Critic's Review
I needed a few things at Penn Dutch, so I thought I'd try the Lunch Buffet at Padrino's. I've been to 2 of their other locations with mixed results; this center is brand new so at least it would be clean.
There was no hostess when I walked in at 1:27p. Early for me, but I had to be back earlier today. I'm not sure they have a hostess, because a server eventually came over "Would you like to sit at the bar". Would you want to sit at this bar with no bartender?
I asked for a table by the buffet, most people were seated in the rear dining room. I swooped by the buffet and it looked like there was enough variety for me to try it.
I asked for an iced tea and I asked if they have lemon. I asked twice. "Yes" he said. Then he brought me this.
How can you run a bar without lemon? It's so ridiculous. The view here is stunning; a mall parking lot.
The window do relieve some of the strip mall ambiance that you get with some of these places. The decor is different than their other restaurants; I don't get the Cuban feel here.
I started with a salad; they had some good tomatoes. Nothing on the buffet is labeled, and the girl working there had a heavy accent. I asked about the dressings but I could understand here. You can only say "What?" so many times before you give up. Whatever it was, it wasn't bad.
Back to get some food. I just filled a plate with everything minus the white rice and potatoes.
I thought the white thing was fish, but it turned out to be Yuck-a. I quickly moved that to a side dish.
The next Item I believe was pork chunks; they were dried out and flavorless.
Two kinds of beef; Ropa Vieja and some big chunk of something. Maybe it was pork? The big chunk was dried out and tasteless; the Ropa was good if not very well seasoned; the beans were surprisingly bland. What's the point of Cuban food if they leave out the spices? Every is so bland; like they're afraid to use salt or garlic or cumin.
The chicken wing was actually pretty good.
After the salad the the big plate I wasn't that hungry, but I went back again to try what I didn't get the first time. I thought these were some sort of breaded vegetables; but it was actually fish. This is why you need labels.
The fish was quite good; there's no salt here so I used the ranch dressing and it worked.
Something annoying and ridiculous was when I was about 1/2 done with the tea, my server took the glass into the back for a full 3 minutes to refill the glass. Get a pitcher people; don't take away someone's drink in the middle of the meal. Or bring another glass.
Conclusion
$16 before tip for this; is it worth it over the $10 lunch specials? Surprisingly, they don't push the buffet and not very many people selected it.; maybe there were 3 other people other than myself. The buffet isn't mentioned on the menu so you have to ask to get the price.
For a chain with multiple locations, they still seem to do so many things wrong. They refuse to get lemons, don't have beverage refills organized and let customers stand at the door during lunch hour. I get why there's no hostess at 2:45, but not at 1:30.