Famished? We rank the best places to eat on campus

Oregon State University houses a plethora of conveniently placed cafés that offer a wide variety of delectable delicacies. Depending on your cravings, these eateries can offer you anything from a mid morning snack to a full-blown meal. We feel that these "birds" have flown under the radar and have been greatly underutilized for far too long. It's time the public knows the truth about the magic happening in and around these refectories on a daily basis.  

Alexander Crawford and Kyle Hart decided to let their ferocious appetites fuse with the power of the pen to bring you our list, ranking the best eateries on campus. This list excludes eating establishments that are currently in dining centers. Components that were considered in our write-up include, but are not limited to: customer service, timeliness, creativity, ingenuity, and general taste.

1. e.Café

(Kelly Engineering Center): Any food substance from e.café will absolutely dominate your taste buds, which makes this eatery our number one choice, hands down. Like many other cafes on campus, e.café offers a "build your own" sandwich option with a vast meat selection and many mouthwatering bread options, including ciabatta. They also offer gourmet sandwich options that combine an interesting variety of different flavors. Of the most popular, the "Turkey Gobbler" incorporates turkey, cream cheese, lettuce, cranberry sauce and your choice of bread.  E.café's staff is very friendly, attentive, and set a welcoming atmosphere for all to enjoy.  With all of these components in place and perfectly balanced, e.café has earned our top honors and is an exceptional spot to grab a quick snack before class, or take a lovely lady on a lunch date.

2. Pangea Café

(Memorial Union): Pangea Café is the Eli Manning of Oregon State eateries.  Often overlooked and not considered as good as his brother, Eli is actually one of the most clutch quarterbacks in the league and just seems to get the job done. Similarly, OSU students are more apt to hit up the MU to get Panda Express or Carl's Jr. when in reality, Pangea is the best location there.  Their menu is more international than a meeting of the United Nations and their food specials change daily.  A trip to Pangea can be a passport to Western Africa or a trip to Florence on a warm Italian night. Although their regular menu is more than adequate, we recommend trying any of their daily menu specials.  If variety is the spice of life, then it doesn't get more spicy than Pangea Cafe.

3. Dixon Café

(Dixon Recreational Center): Unnecessary amounts of testosterone and yoga pants aren't the only things you can find in Dixon these days.  Dixon Café has the capability and versatility of satisfying the hunger needs of any customer that walks through the door. Many facets of Dixon Café, I find simply remarkable. To start, each of the wraps offered on the daily menu are delicious, cost efficient and monstrous in size. Just finish an intense lift session, a lengthy run on the indoor track, or just desperately need your thirst quenched? Any Dixon smoothie, which contains 100 percent of your daily-recommended intake of fruit, will satisfy your every need and are offered in a variety of delicious flavors. Sliced apples and peanut butter play a role on the menu much like Jaquizz Rodgers' role for the Beavers several years ago. Although they may seem small to the naked eye, both pack quite the punch.  The sliced apples and peanut butter are cheap, filling and especially delicious at Dixon Café. They are highly recommended.

4. Ava's Café

(Linus Pauling Science Center): Named after the loving wife of OSU's most famous alumni, Ava's offers both hot and cold sandwiches — most notably gourmet PB&Js. Ava's Café is the perfect example of what an on-campus eatery in an academic building should be. Ample seating that says, "Hey, come sit down to eat and converse with friends, but also feel free to study."  Overall, the vibes inside the Linus Pauling Science Center are very good.  At Ava's, Kyle and I got one of the peanut butter and jelly sandwiches and a grilled tuna melt.  The PB&J was not your ordinary brown-bag variety.  This was high-grade peanut butter, marionberry jam and bleu cheese, all served warm on toasted brioche bread.  This might be too ritzy for the average PB&J fan, but for those of us who are connoisseurs of the American elementary school lunch staple — this was a bomb sandwich.  For the sake of time I will only briefly touch on the tuna melt; it was really good (I could live off tuna melts and PB&Js). As the new kid on the block in terms of OSU campus eateries, Ava's is already better than most.