At St Stephen's hostel, they even call a well-known caterer and consultant to five-star hotels, Sandeep Ahluwalia, to chalk out their menu and introduce new Indian dishes in the mess. St Stephen's principal Anil Wilson told Express Newsline: ``The caterer guides our mess committee during special dinners so that the residents get a chance to indulge their taste buds once in a while.''

With the onset of summer, many residents of the St Stephen's hostel say they can no longer bear to have toast and omelets in the mornings. So the mess committee got Ahluwalia to introduce idli and chutney for breakfast. Another new entry in the St Stephen's menu is chana bhatura.

The Lady Shri Ram College residence also has a mess committee and a superintendent to look into the menu for the mess. ``At the LSR residence, we have special dinners almost every fortnight, that is, whenever the Speakers Forum invites guests to the hostel. For non-vegetarians, there's chilly chicken and mutton cutlets. Vegetarians have paneer and mushroom preparations,'' says LSR student Neeta Lamba.

Special dinners apart, the hostellers also get mutton biriyani on Sunday nights. Aloo parathas and raita is served for Sunday lunch. The LSR residence also celebrates what is known as Bada Khaana day every year when the residents prepare lunch for the karamcharis, the superintendent, the warden and for themselves.

``On Bada Khaana day, a group of hostellers prepare special food for the cook and other karamcharis who work for them everyday. The same group also prepares food for the 300-odd residents staying in the hostel. After lunch, the entire hostel gets together to clean the dishes and tidy the mess,'' explains an LSR resident.

The non-vegetarians at Hindu College have a feast not less than four times a week. ``The food here is nothing out of the world. But we do manage to get tandoori chicken, butter chicken, chicken curry and mutton biriyani spread over four days of the week. I think the menu is fine, considering that we pay about a Rs 1,000 as mess charges every month,'' says Puneet Aggarwal.

Even as the non-vegetarians at Hindu College relish their chicken, the vegetarians are compensated with sweet dishes like cold ras malai and hot gulab jamuns, says the warden of the Hindu hostel, Suranjan Sinha.