the mascot for uc davis is the aggie, which stems from the word "agriculture", so before even coming to davis i knew that food was not going to be an issue. i mostly eat at the DC, or dining commons, because i am a freshman and i have a meal plan. the salad bar is AMAZING, with many vegetables and dressings grown and made at uc davis. there are always several options for vegetarians besides salads, such as tofu and rice dishes and different kinds of meatless pizza and pasta. there are also different specials throughout the week for those who don't like or cannot eat meat.
the dc is buffet style, which is not necessarily a good thing for the new freshman who sees 5 different dishes that all look really good (this has happened to me, and yes, i have taken several plates with me to the table). two of the dc's have soft-serve machines, while one dc has real ice cream with two choices that change about every other day.
while eating at the dc is the easiest way to get food, after a while everything can kind of start to taste the same. so to help offset this, my friends and i get hawaiian bbq across the street. we also stock up on frozen foods at trader joe's and the little convenience store next to our dc.
on campus, there is the silo, where you can get crepes, starbucks, taco bell, pizza hut, carl's junior, and sandwiches and salads at the marketplace. you can buy food from any of these places with aggie cash, which is pretty much a debit card in the form of your student ID. my meal plan, since i am a freshman, consists of 120 meals at the dc and $120 of aggie cash. for next quarter, i am reducing my number of meals and getting more aggie cash because i definitely use the cash more. there are also a few places downtown that accept aggie cash, as well as woodstock's, which delivers pizza to the dorms.
while aggie cash isn't like a rewards card or discount card, it's just easier to use that having to take out real paper money from the atm machines and then deal with the coins that we all lose. there are also a couple of food trucks outside the silo which, so i've been told, are quite good. i'm not sure if they take aggie cash, but they serve the kind of food you wouldn't find at the dc, so if you want something different, i would definitely check those out.
whether you're eating at the dc or somewhere downtown, the food in davis is really good. the quality is high, but the prices aren't too bad. a lot of students like to socialize and get to know people at the dc (mostly freshman, but there are definitely upperclassmen as well), but going out to a restaurant is just as popular.