Harters
(John Hartley - a culinary patriot, cooking and eating in northwest England)
1
I’m not a great fan of all-you-can-shovel-down buffets. The food’s never that great and probably the best that can be said is you get to eat a lot of food, albeit mediocre food. They appeal to the inner greed in us. So, why were we having dinner here? Well, it’s because it’s rated on Tripadvisor as the city’s best restaurant. Maybe it would be different and it would be the exception that proves the rule. Unfortunately not. It’s my own fault. I should have read the signs. They were all there. Firstly , there’s all those Tripadvisor reviews that have gone to making this “the #1” in the city. Most are from from accounts that have only just been set up and have only posted this one review. About as likely to be genuine as the likelihood of King Charles scoring the next England goal. And then there’s the warning flag of them doing Indian and Thai food. Two very different food styles from countries 1500 miles apart . One of them is not going to have anything to do with the owner’s food heritage. Think how unlikely it would be for a place to be offering British and Bulgarian food and both be good.
The staff all looked South Asian so we concluded the Thai food was going to be the add- on and probably best avoided. As for the quality of the Indian food, think of a high street curry house. Not the one you go to regularly. Or the one you go to sometimes, just for a change. But the one on the other side of town that you hardly ever hear anyone mentioning. Yep, the food at Amazing Asia really is just mediocre. And, yes, I was still greedy.
It’s mediocre with things like the pakoras and samosas having sat around for ages so they’ve gone soggy. Like the fact that, in the time we were in the restaurant , none of the serving dishes were topped up or replaced , so may well have been sitting around kept warm for ages. Like very bland food with none of the vibrant spices you expect from South Asian food. And we did try a little of a couple of the Thai dishes. Yep, completely underwhelming . And just plain wrong to be sat around on a buffet when any of the freshness and sparkle of Thai food has been lost.
On the plus side, the place was clean and the staff attentive in bringing drinks and clearing away dirty plates. It’s a small comfort that we were proved right in our low expectations of yet another buffet. Four meals in Hereford on this trip and the buffet comes a poor fourth.
Thanks for this report on the ubiquitous AYCE Asian buffet phenomenon. There seems to be at least one even in small towns in the UK. Years ago, I ended up going to one in my small coastal town, with the family of some kids my son was schoolmates with. I think they are probably good value for families with young kids who are happy to pick and choose what they want from a huge array of options. These places also usually have quite a selection of desserts which kids adore but are quite low quality. Being a small person of limited stomach capacity, I am notoriously bad value in an AYCE situation. But even I managed to find something worth chowing down on - turns out this particular buffet had a station where a cook flash fried your chosen seafood option. So I had a few rounds of scallops accessorised with whatever carbs looked most appealing. This buffet went out of business during the pandemic, never to return.
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Harters
(John Hartley - a culinary patriot, cooking and eating in northwest England)
4
My borough isnt small - population just under 300k. Some years back, I spent a day a week in the town centre researching for a project. The centre was utterly devoid of “proper” restaurants. There wasnt even a Pizza Express. The best there was for lunch, was the AYCE Chinese buffet. It was awful.
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CCE
(Keyrock the unfrozen caveman lawyer; your world frightens & confuses me)
5
Hi John - I was confused at first by “Amazing” in your title. So, now I take it that “Amazing” is part of the store’s name?
I generally agree with you about the contents of most buffets (of any cuisine, I think) being mediocre. But I have been very pleasantly surprised on occasion. There’s a buffet place where a lot of my relatives live that we visit about once per year and all 22-26 of us (depending on work schedules) descend upon it. It’s a fusion Asian place that has sushi and a lot of Cantonese dishes.
Always, these last 20 years, has been much better than average for a buffet joint. I guess sometimes one just gets lucky.
The buffet places here closer to home - not so much. Filling but mediocre.
Harters
(John Hartley - a culinary patriot, cooking and eating in northwest England)
6
