Munchie Adventure: Point Zero Four Fusion 零點串吧, Richmond

Ok. I saw the ad in the newspaper, and was lured in by the cheap lunch price. $7.99/ person for AYCE hot pot lunch? Nothing should sound like such a good deal-- unless it's not. Which I found out AFTER I sat down =( We were SO SCAMMED. I really don't think tricking people into your store is a good idea. Usually keeps them from coming back.

Restaurant: Point Zero Four Fusion 零點串吧
Location: 8500 Alexandra Road, Richmond
Cuisine: Chinese, Hot Pot, AYCE
Price range: <$10 per person




Date of visit: December 17, 2012
Atmosphere: 3/5
Staff/service: 2/5
Food variety: 2/5
Food quality: 2/5
Buck worthy? 1/5

Ok, the server who brought us to our table was nice and all, but he wasn't very helpful. He disappeared after leading us to our table, then suddenly appeared, started talking before he had our attention, and so I had to ask him to repeat himself. He asked about soup bases, I got the free (clear soup). Glad I did. Didn't want to pay for any more than I should have.

I had no clue that it was a buffet style (you grab your food from a table, then go back to cook it), so when I asked him if there were order sheets, he just pointed to the table of food. They're good. SO GOOD. (Do you sense my sarcasm?) They put the fullest tray nearest the tables, so I thought there was lots of food. Besides the only full one (beef slices), the rest were at around 20-50% fullness. Mainly the squid (if not for my surgery, I would've liked it) and stuff people don't prefer were fuller. The drinks were free! LOL

Anyways, the pork was really good, but even though we grabbed the last bits of it, there were only 7 pieces to split between 3 people =( SPAM was no good either, so mushy! I liked the imitation crab though, one of the better things available. Then there was chicken. Chicken was uh... chicken, nothing special about it. I could make it at home.

The veggies were fresh looking though, not amazing, but edible. I boiled everything for extra long, to kill the potential bacteria that might kill me xD

There were also other foods, but nothing else worth mentioning... Oh! The sauces were good. They had the typical hot pot sauces and you get to mix your own. That was good.

I don't know why I put myself through that, but I did. I survived. But I just wish the owner could've warned us that they wouldn't restock and let us decide whether or not we want to stay. My mom went to interrogate him before we found out "Oh, yesterday was unexpectedly busy, so we ran out of food, and stock hasn't arrived yet". Yeah riiiight. Never coming back. Don't lie to someone and expect them to trust you again. The washroom was pretty scary too. It was half lit and dark. SKETCHY. I'm pretty amazed we made it out alive.

Munchie Adventure: Super Buffet, Bellingham, WA

Need to get meat and milk from the states (cuz it's said to be hormone free, and milk is cheaper there), so we decided to try out this restaurant, since it was nearby! (Also had a 10% off coupon, so lunch was under $10 per person!!)

Restaurant: Super Buffet (visit their site here)
Location: 4151 Meridian Street, Bellingham, WA
Cuisine: Chinese, Korean, Japanese, Canadian
Price range: $8.99+tax per person for lunch (there's a 10% off coupon you can print online!)
Date of visit: July 9, 2012

Atmosphere: 3/5
Staff/service: 2.5/5
Food variety: 4/5
Food quality: 2.5/5
Buck worthy? 3/5

I guess we arrived a bit early for lunch, so the restaurant was rather empty, which scared us a bit, but we sat down anyways, why not give it a try, won't hurt, right? Worst that could've happened is we get food poisoning...but I wasn't about to be so negative =P

First round was supposed to be dessert, cuz that's how I roll! But ended up as sushi first, since I saw the desserts weren't too appetizing. From this plate, lets start at the mushrooms, which are at about the 1 o'clock position. These weren't bad, juicy but a bit overcooked. Next was a bit of imitation crab salad, and it was quite literally imitation crab and mayo, so nothing much to say about that...Then I guess a California roll? There were a bunch that seemed like California rolls, and most of them were ok. Pretty good for buffet sushi IMO. The nigiri on top of the salmon was the well disguised Ika! I normally don't like ika, but this wasn't too bad, at least it looked good? Taste wasn't bad either. I really liked how they made the masago half the normal size, then I could try more!^^ Also had a gyoza, not bad, but it was cold :(

Also grabbed a wonton soup on the first round, they were decent pork wontons, the skin was smooth, but a bit soggy too, probably been in the soup for too long! There was a bunch of other soup too, and congee, and dim sum in the same area, but my plate was full, so maybe a second round!

Onto the main course, there was a good selection of Asian dishes, and I noticed a grill area too, but there was no one manning it, and I doubt they let us do it ourselves so I never got a chance to try it. Looked fancy though! Anyways, back to the second round! I found that most of the dishes were oily, which is kinda standard for buffets like these, so nothing out of the blue. The meats were a bit dry, except for the ribs, which were pretty good. There were a few veggie dishes, and I liked that, at least I could *try* to be a little healthier! The clams were really good, and I was surprised! I also had this seafood toast, which was so sickening-- because it was mayo and shrimp and oil and bun... I can't stand too much oil xD

I decided to just share stuff with my brother, since I probably wouldn't be able to try everything if I didn't. We got shiu mai (pork dumpling), which wasn't too shabby, and mozzarella sticks that got cold and were hard, but still crispy! I think the cream puff was the only dessert we tried, and it was rather random, but buffets are meant to be random! =D

My parents somehow got stuff that I couldn't find, like steamed fish (probably was so good everyone got to it before this slowpoke haha!) and tai sushi. I don't like tai personally, but my mom does, and she said it was fresh. The crayfish was fresh too, and my mom liked it, said it wasn't too salty, too bad it was a cold dish. Jello wasn't as chewy as I liked it, but I doubt anyone can really mess up jello-- except for King Buffet, who had jello which tasted like nothing.

With just enough room to try one last thing, I decided to get the soft-serve ice cream! Sadly, this ended up badly. We were probably the first people to use the machine that day, and so, the beginning was all watery and sprayed everywhere. My brother was, of course, wearing white. PERFECT. Eventually we got a good cup, and it was more ice than cream. Taste was ok, but didn't like the experience of getting it.

My dad is obviously more adventurous than me, he dared to try the cakes, which were exactly as I thought: terrible. It was rock hard and too buttery. Taste wasn't that good either. My dear daddy didn't want to waste food, so he had to choke it down. Coconut bunches were way too sweet--at least the oranges were good?

While I was already filled up before everyone else, I just sat there and watched them eat. When suddenly, the waitress plops our receipt down on our table. I was kind of surprised, since we obviously haven't been there for an hour yet, nor were some of the people done eating! What kind of service is that?? Sure, the restaurant was starting to fill up, but doesn't mean you should start kicking people out!? The first waiter was really nice, just this one girl got on my nerves when she doubted the authenticity of our coupon, which we got from the newspaper, and is IDENTICAL to the one found online. We were tempted to just sit there and talk despite getting the bill slapped onto our table, but alas, we were on a tight schedule, and had to go shopping, so we paid and left.

Might go back there, but I'm definitely looking for other places to stop and eat at while shopping in Bellingham! One of the memorable things was the note I got from the fortune cookie: "Blessed are the children, for they shall inherit the national debt"-- how is that good in any sense?? Haha, American sense of humor? =P

Munchie Adventure: Ruby Chinese Restaurant 紅寶石大酒家, Port Coquitlam

This visit wasn't particularly a special visit to try something new, since I've known this place ever since it opened, and the restaurant before it too. The owners are very friendly and the atmosphere is very homey. Don't be intimidated by her loud voice, she's actually very friendly but just... loud :) They're trying to improve the looks of the restaurant (and I've been helping a bit) and it's starting to look better. There have been reviews that make this place seem really negative, but really, they actually do a really good job of keeping their food clean and fresh. I've always had a problem with restaurants using old oil (oil that's been used to fry stuff for a very long time), but I know they change their oil very frequently, so their fried goods are... good :D

Restaurant: Ruby Chinese Restaurant
Location: 2228 McAllister Ave, Port Coquitlam
Cuisine: Chinese
Price range: $3-$12 (depending how much you eat/what time)
Date of visit: March 30, 2012

Atmosphere: 4.5/5
Staff/Service: 4/5
Food variety: 3.75/5
Food quality: 3.75/5
Buck worthy? 4.25/5

This particular visit was to help them decorate their place, so it wasn't during lunch. It seems like I was bribed to write good things about them, but I do try to be unbiased and truthful-- you can only lie to people once because they'll find out the truth for themselves after that one time. Dinner was on them, and the owner surprised us with the dishes. We had gone there for dinner before (about a year ago), and I'd have to say, it's undergone good changes.

There was still the buffet portion, which they always change and keep fresh, with over 20 items to select from, and the owners are very good at meeting the customer's needs-- if you want something that you know was on the buffet menu, you can ask them to make it (something that a lot of buffets don't do). The buffet is $10.99, and is only open Friday to Sunday. But watch out, they might decide to close it early if there aren't a lot of customers on a particular night (they closed it around 7:30pm when I was there decorating).

Ok, back to my meal :) I'm not sure of the pricing though, since I see the menu, but I remember from last time most of the dishes were around $15 (usually less).

This was the first dish that came, a sizzling plate, and it really was sizzling! I think it was the beef with veggies (there was beef, onions, and green peppers) in black bean sauce. I found it a bit salty for my taste, but the flavoring was well-balanced, and if you had rice with it (I wanted to save some stomach room for the rest of the food), I'm sure it would've been perfect.

 Then came the fried shrimp in spicy salt (also an item that can be found on the buffet menu). Very fresh, and the shrimp were a good size (so the ratio of shrimp peeling to eating shrimp was good)-- as I mentioned before, I love their fried foods ^^.

 Next came another sizzling thing-- a hot pot. This is probably the seafood with tofu hotpot, and had tofu, scallops, squid, fish, shrimps, green peppers, snow peas, celery, and onions. This was delish! A bit oily, but I like how the sauce wasn't too thick and the combination of items was good, since I like dishes that include a lot of variety in it :)

Then there was honey pork chops. As you can see, they were popular, I couldn't manage a picture before everyone grabbed a piece! I really liked this dish personally because it was freshly fried (so it was still crunchy) and there wasn't an overload of honey/malt soaking the pieces on the bottom of the plate. As well, it wasn't a fat cut of meat, everything was tender and lean. It was a large plate too, so we had to pack away some of the food at the end of the meal.

Here's one of the ribbons we put
on for decorating the drapes  :) 

I don't have any pictures of their lunch, but dim sum is $2.50 and there are lunch specials for $4.90 or lunch combos (which are very popular) for $4.95 (two items) to $7.95 (three items). Their dim sum isn't extraordinary, but you get the quality you expect for the price you paid. (unlike some restaurants where I paid like $6 for the same thing I get here, which I find is rather unreasonable and evil >=[)

As well, they are very flexible with menu items, you can feel free to ask them to change it up (like I always ask for pork with flat rice noodles, which isn't on the menu, but they'll still make it) for no extra charge. They don't charge for tea and there's also a special on wonton noodles in soup for $2.95, which we get every time because it's cheap :D Hopefully I'll remember to take some pics next time I go and put them here so there's a feel of how their dim sum is ^^

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.