The smell of a curried butternut squash soup wafts through the air as you walk into the dining room. At long tables of dark wood, beneath windows soaring 20 feet overhead, customers dine on vegetable ragout over polenta, spicy orange beef, Dijon-crusted chicken, cheese quesadillas, vegetarian pho â??Vietnamese noodle soup â?? and spinach sautéed with garlic and olive oil.
If it werenâ??t for the trays, and the fact that most diners are under 25, youâ??d think it was a restaurant. But this is Thorne dining hall at Bowdoin College here.