William Lee, News Writer

Ever looked at your lunch tray and felt disappointed? Well, you’re not alone. Cafeteria food has always been a serious debate among International School students, especially between GSIS students. Now this sparks up the hot issue, are any of the students at any of the international schools satisfied with their school dishes?

A typical GSIS lunch would consist of rice, a meat dish of some kind and soup. Then there is the self bar with salad, bread, jam, fruit and drinks. Although this may look good on paper, the average rating students gave for the quality of the food was a nasty 4/10.

“We need improvement”, confessed Cindy Kim, who has been eating the school lunch for over four years. Tivan George described the food as “Unpredictable, unreliable”. On the bright side, the quantity was given an average rating of 7/10.

There is a saying many of the students love to blurt out everyday. “I wish I can eat KIS food”.

The KIS lunch menu consists of five different sections. ‘Korean’, ‘Western’, ‘Burger and Pasta’, ‘Vegetarian’ and ‘Halal’.

The KIS students gave their lunch menu a rating of 8/10. Clement Lee, a former GSIS student and current KIS student said, “If I were to compare [KIS] to a place like GSIS, I would say GSIS lunch is awful compared to KIS”. He also claimed, “Our school [KIS] food is healthy and well provided”.

Another powerhouse among international schools includes YISS, who also shows off a wide range of food choices. YISS sophomore, Romy, states ‘One good part about my cafeteria is that we have this thing called deli that sells snacks like wraps, smoothies and more. It opens during free flex block, so it’s really convenient for students just to buy a quick snack or drink if they’re hungry.’

Romy also seems to be happy with the school lunch as she rates it 7/10, although she complains ‘I think other schools such as KIS would have better food than us’.

SFS, another International school who uses J&J rated their food 7/10.

Josiah, a sophomore, expressed, “The food is sometimes quite delicious, and at others, quite subpar”.

‘Delicious’, is a word rarely if ever heard used in the GSIS cafeteria. However, Gina, an SFS sophomore explained, “SFS food is nice when it comes to choosing from a variety of options, but the taste is not so great. I think most Korean international schools use J&J for food, so I dont think there’s a big difference when it comes to which school is better”.

Students suggest one way GSIS can improve the food, or maybe just stop the student’s from complaining is doing what SIS (Seoul International School) recently did: Changing from J&J to a different company.

So do the GSIS students expect too much from the school lunch, or is the school lunch just bad? Based on the various responses from other school students, GSIS students seem to be more ‘angry’ about the food.

One has to wonder if SFS who also uses J&J got a net rating of seven while GSIS, a four, are students at GSIS simply being too critical and cruel when it comes to judging food? Perhaps it’s an influence by previous students or just the cafeteria atmosphere, but it really can’t be that bad or can it?