On Feb. 28, the world celebrated Fat Tuesday and Elgin Community College was no different.

The Spartan Terrace offered a special for that day: authentic craw fish Jambalaya, which was three dollars less than normal price. Spartan Terrace usually does not disappoint; I felt like my two course meal was well worth my money.

The Terrace is located in Building H in the main campus. Upon entering, you are greeted with a hostess, who asks if you had made reservations; since it was Fat Tuesday, they were mandatory for that day. After being sat, I waited briefly for water and bread, as well to order an additional drink. The Terrace is quite a special place among the campus: it is entirely student-ran, including waiters, chefs and hosts.

The decor of the restaurant is not extremely extravagant, but is a nice, classy alternative to the school’s cafeteria. The Terrace is quite big, with a capacity of what-seemed-to-look-like 100 people inside of it. Guests have the cool experience of being able to watch the student chefs prepare their food. However, the glass is a little far from your seats so the trip up to the glass might not be worth the time. Overall, the atmosphere of the Spartan Terrace is something different from what I have had, although nothing entirely special.

The food, however, is able to hold its own. I took a quick look at the menu which could be the only downside of this whole trip. It is small…really small. However, this could just be for the cooks who are in the beginning of their culinary careers. With only two soup options on the menu,  I decided to start with the one I was less familiar with: Italian Wedding Soup.

The soup was probably the high point of the meal and my experience at the Terrace. Among the soup included meat, egg, bread crumbs, Parmesan cheese and basil & onion powder, combined with other vegetables like spinach and carrots. Even though I am usually not a fan of these kinds of soups, due to the fact that I don’t really like vegetables, this was a big exception. I thoroughly enjoyed the broth and meat in the soup, which gave it such a unique taste that I could hardly forget. I would highly recommend this dish to anyone who plans to dine at the Terrace this semester.

Now, onto the main dish. Since the menu does not offer a wide variety, I really didn’t see anything that stuck out to me. So, I decided to get something that seemed familiar with a Spartan twist.

The grilled shrimp and avocado sandwich was something new to me, and I was eager to try it. The sandwich was filled with avocado, shrimp, roasted corn, grape tomatoes, red onion and pepitas over greens with cotija, lime aioli, cilantro chutney.

For me, personally, this meal struck both high notes and low notes. The high notes included the grilled shrimp, which was fantastic; this was some of the best grilled shrimp that I have ever had. Another perk was the avocado; this first-time-avo-experience for me was enjoyable. However, the corn included in the dish just fell flat, and proved to be among the lowest notes of the dish. There was way too much of it on the sanswhich. In this reviewer’s opinion, corn and shrimp don’t mix at all and should not have been paired together. Overall, the dish as a whole was nothing special, due to my dislike of the quantity of corn but the shrimp was worth while. 3 out of 5 stars.

Fat Tuesday has come and gone and unfortunately, so has my appeal for the Spartan Terrace. While the entire meal was not bad at all, the complex state of their dishes confused me. The soups and starters all looked amazing to me and leaves me with a good taste in my mouth, figuratively and literally. However, the main dishes are confusing and unnecessary. Simpler recipes would provide them greater success.