There are currently 4 dining halls (Covel, Hedrick, Rieber FEAST
and De Neve) and 4 cafeterias (BruinCafe, Café 1919, Rendezvous and De Neve
Late Night). Rieber FEAST is the latest dining hall with very good Asian food
and other dining halls typically serve American/European and Mexican food.
BruinCafe serves sandwiches, cookies and cold drinks, Café 1919 serves pizza,
sandwiches and gelato, Rendezvous serves Asian and Mexican dishes, De Neve Late
Night serves very typical American food such as burgers, pizza and chicken
tenders.) For Muslims, Bruin Café is the only place that serves kosher
sandwiches for which you might have to swipe more than once or pay a surcharge.
For vegetarians or vegans, the dining halls will always have vegetarian options
available. You can check the menu here.
There are 5 meal plans, namely 11G, 14G, 14P, 19G and 19P (P for Premier and G for Gold).
Premier holders can swipe multiple times whenever they want and unused swipes can
be accumulated till the end of the quarter. Gold meal plan holders can only
swipe once in that particular time slot for each meal and any unused swipes
expires at the end of every week. The time slots for each swipe are 7-11am,
11-5, 5-9, 9-12, 12-2am. For weekend, it is 930-5pm, 5-9, 9-12, 12-2am.
In general 19G will suffice since the extra cost you pay
compared to 14G and 11G is about $1 per extra meal. Premier is not that worth
it unless you eat a lot and very irregularly or you want to swipe your friends
all the time. The only time a gold meal plan can be swiped multiple times is at
De Neve Late Night and the queue can get really long.
UCLA has the best dorm food in the nation, especially Rieber
FEAST where the line can be as long as 20 minutes. As UCLA takes in more
students, dining halls are more crowded than it used to be. For dinner, this happens at around 6-7pm since that is when most people are
done with classes. The longer you stay in the dorms, the better you will be at estimating the traffic at the dining halls.
If you decide to get a microwave, you can only rent a
microfridge (a fridge and a microwave) from the university which will cost you
$200 a year. It is okay to bring in your fridge but not microwave. Do check and make the necessary arrangements with your future roommates regarding this matter. It is cheaper
to get a second hand fridge and microwave than renting it as they cost about
$30-50 each. There are some students who have their own microwave but they hide it in the closet whenever the RA is inspecting the room (once a
quarter with prior notification). The rule of thumb is to keep these items out of sight to avoid trouble.
