Critic's Review
I planned on doing one thing today, and then for some reason thought of this place; a place I've never been to before. This place was closer.
It was pouring rain but I got a space right out in front; I still had to wait a bit to keep from getting drenched. I didn't want to bring an umbrella into the restaurant. Meanwhile my car was whining about an under-inflated tire. If you have a BMW you understand how annoying it is when this minor issue completely takes over the console as if the engine is about to blow up.
Finally the rain subsided and I wandered up to the door and went inside. The restaurant is a smallish room and I was seated right away a few steps from the buffet.
"Buffet?", the host dude asked. "Yes". A guy came over to take my drink order and I asked for an iced tea. "Do you have lemon", I asked. "Yes". Oh good.
The buffet has 4 items, white and brown rice, salad, watermelon and fried bananas. Nothing is labeled and the girl's English is limited, so I didn't really know what anything was. I'm glad someone asked about the fried bananas because I know I didn't want that.
Only a bad peanut dressing for the salad. They can't put out some oil and vinegar? Asian dressings suck .
I almost laughed out loud when I saw the tea with a lime on the table. Good grief.
The wonton soup featured a decent wonton in a flavorless broth.
I didn't like the dressing.
Time for some hot food.
The hot food is not self serve; there's a girl who puts the food on your plate. So you can't pick out the broccoli or stuff that looks good. Kind of defeats the purpose of the buffet. I was thinking why are they paying an extra employee for a buffet? She wouldn't be eligible for tips,so they'd have to pay her minimum wage. Are they really saving $30 on food waste by having her there?
I got a little of everything.
Chicken with broccoli, clear noodles (NOT Pad Thai), stir fried vegetables and what I thought was red curry chicken.
I thought this was Pad Thai when on the buffet, but there was no pad thai sauce on it. Just noodles with some egg and scallions. Fake buffet pad thai.
The "chicken" had a strange texture; very mushy. It turns out that it was fish. Snapper they told me, but I have my doubts.
At 2:15 the buffet girl came around to tell everyone that it was last call at the buffet. One plate didn't see worth 10.95 to me so I hurried up for another plate. Even though I really didn't want it. Meanwhile the host dude dropped the check on my table. Nothing like being pushed out at 2:20.
While I was trying to eat my 2nd plate, the servers were dismantling the buffet and sweeping the floors. This is not how to run a restaurant.
I paid and left, a bit sooner than I wanted to.
Conclusion
I'm not sure why I never came here before; I'm not a huge Thai food fan but I usually try the buffets. I like buffets because it's usually an opportunity to try different dishes without having to eat the price if you don't like it. But this buffet offers few of the advantages of The Buffet. It's not self service, there's nothing on the buffet that would be anything new that I'd like to try, and servers are standing around watching you eat.
Adding insult to injury is the rush out; I hate when a restaurant starts sweeping up before closing time. It's just not a good experience.
