WATERVILLE -- Organic tofu and garbanzo burgers, chicken with lemon grass, shrimp creole.

It sounds like the menu of a high-price gourmet restaurant.

For students at Colby College, it's the everyday fare.

Colby College was named number six for the best food in the 2009 edition of Princeton Review's Best 368 Colleges.

Also in the top 20 were Bowdoin College in Brunswick at number two and Bates College in Lewiston at number 19. Wheaton College in Wheaton, Ill., was at the top for 2009.

"It's quite a challenge to accomplish," Chef David Roy said of the number six ranking. Roy has cooked at Colby for 36 years.

Bowdoin and Colby colleges have appeared in the top 10 for best campus food in the Princeton Review multiple times; Bowdoin has often topped the list.

The Princeton Review compiles their information about the best food, academics, social life and demographics from student surveys sent to college kids across the U.S. The results are released in an annual guide.

At Colby College, students have up to nine choices for one meal, based on their palettes. At least 16 cooks are split up among three dining halls for the 1,867 students.

Foss Hall, known as the place to go for an on-campus vegetarian or vegan meal, will often serve walnut burgers, a Moroccan lentil soup or a roasted cous-cous salad. Dana Hall offers classic college fare like pizza, hamburgers and grilled cheese sandwiches. The third hall, Roberts, has a station featuring in-season Maine-grown foods. About 20 percent of the food served at Colby is grown or made in Maine.

When it comes to a favorite, Roy said, Colby chefs can't go wrong with comfort food.

"Roast turkey is usually popular," he said. "Mashed potatoes and gravy, and pasta are usually good, too. If that's on the menu, you're bound to get a lot of smiles."

Colby also offers meals for special diets, including kosher and vegan.

"We will cater to anyone," Roy said. "Any student who comes to the dining halls with a request, we will try our best to accommodate them."

Joe Klaus, Director of Operations for Colby College, said student involvement is largely responsible for how food service and what kinds of foods served has changed at Colby and many colleges in America.

"Most of the cooking equipment is out on the serving lines, rather than having the food cooked in a back kitchen, then parked in warmers," Klaus said. "That's a major change. I graduated from college in 1976, and back then, you never saw where food was prepared in the cafeteria."

Today, Klaus said, students are able to see their meals prepared before their eyes.

Students speaking up about their culinary requests has also changed college menus from mystery meat to organic meals.

"Ten years ago, you didn't hear people talk about organic or being vegan or vegetarian to the extent that you do today," Klaus said. "Like the rest, this has been greatly driven by the demand of the students."

For Roy, the challenge to cooking some of the best college meals in America is to keep listening to the customers.

"We're always interacting with students," Roy said. "We have to. We're always looking for new ways to change things."

Meghan V. Malloy -- 623-3811 Ext. 431

mmalloy@centralmaine.com