Munchie Adventure: King Buffet 國王自助餐, Richmond

This really brought back memories to back when I was a kid, since I used to think buffets were the most awesome thing ever (I got to run around and get whatever I wanted, which kid doesn't like that?).

Restaurant: King Buffet 國王自助餐
Location: 101-4600 No. 3 Rd. Richmond
Cuisine: Chinese, Western, Japanese
Price range: $4.99- Breakfast buffet, $10.99- Lunch Buffet, $15.99- Dinner Buffet
Date of visit: April 6, 2012



Atmosphere: 3/5
Staff/service: n/a (it's self-serve... I'd give myself 5/5 though ;D)
Food variety: 3.5/5
Food quality: 3/5
Buck worthy? 3.75/5





The food wasn't that bad, at least it wasn't laced with MSG (a problem I find in a lot of AYCE/buffet places... gets you so thirsty, but you're so stuffed-- yes, first world problems :P). It looked ok-- not what you would call especially clean, but no dirty either, and had a good selection of food. With all the food places around though, it's lacking in competition power (probably why it was so empty when I went in).

Here's a picture of the sushi, they had a variety of rolls: Alaska, California, salmon, cucumber, and what I think was sour pickle. It wasn't that good, at least it didn't fall apart. The imitation crab in the rolls isn't the usual white kind you have at Japanese restaurants, its a pinkish-orangey kind, which I found a bit weird. Sushi rice was a bit sweet, and they added this seaweed sprinkle on top... which was special, but didn't really match the flavors.

Too bad I got back a moment slow, the creme brule looking thing was all gone :( (to be replaced with this rice dish, which seemed to be masago, salmon, and a bit of seaweed-- looked sketchy, so I didn't try it)

I forgot to take a picture, but there was a sign for soup/congee, in this hidden alcove on the side connected to the buffet area, which I'll bet a lot of people would've missed. (maybe that's why the sign was there, but me, I never read signs :P) Inside, there was your typical soup-in-a-bucket (as I like to call it): hot and sour soup, cream of corn soup, miso soup, wonton soup, soy milk, congee, red bean sweetsoup, tapioca sweetsoup. The soy milk was quite good, tastes like what you would get from T&T from those milk jugs, but w/e, at least it wasn't watered down like the sweetsoups xD. Wontons were decent, your typical pork wonton with nothing else in it but pork, and miso soup had seaweed/kelp with tofu in it, tasted just like miso soup :)

Then there was dim sum. It probably is never a good idea to have dim sum for buffets, since the food gets steamed past its "good time", and that's exactly what I found. There was chicken feet, shrimp dumpling, and shiu mai. Chicken feet were fine from the over-steaming, but shrimp dumpling and shiu mai suffered. The latter two was probably store-bought and not made fresh, besides falling apart, it tasted like the stuff you would buy at a supermarket and microwave.

I do realize this is getting long, but I'm almost done! Bear with me ;)

Here's my plate, I'm just gonna make this easier to describe by putting the food name next to its comments :)
- honey pork ribs: over-fried pork (really hard...kinda like preserved meat haha), sauce was ok
- sweet-sour pork: over-fried pork (same story), sauce could be better-- too sweet
- fried thick noodles: pretty good, a bit oily, but chewy and tasted authentic
- fried rice: what I would label as "Western" fried rice because it isn't the kind you would get at Chinese restaurants... there were actually two kinds of fried rice, but I only tried this one (the other one didn't have soy sauce in it), taste was ok, but the texture of the rice was a bit hard and dry
- mushrooms: good... they were pretty fresh and not canned ones :)
- pork blood: surprised they had it, and it isn't bad, the sauce was a bit thick though
- sushi: (explained above)
- potsticker: chewy and juicy, reminds me of the ones you can get from Costco (which I suspect they probably did xD)
- brocolli: I needed some greens in this meal... it was just boiled brocolli, not over-cooked which was good and not too oily either
- shiu mai: all pork, probably frozen before, so the meat texture was "spongy"
- shrimp dumpling: fell apart... and the "skin" was so soggy and soft, and the shrimp was "spongy" too ><

Here's my brother's second plate (yeah, I eat waaay too slow =P) he had the fried chicken drumstick, which everyone thought was really good (after my first plate I was too stuffed to get more).


Why was I so stuffed after the first plate? I had to save room for dessert!! :D A bit disappointed with it, but there were some good things. Clockwise around the plate (starting with the melon):
- melon... is melon, nothing more to say about it
- (they didn't have cucumber sushi on my first round, so I added it hehe) sushi: average, rice is a bit sweet
- chocolate chip cookie!!! it was good, chewy, but a bit dry
- jello: very very tasteless.. wasn't sweet, wasn't flavored... I think someone put too much water into it and forgot the sugar
- blueberry cake: cake is a bit dry, but overall good (seemed like they were out for too long though...)
- strawberry cake: a bit better than the blueberry one, but my mom said it was too sweet...I like it sweet :3 Again, the top was starting to dry due to being out for too long maybe (I probably shouldn't have eaten it...but I just had to try!!)
- cake rolls: coffee and unidentified (can't figure it out, I think its just cream but can't explain the orange color, and I assure you it isn't cheese as my brother kept suggesting)-- these were pretty good, light cake but too much cream filling

I didn't grab the other fruits though looked kinda old but there was orange, cantelope, tomatoes and pineapple. As well, there was ice cream (but after watching a little kid kinda play with the scoop... I didn't wanna use it).

There was also another counter of food I never tried, it looked like it had been there for a while, and I'm not about to risk it, I have finals coming up, no time to die from food poisoning =P It was a salad bar (I'm doing this by memory because I forgot to get a picture of it... so I might be missing things, and they change it up sometimes with buffets): seaweed salad, noodles in a kimchi soup thing, potato salad (which my brother told me was screaming food poisoning and trips to the washroom if I got it), creamy macaroni salad, cold shrimps, cold mussels, lettuce (romaine and iceberg), and salad sauces.

I didn't have enough room in me to try everything, but from what the other people at the table said, it seemed ok. The shrimp and mussels I had were really tasteless, and they didn't have any sauce for it (maybe soy sauce or something would've been nice).

Dinner looks like there's hotpot, but I don't think I'll go back for a while..just not my thing.