Fishtail Buffet and Restaurant

After my spill in the last post about how buffets are good but I'd rather pay good money for one good meal rather than choosing from a whole bunch of different meals…  Guess what we did.

It was completely unintentional, well, not completely.  But we didn't realise that buffet was our only option and by the time we realised it was too late!  It was one of those nights where we walk around O'Connell Street and try to decide where we feel like eating.  Of all the glorious places on O'Connell Street we found our way to the Chinese buffet.  Don't judge!  

The place has recently been renovated or taken over or something of the like and were having their "grand opening".  Shame they did it on a finals weekend when Crows had a home game!  Out the front there was a board that had what I had assumed was the menu.  I assumed correctly but in the wrong way.  It listed all the meal options (without prices next to them) and had a buffet price.  The way it was set out made me think that we could have the buffet or one of the things listed.  Incorrect.  

It was a weird buffet, I would call it a westernised Chinese buffet with some Indian dishes too.  Because that's exactly what it was.  There was a bar marked "entree" which held your soups, salt and pepper squid, spring rolls and of course fries!  Soggy, saltless fries.   The bar marked "mains" held the classics to the likes of honey chicken, lemon chicken, some beef dish that I always see on menus but now cannot remember the name of, fried rice, butter chicken, lamb korma - the usuals!

 I wasn't actually as excited as I look...

To be honest, while the place looked amazing, the food was not anything to call home about.  It was overpriced for what I could stomach (although if you're a biiiiiiig eater then you'd probably get your money's worth!) and I left feeling full and a little sick.  The food didn't sit great with Paul either.  

Overall, I would go back to the Walker's Arms buffet before I went back to Fishtail because Walker's Arms is cheaper and… well the food (in my opinion) is better!

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! 

House of the Red Dragon

I knew from when I first made the booking we would like this place. The lady that answered the phone and took my booking was so happy and enthusiastic, it was amazing. When she said “great we’ll see you then”, it felt like she genuinely meant it. And that’s what’s missing from customer service these days.

Personally, customer service in restaurants is bloody important, nearly as much as the food. If I have a shitty waitress/waiter that act as if they had a million places they’d rather be (which they probably do), the only part I’m going to enjoy about them is the bitching that comes after they leave the table. A dining experience is so important; it makes me remember the place so much more. If I feel like the waitress/waiter just hates everything, I get the inkling they’ll spit in my food.

So they lady that took my call was cracking jokes after about 10 seconds and later in the day we made our way there. It’s a cool looking place. Like a cheap palace made in the 70s, I liked it. The lady that greeted us (I wish I could remember her name) was the same that took my call and we were in “her section” (yessss). The menu was fair huge and so we asked for recommendations. She said, as she pointed to one page of the menu, is the cheaper cuts of meat so it wasn’t the most delish. Good thing I asked because that page was exactly where I was looking. We got her two recommendations and some entrées. I think we were also eavesdropping on the couple table next to us because they were talking about weird things. Date night win.

I honestly can’t remember what we got. I remember it was damn good and not too pricey considering how much food we ordered. Successful date night.

Maple House

We'd first noticed it when we had date night at Outback Jacks. I had high hopes just from the name Maple House… it sounded delicious. 

It wasn't particularly busy when we went on a Friday night, especially compared to Outback Jacks across the way, but I liked the quiet, it was more "datey". I love a good fried rice, so that's one my obvious, no questions asked, we're definitely getting that choices. Really, I can't go past a good sweet and sour dish either. And Paul can't go past anything that has "ribs" in it. 

Prices were reasonable so we got two entrees to share, fried dim sims and spring rolls. I'm not used to having "real" dim sims, more the frozen/deep fried salty ones you get at chicken and chip shops. So when these big round things came out I was like… that's not a dim sim (obviously it was). It tasted a lot better than other dim sims. The real stuff always is right?

Paul got what I believe was pork ribs in plum sauce (whatever it was, it was bloody delicious) and I had sweet and sour pork. Hello amazing. I was so glad that when it came out it wasn't that red super artificial sauce. It looked and tasted amazing. It looked and tasted really fresh. And the fried rice was awesome too, not overly oily and didn't make me feel like I was eating something terrible for me (even though I really knew I was).

Unfortunately now, Maple House has closed down… however it has been replaced with Top Tai, which we've been to which will feature in a later date night entry ;)

house of chow

I came here on my 16th birthday with a group of girl friends (no parents! it was so exciting and grown up of us) and all I can remember was it being freaking delicious and having leftovers for breakfast. 

I also remember it was a bit pricey. House of Chow was a special date night. So we treated ourselves to a 3 course meal (no dessert - but a couple of entrees and our mains laff)

For an entree we shared either dim sims or spring rolls ($11 each, you get 3 per serve), and chicken and corn soup I believe ($7.50), being one of Paul's favourites :)

I think the meat mains range from $20-$30, i can't remember exactly what we got that night but it was a good and proper date night. we got to sit near one of the giant fish tanks which I quite enjoyed.

To be honest - the waiters/waitresses wear nice uniforms, they have good service, the place is decked out nicely, but at the end of the day it was chinese. their fried rice was pretty bloody good, but besides that it was just a pricey chinese restaurant to me.

that's just me though - they're doing something right because the place is always filled with people :)