Student Centre restaurant Café Brava has reopened for business with an overhaul of its buffet lunch menu. The new options available consist mainly of a number of Chinese-style dishes, as an alternative to the original selection of traditional fast food, some of which is still on the menu.

A typical selection from the new menu includes sweet chilli chicken wings, southern fried chicken in barbecue sauce, sweet and sour pork and vegetables, fried rice with egg and peas, plain pilau rice, and a range of vegetables. The buffet currently costs 80c per 100g.

Café Brava manager Des Moran said that “we did a bit of research around the campus to find out what people would really like to see on offer, and the Chinese option proved the most popular.” The café will continue to offer their traditional fast food menu items also.

Moran believes the new selection will be a crucial factor in attracting new customers in 2010. He told The University Observer that “we are always open to suggestions. If somebody approaches us and says, ‘Why don’t you try a traditional Irish stew?’, then chances are there will be a traditional Irish stew on the menu the following week. If it goes well, then it stays, until it begins to lose popularity. It just turns out that currently, people are very keen on these particular dishes. With the system we are running here, we can always switch things up from one week to another, to accommodate for what people want.”

Like the majority of catering establishments around the country, Cafe Brava experienced a fall in revenue for 2009, which Moran has blamed on the economic downturn. When asked whether further changes are planned in Café Brava, Moran said that “for now, we’ll keep going with things the way we are,” and that the new menu “seems to be working.”