Having eaten my weight in food on Thanksgiving a couple of weeks ago, I thought the time was right to provide a guide to the multiple dining options available on campus.

I’ll get right into it with the dining halls. As a senior and someone who ate dining hall food at another college before transferring to BU, I feel supremely qualified to tell you that BU’s food is top-notch. College Prowler gives it an A+. Here’s a Boston Globe story that says BU is “at the forefront of a revolution in campus food across the country.”

The best of the five dining halls is West, which is where students dine for the first time when they attend orientation. Overlooking Nickerson Field, this dining hall has the best variety of food and the best layout of seating. Every meal is made-to-order, and we have six or seven options for meals most of the time. Some of the staples include stir-fry, pasta toss, the grill, pizza and sandwiches. Salads, fruit and dessert are also always available. Students living in Claflin, Sleeper, and Rich Halls, 1019 Comm Ave., and the athletes are the most frequent consumers. The downside to West is that if you plan to eat during normal meal hours, you could very well end up waiting in line for 20 minutes to get your food.

Warren Towers is another huge dining hall, and the lines can be just as bad as West. But it is worth the wait. Breakfast at Warren is renowned for its omelets. Pancakes, eggs, sausage, bacon, bagels, oatmeal, cereal and muffins are always served. Lunch at Warren is similar to lunch at West, featuring a sandwich bar, salad bar, burrito bar, stir fry, and other meals that vary from day to day. The best part about this dining hall, however, is the dessert. Specifically, the brownies are the best I’ve ever eaten. A new batch comes out every 15 minutes or so. The apple crisp is also a favorite of mine. And you can always make it a la mode with chocolate, vanilla, or swirl soft-serve ice cream.

The remaining three dining halls are much different from West and Warren. Towers dining hall is my least favorite of them all for several reasons. First, the selection of food pales in comparison to everywhere else on campus. It’s a scaled-down offering of pizza, burritos, sandwiches, desserts, salad, etc. Second, it’s located in the basement. Who wants to eat in the dreary basement of a residence hall? West overlooks Nickerson Field and Warren offers a view towards downtown Boston and across the Charles River to Cambridge. Towers has no view to the outside world. I don’t even get phone service when I’m down there. (In case you were wondering, I have AT&T.)

Shelton dining hall is just down the street from Towers on Bay State Road. Unless you live in the surrounding area and want to avoid the long lines at nearby Warren, there’s no special reason to eat at Shelton. Chances are you won’t have to wait in line, but the food is mediocre. It does provide more of a homey feel than the larger dining halls, but, again, I wouldn’t go out of my way to eat here.

Finally, we get to Kenmore Square and Myles dining hall. Myles is similar to Shelton in size and style, but unlike Towers or Shelton, I have a reason to eat here. And that reason is burgers. Myles is known for serving the best burgers on campus. The chefs cook them in front of you, and you request bacon, cheese, barbeque sauce, or some combination of the three. Without this specialty, Myles would just be a mediocre dining hall located in the building in which Babe Ruth used to live when the played for the Red Sox.

Beyond the five dining halls, BU students have the GSU food court. Students pay for this food using dining points, convenience points, or real cash money. (This link explains the dining plans and those points.) From bagels to Mexican to Chinese to turkey dinners, a wide-yet-overpriced variety is available.

BU also have 37.5 Starbucks on campus. Well, OK, more like five. But the yuppies are never more than a two-minute walk from their next latte or whatever. It’s a zig-zag that starts at the BU Barnes & Noble in Kenmore Square, continues west up Comm. Ave. to the second floor of the School of Management (the highest-grossing Starbucks on the East Coast, by the way), crosses the street to the first floor of Warren Towers, crosses back across the BU strip to the GSU (see above link), and continues up to West Campus across the street from the College of Fine Arts. If that’s not enough, I’m sure administrators could add another one on the corner near Agganis Arena where an empty building has sat for the last year-and-a-half (formerly McDonald’s).

And if all the options I’ve mentioned aren’t enough, a Subway opened on the first floor of Warren a few months ago. The line consistently extends out the door. T. Anthony’s is also an off-campus favorite for the BU crowd — fans have created Facebook groups about the pizzeria.

Between the dining halls and the GSU, BU offers some of the best food you’ll find on a college campus.