Ximena Solorzano, Head Photography Editor

When Yalies returned to Commons after fall break, they were met with two new meal options — rice bowls with fried chicken or tofu and a wild mushroom cream pasta sauce.

The change followed a Yale College Council proposal that encouraged students to vote on Commons options. In total, 1,788 students engaged with the survey, a number that YCC Dining Policy Director Thy Luong ’28 hopes to increase with future polls.

“I’m really happy the chicken is back because it’s really good,” Walker Lape ’28 said, enthusiastic about the new crispy KFC chicken and crispy tofu bowls. “The other options aren’t quite as good as last year, however.”

The return to KFC — Korean fried chicken — at Lotus, the Asian cuisine station in Commons, won overwhelmingly with 1,107 votes, compared to 450 for chicken tikka masala and 220 for jade chicken, the other two options. For the pasta sauce, wild mushroom cream sauce narrowly edged out a victory with 818 votes ahead of runner-up heirloom tomato sauce, which received 726 votes. A final option, delicata squash sauce, came third with 203 votes.

Michael van Emmenes, Yale Hospitality’s strategic initiatives director, confirmed the survey results in an email to the News and wrote that students will be able to vote again later in the year.

“Yale Hospitality will again be partnering with YCC to host another round of Commons menu voting in early December, to inform the January menu changes,” van Emmenes wrote.

The idea was “co-developed in YCC’s meetings with Yale Hospitality,” Luong said. “To my knowledge, voting on the Commons menu hasn’t happened in the past, which is why YCC Dining Policy Team is so excited to continue democratizing student voice on dining at Yale.”

Student voting for the options closed on Tuesday, Oct. 14. The selected dishes, introduced this week, received mixed responses from students.

“I miss the pesto pasta, and I’m not a fan of the mushroom pasta,” Avery Chesek ’26 told the News.

Aditya Anand ’29 found the new tofu option from Lotus was “fine,” but expressed a preference for the previously-served black bean tofu dish.

Students with kosher and halal diets could not eat the pork that preceded the Korean fried chicken dish.

“As someone that can’t eat pork due to my religion, the change to Korean fried chicken instead of the fried pork feels much more welcoming for people like me,” Aditya Kothari ’29 said.

The new menu was first served on Monday, Oct. 20.

Jerry Gao contributed reporting.