Faculty Club – UCSB

My recollection of the Faculty Club comes from childhood summertimes, playing in the pool. A membership seemed to be required, so I only swam with my friend Madeline.

But now that I’m all grown up, and hungry, I learned from Liz that a membership is not required to use their dining room. Members do have lower prices, but not by much. And for the Goleta/IV area, any place offering slightly finer fare is a rare treat indeed. I had lunch there with Liz and Vo.

Park in Lot #22 or #23, pay $3 for an hour’s parking, and trundle over to the Club, where the adults bask around comfortably and the students look uncomfortable and awkward.

The staff appear to mostly be students as well, learning how to get out of their awkwardness by talking about soups of the day, salad dressings and dessert carts.

Props to the management for setting the prices at the non-member level, and then showing the member discount, rather than the other way around. Makes this little sneetch with no star on thar feel a little better. But like I said, the price difference didn’t cause any winces.

Tables have the white linen service, with individual printed sheets for the daily specials. Also, the ever popular bread basket, which we dove into promptly to sate our hunger.

And most menu items came with a soup or salad. I ordered the lunch trio, so I got half a sandwich, a salad and a bowl of soup, for $8.95. Everyone else got salads as well, although I was the only one who ordered the “balsamic” and that’s all I got. Not a dressing, just a pot of balsamic vinegar. It was, aaaah, tangy.

Liz ordered the veggie wrap, and was only able to eat half. It was stuffed with good veggies and smothered in a delicious lemon hummus. Vo had one of the specials of the day, a risotto. He didn’t say anything negative about the food, but he also didn’t finish it and did not opt for a doggie bag.
And my final courses in the lunch trio was a bowl of albondigas soup and a half club sandwich.

I thought the sandwich was very good! A solid piece of chicken breast, rather than deli slices, a good slice of cheese and crisp veg. The smallest thing about the sandwich was the bread slices – all the food piled out the sides.

My soup on the other hand was nothing to write home about. There didn’t seem to be any skimping on the goodies, but the flavor didn’t wow me. Can’t win them all. But do admire the fresh Alstromeria flowers as the table centerpiece. Pretty!

And then, the moment we’d all been waiting for…dessert. Very clever of them to place the dessert display cart near the entrance, so you see it and immediately start making plans on which dessert to order.

The three of us shared the cheesecake and strawberries. A fine lunch for Goleta.

Faculty Club
UCSB – west side of campus
www.faculty-club.ucsb.edu/menu.html