Monday, September 17, 2012

Walker's Arms

I remember as a kid getting so excited about getting to go to Charlie's all you can eat diner.  Not because I ate a lot (although I may or may not have absolutely filled myself to the brim) but because the idea of being able to pick from all these different foods, and go around a couple of big long tables and pick the food that was bad for me then eat two bowls of swirly ice-cream was just aaaaah-mazing.

Please don't take this as a reflection on my parents parenting.  They didn't let me eat anything that I wanted… buuuuut at the same time we were usually there for big family do's and I was with other kids and it was hard for them to control my servings.  

As a kid I guess I didn't have a wide "pallet".  All the high fat food made in absolute bulk tasted wicked good to me and I was quite happy shovelling it in.  I didn't look around at it all and think, hmmm, I would rather have spent that money on a really nice meal - oh how times change! 

Walker's Arms is a place we frequent with friends for drinks.  I'm sure most of you have heard about the award winning beer garden and the imperial pints they serve (as well as the tasty schnitzel … I think it was tasty, those imperial pints get to you quick!) …but you MUST have heard of the buffet. 

I had been mentioning it to Paul for awhile that I wanted to go there because I still have the eat all the food memories as a kid and just imagined it would be this delicious, quality buffet where I could stuff myself full more than when I was a child because who was going to stop me, and I was grown therefore could fit more in.  His sister's boyfriend went and said it was pretty good and end of discussion. 

We made the reservation (FYI you have to make a reservation for the buffet) and the next night we were on our way!  We drove around a bit to find a park and then we headed in the wrong way.  There's a particular "buffet" side of the building and we ignored the signs that said to go through that way and instead we around the "beer garden" side.  Follow the signs people, it will save you some hassle.  There are two booking times for the Buffet, being 5.30 and 7.30.  We opted for 7.30 and were casually herded into the eating area once the 5.30 lot were truly done. 

The animalistic feelings didn't stop there.  I mean the crowd wasn't aggressively trying to get to the food or anything, but there was a growing impatient line of people all wanting to eat from troughs.. I mean... from plates.  Over flowing with dirty food.



 (taking sneaky pictures of the buffet - scuse the dodgy shots!)



I'm not making it sound great, but that's not my intention I swear!  It wasn't dirty food, but it was like food court food, and I don't always feel entirely satisfied/clean/healthy after a food court meal.

The variety of food was awesome.  Pizza, all your standard asian, a couple of curries, roast and veggies, lots of prawns and a huge salad bar.  But you don't need that variety to make the trip worth while.  


my first and second plates - chicken nuggets, spring roll, honey chicken, fried rice, dim sim, potato bake, calamari, veggies, pizza, bread and prawn cracker!


Paul's first and second plates - veggies, bread, pizza, potato bake, fried rice, dim sims, honey chicken, calamari.... we have similar tastes!

What did it for me was the dessert bar.  Chocolate cheesecake, lemon slice, mini sticky date puddings, apple crumble, fruit, fresh cinnamon donuts and of course, self serve ice-cream.  It was off the chain.  After my first plate of food I inspected the dessert bar and only had a tiiiiiny second plate because there was no way I was going to be too full for dessert. 


If you rate date night on a scale of 1 - 10 on how badly you need to unbutton your pants/ unzip your dress at the end of the night, it was a successful date night! 


Walkers Arms on Urbanspoon

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