A PIZZA the action..! (Pizza Hut)

Member Name: Wee_Jackie_163

Product:	Pizza Hut
Date:	29/10/09 (86 review reads)
Rating:

Advantages: Good value, Varied choice..

Disadvantages: Horrible Pasta..

After a recent visit to one of our local Pizza Hut restaurants, I thought I would share the experience with those of you who are interested in getting a bit of a cheap lunch!

Seeing that the 'Lunchtime Buffet' was still available in one of the branches of Pizza Hut in our local city centre, my sister and I decided to pop in and give it a try. It had been about a year and a half since I had last had a buffet lunch in one of these restaurants, and I was keen to see if any changes had been made since my last visit...

The first thing to comment on is the wait we had before we were seated. To be fair this was only for a short while - perhaps ten minutes maximum - but what struck me is that we were almost ignored by all members of staff while we waited. Nobody came to tell us how long we would need to wait, nor did they acknowledge our presence. In actual fact, no member of staff even made so much as a bit of eye contact with either my sister or me to indicate our existence or our wait for a suitable table.

There was a very small queue in front of us - perhaps another two parties or so - and after these customers had been seated, it was our turn. The young waitress did apologise for our wait to be fair, and seemed to be quite friendly as she showed us to our waiting table. After informing her that we intended to dine at the buffet, she took our menus away and took our drinks order. The drinks did arrive promptly and the waitress informed us that we were entitled to free refills. This would be a bit more appealing to me if the drinks themselves weren't around a pint in size, and thus any refills are almost pointless as I personally cannot drink endless pints of fizzy pop at lunchtime in one sitting.

After our drinks were served, our waitress informed us that we could help ourselves to the buffet. There are two options for the buffet in Pizza Hut at the time of writing this review (I believe it is subject to change from time to time). The first option is for a "Pizza only" choice which my sister selected, for the cost of £5.49.

I opted instead for the "Everything Buffet" as I personally like a bit of salad and pasta with my pizza, and this choice cost me £6.49. As we gave our order to our waitress, we were informed that we could add a side to our order for only £1.99, and this included such snacks as some garlic bread, potato wedges or BBQ wings. As neither of us was interested in having a side order, we left it at the buffet choices and went up to the counters to see what was on offer.

The first thing I feel I should point out is that the pizzas seemed to be replenished frequently. I found that instead of waiting until every last slice of pizza had been removed from a plate, the pizzas were replaced with fresh ones every now and then, regardless of how much of the existing pizza was left on the plate. I thought that this was quite a change, especially when compared to some of the Chinese buffet places that are in our locality that seem to wait until every last (soggy and cold) chip has been removed from a platter before replenishing it, etc.

Another definite plus point for the Pizza Hut buffet is that for those of you who are vegetarian, you needn't worry about selecting a piece of pizza that APPEARS to be cheese and tomato, only to take a bite and discover a piece of ham or pepperoni lurking under that thick layer of cheese. Any 'veggie' pizzas have green-handled servers, whereas those that are meat-based have black-handled servers, so identification of a suitable pizza is very easy indeed.

Furthermore, I did find that the choice in general was really quite excellent. Not only were we offered thick 'pan' pizzas as well as those with a much thinner crust, we were given a fair amount of choice in terms of toppings. All of the 'old favourites' such as Margarita (cheese and tomato) and ham and pineapple were in abundance, as were some more 'trendy' offerings that contained little pieces of Jalapeno chilli pepper and chunks of fresh tomato... I really couldn't complain about any aspect of the pizzas at the buffet.

The two choices of pasta were another story. These could be found at the end of the heated display that contained the pizzas. The two varieties of pasta were in large oblong tubs with lids, and each had a serving spoon so that we could help ourselves. One of the containers was empty the first time I tried to sample this pasta, and it actually remained empty for the duration of our meal, with no efforts being made to replenish it. The second container contained some rather dry and uninspiring-looking penne pasta, which I actually discarded altogether after only one mouthful. The penne was completely inedible in my opinion, and was completely tasteless and lacking any sort of flavour or decent seasoning. My sister did suggest that the 'add-ons' at our buffet such as the pasta and bread were merely there to try and 'bag us up' so that we would eat less pizza. After sampling some of the sorry-looking pasta, I did start to think that perhaps she had a point ...

On the plus side of the 'extras', the salad bar offered a wide variety of salads, dressings, dips, toppings and the like. I was pleased to see that since my last visit to a Pizza Hut buffet, there have been a few additional items added to the salad selection, such as hummus, Greek salad (with little cubes of Feta cheese), tortilla chips, olives, couscous, and the like. These were all displayed quite neatly and each of the 'trays' of salad or accompaniments had its own spoon/server. I did see at least two or three of the 'trays' get replenished whilst I was in the restaurant.

The salad bar still contained plenty of its 'old favourites' which I absolutely love. These are (amongst others) croutons, cucumber sticks, cherry tomatoes, Thousand Island dressing, blue cheese dressing, cold pasta salad, crispy lettuce and creamy potato salad. None of the 'old favourites' have been replaced with any of the new additions to the salad bar, as far as I could tell. I did find that the salads I selected were a nice addition to my buffet, and complimented my pizza quite nicely.

All in all, I did quite enjoy my lunch and felt quite satisfied after stuffing my face merrily. I didn't feel that any of the staff were hurrying us or waiting for our table, despite the constant queue of two or so parties at the door, and the limited floor space in the fairly small restaurant. I felt that considering I got a little change from a tenner including a drink (with free refills remember), I got a good choice of pizza and accompaniments, and felt that this was brilliant value for money.

I would recommend giving the Pizza Hut buffet a try and would award it four marks out of five, with one knocked off for the reason that one or two of the foodstuffs weren't being replenished, and also because both me and my sister felt we were somewhat ignored on our entry to the restaurant. Other than these little 'niggles' though, I cannot really fault it.

My city centre branch of Pizza Hut offers this buffet deal Monday - Friday, from 12 noon until 2pm, although each branch/store does vary so it is worth checking with your local branch if you would like to try it. Also, the Buffet lunch does NOT run on Bank Holidays.

There is a website for the company at www.pizzahut.co.uk, which offers full details of menus and restaurant availability nationwide. It is worth noting too, that at lunchtime you can order a meal from the regular menu if you prefer this to eating at the buffet. The menu offers a wide variety of pasta dishes and assorted pizzas as well as side orders and desserts, so there is bound to be something to suit most tastes!

Summary: Grab a PIZZA the action! (sorry, couldn't resist!) ;-)