Unisel Bestari Jaya students demand improvement in Unisel cafeteria due to lack of choice.

(Unisel Bestari Jaya’s main cafeteria)

Students in Unisel Bestari Jaya campus have probably tried the food in the cafeteria at least once. Plus the location of this university that is a bit hidden compared to Shah Alam campus kind off narrows down the choices of restaurants to go to.

Mostly for students who don’t have their own transportations, they will just go to the cafeteria to buy food.

Meanwhile, other than main cafeteria, the boys can get their dinner such as nasi lemak, burger and chicken chop at block A of the hostel every Monday until Friday. The food is sold by students but they got the food from Saloma Restaurant, located in Kg. Bestari Jaya. One of block A loyal customers, Shafiqqul Aliff said that he prefers to buy food there compared to the ones available at the cafeteria. “Even though the prices are a little higher than the food at cafeteria, but the quality and the taste are so much better,” he added as he confirmed that he does not mind to pay more for a better food.

The girls can also buy food at block H of the hostel. Some students sell it sometimes but it is not as frequent as block A. According to one of the students here, Sharmila Rahmat, 24, if these students are selling food at block H, they will let you know by knocking on your door. Some of the food sold at block H are either made by the students or taken from restaurants just like block A.

Other than the cafeteria in Unisel, the students can also go to the restaurants located at Kampung Bestari Jaya, just outside this campus. It has almost 8 restaurants out there and you can go there by walking. It will take around 10 to 15 minutes of walking. These are some of the restaurants in Kg Bestari Jaya, rated from best to worst by us two.

According to Unisel’s Programme Coordinator, Bachelor of Communication (HONS) (Journalism), Azira Shaharuddin, Unisel Bestari Jaya has 5611 students right now. However, after our investigation, we found out that there is only one cafeteria that operates 17 hours to starting from 7 am to 12 am for them. There are another three small cafeterias located at Faculty of Communication, Visual art and Computing (FCVAC), Faculty of Education and Social Sciences (FESS) and Faculty of Engineering and Life Sciences (FELS) but those cafeterias only open from 7 am to 5 pm. Because of that, the main cafeteria in Unisel gets really crowded at night especially when these students come down for their dinner. That’s one of the problems here.

The main cafeteria has various stalls that sell food and beverages, approximately eight stalls eight stalls that sell food and another two that sell drinks. You can get shawarma, nasi campur, nasi lemak and even burgers. Everything sounds great on paper unless when it comes to public holiday. Normally, students who came from outside of Selangor would just stay here instead of going back to their hometown during public holiday. It gets really bad for them to buy food for dinner because usually, only one stall that opens at night. One of the students here, Hana Musanif, 22 confirmed to us that she once waited almost 2 hours for her food during public holiday because there was only one stall that opened at that time.

(Hana also told us that the main cafeteria has some usual smell. It came from the garbage disposal house just beside the café)

She also said that the food that’s available here is not healthy for students because the unbalanced amount of salt and sugar in their food. According to her, there are some good food made by these stalls but most of them are not. However she confirmed that she never gotten sick from eating anything at the cafeteria.

Let’s talk about the cleanliness of the cafeterias in Unisel. The small cafeteria that located in FCVAC however got the nastiest reviews of all. One of the FCVAC lecturer, Khalil Sreedaran said that he once saw a rat that was bigger than both of his palms running around the cafeteria. Not to mention the countless amount of flies around that area. “This place has a very bad air ventilation system. Every time the workers cook, the whole place will smell exactly like the dish and somehow it would leave some kind of smell on your clothes,” he added.

(The poor condition of a small cafeteria in Faculty of Communicaton, Visual Art and Computing)

When we asked him why not just go to the main cafeteria, he told us that the location of the cafeteria is the main reason he does not usually go to the main cafeteria. It is kind of far away from the faculty. The lecturers and the staff here would prefer to go out of Unisel for lunch instead of having it here. But he told us that personally, he prefers to go the main cafeteria for food over other cafeterias in Unisel. “Our main cafeteria is not perfect, but it’s the best we got here,” added him.

Khalil also said that their services should be improved especially when their serving the food. When you order a food, they will prepare it for you and when it’s done, they will just leave it at the counter and you have to take it yourself. “They should introduced a better system in serving the food because sometimes I’ve walked to the counter almost three times just to check whether my food was ready or not.” Added him.

We have approached one of the cleaners, Huzana Ibrahim, 42, who cleans the main cafeteria to ask her some questions and shockingly, there are only 2 people that are being tasked to clean all the cafeterias in Unisel and both of them are working on different shift. That means only one of them is available at a time. “I’ve been working here for 12 years already and the cleaners only clean the lobby of the cafeteria, while the food stall workers will clean their own kitchen, plates and cups. Unisel has many cleaners from 6 different companies but only two people are taking care of the cafeterias. Imagine how busy she would be during peak hours.

One of the food stall workers, Zaim Abdullah, 29, said that he has been selling food in Unisel since 7 years ago. One of the challengers that he usually faces is not being able to get a day off during public holiday. However, the competition in Unisel is a lot better than outside since students here do not have many other choices. He also told us that he has to follow strict guidelines in order to keep their food safe and clean. We were informed that the stalls in cafeteria need to renew their contract with Unisel every year.

However, the main cafeteria has some serious problem with the drainage system around the cafe. When it rains, the whole cafeteria becomes smelly. One of the students here, Nurul Aiman Amin, 24, said that there was one time she had to eat with that kind of environment and it totally killed her mood to eat. She ended up throwing away her food. Not that just, she once saw the shawarma maker picked his nose and without cleaning his hands, he continued doing his shawarma. “Even though the prices are very cheap compared to Shah Alam, but the quality of the food here is really bad, especially when you see what I’ve seen,” she added.

“I really miss the taste of western food that you can easily find back in Shah Alam,” added her. She hopes Unisel will improve or maybe add up some varieties in food offered by Unisel cafeteria for the upcoming semester. “These students deserve more than just this, considering they paid more for their fees compared to other public universities,” she added. 

Her statement was supported fully by an international students in Unisel, Abdul Hadi Al-Helalee, 24, from Bangladesh said that the choices of food in the cafeteria should be improved to cater for international students. “Unisel should have different kind of food for us (international students) such as Spanish, Arabian, Italian and western food like Universiti Malaya and UKM Bangi have to offer,” he added. He told us that the Malaysian food here is not bad but he had better food outside.

We have approached the one who’s in charge in holding records of students who fall sick in Unisel, Razali Ahmad, 46.  According to him, Unisel has around 42 cases of sick students in a month but none of them are caused by the food available in Unisel. That shows that the cafeteria is still serving clean food despite those bad reviews about its quality.

“If any of these students feel sick, they can directly call the office or just walk in here in Unisel’s Health and Welfare Unit located just beside the HEP,” he added. Razali will personally bring you to the nearest clinic for checkups and if needed, he will personally drive them to Tanjung Karang Hospital.

In conclusion, no matter how bad the reviews are from lecturers and students about Unisel cafeteria, the food is indeed safe to consumed by all considering there none on the records showing that students have suffered from food poisoning. However, these students can lodge a complaint to HEP if they gotten sick after eating food from cafeteria. The HEP will personally come and check whether the food stall is clean enough to continue their business. If they fail the inspection, their contract with Unisel will be revoked. The power is totally in our hands. If you see something about this cafeteria that disgusts you, do your part. Make a report so the justice could be done. These students demand improvement so that they will have a better dining experience in Unisel in the future.