It's not all that bad. (Buffet Island (Newcastle-Under-Lyme))

Member Name: Penfold88

Product:	Buffet Island (Newcastle-Under-Lyme)
Date:	07/05/09 (876 review reads)
Rating:

Advantages: A good choice of dishes, not bad for a town restaurant.

Disadvantages: Drinks are a bit expensive which you expect from these places. Food are quite similar to your local

All Chinese buffets are more or less the same depending where abouts you are in the country. Being Chinese myself, Chinese food from your local take-away or restaurant isn't really Chinese food as such as it is cooked & catered for the western palate. But having said that there are dishes cooked using ingredients that Chinese people would use in their own home i.e. black bean sauce & oyster sauce but not necessarily the same way in take-aways & restaurants.

Buffet Island (BI) dishes aren't that bad at all considering it caters for inhabitants in a town district, what I meant by that, if you were to go to a buffet restaurant in a city with a large Chinese community you'll find the dishes there will be slightly different. BI can rustle up dishes similar if not the same as those in the big cities to which I give them top marks for. Most importantly to me is the salt & mono-sodium glutamate (msg) content, after consuming high quantities of the fore mentioned you can get extremely thirsty. Unfortunately, buffet establishments may add alot of salt to ensure the customers order more drinks and msg have the undesirable effect, too. I wouldn't say BI do not add alot of the two but one can get thirsty afterwards, I've been to other buffet restaurants where the dishes were so salty it almost tasted bitter.

As for the service, hhhmmmm. Chinese people are known for their good & polite manners but when it comes to customer service, unfortunately, a good percentage of them do not know the concept of customer service. Generally if you're being served by the owner or manager you 'should' get treated pretty well but if you get a rude member of staff it's not because they don't like you it's the way they are, it's nothing personal. But there again manners do not cost anything. If you want to experince BAD customer service then you should try a Chinese restaurant in central London called the 'Wong-Kei', and then you compare that to BI, I'm quite sure you'll changed views about BI.

The best buffet restaurant I've been and still going to is the 'Tai Wu' in Manchester. They have more selection of dishes than BI, it doesn't make you thirsty afterwards & it's cheaper. Not many Chinese people go to these buffet establishments as we know it's not true Chinese dishes but at Tai Wu you'll find alot of young Chinese eating there not because it's cheap but because of some ingredients used like 'white fungus' & 'woodears' that they would expect from a proper oriental dish.

Overall, BI is not a bad eatery & I would recommend it as a local restaurant but when it comes to the children prices it can be a pain in the neck and certainly need to be looked at in order to keep all parties happy.

Summary: It's the only decent buffet establishment in this area, unless you go into the large cities