. The Jack Daniel’s pie was runny. Oh man… I wanted to cry. Please don’t let all these big shot intellectual scientists think that food in Texas sucks. Please let them eat somewhere else and go away thinking that Austin has decent food.
The only fun part about that banquet was that the president of SBN got drunk, wore cowboy boots with cowboy hat, and started singing deep in the Heart of Texas in a Belgium accent. Other than that, it sucked.
UT catering, biggest assault on your taste buds since Vegemite sandwiches.