The beginning and the end were good, but not the middle
Written: Jul 04 '09 (Updated Jul 05 '09)
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Product Rating:
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Pros: Salad, desserts, the zesty rice
Cons: Inadequate labeling, few entree choices, can get crowded at dinner
The Bottom Line: Go for the salads and desserts, but be ready to tolerate mediocre entrees.
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| dolphinboy's Full Review: Old Country Buffet |
Preface: I will try to cover all aspects of my experiences here, but restaurant reviews are not my forte. Let me know if you have questions, and I will gladly update, if I know the answer.
I do not know if all of the sites are like this, but the Old Country Buffet on Telegraph Road in Pontiac, Michigan, has a big parking lot, but not enough handicapped parking near the entrance. There are curbs, but there is a ramp carve-out, that is rendered partially useless because of the uneven concrete right at the end nearest the restaurant doors. The restrooms are wheelchair-accessible.
As the name suggests, this is a buffet-style restaurant. When you enter, you pay a per-person price, with different prices for lunch and dinner, and for adults and children. Once you are in, you find a table, and began raiding the food area, bringing your food and beverages back to your table.
The decor is quite plain and utilitarian. They do keep the eating area quite clean, which must be a chore, given the buffet nature of the restaurant, and the fact that many families eat there, with small children often running around and/or spilling things.
In the food area, there are separate sections, divided by food-type. In the Pontiac site, there is a Mexican section, to make nachos and tacos. There is a salad area that includes some fresh fruit. There is a section with steam tables for hot side dishes. There is an entrée section containing meats, cooked vegetables, and more hot side dishes. There was also a soup table. And, there is a section where you can get desserts and/or beverages.
I think the fairest way to rate the food is by section, as there were marked differences by food-type. For beverages, we had regular coffee, decaffeinated coffee, and a soft drink. All were ordinary, and the all-you-want idea was nice.
We did not visit the Mexican food area. The salad section, for the three of us, was clearly the star of the show. There was fresh spinach, romaine lettuce, mixed greens, and a more standard style lettuce mixed with a bit of red cabbage. The potential toppings were numerous; I added julienne carrots, chopped radishes, raisins, diced up hard-boiled eggs, and a few slices of beats. Other choices included olives, pineapple chunks, peach chunks, prunes, mushrooms, green pepper, sunflower seeds, small pieces of cauliflower or broccoli, shredded cheese (cheddar or Swiss), green onions, onions, and others I cannot recall at the moment. For dressings, the options included: French, ranch, creamy Italian, oil-and-vinegar, bleu cheese, and Caesar. Everything in the salad section was fresh and very tasty.
Only one of us tried the soup, and the verdict was that the bean soup was only fair. There were three other choices. For starches, we sampled a few. The mashed potatoes were very ordinary but adequate. The potato dumplings were large and had a chicken gravy with peas, mushrooms, diced carrots, and bits of chicken meat in it. The problem was that there was not enough gravy, leaving the dumplings a bit bland and a bit dry. The rice was the star here, with tiny bits of avocado and a hint of Mexican spices giving it a nice flavor. We did not try the cheesy potatoes, the cornbread stuffing, or the macaroni and cheese.
For hot vegetables, the choices included: sauerkraut, cooked carrots, and cooked cabbage. We did not try the carrots. The sauerkraut was fine, and the cabbage was very well-cooked and unseasoned.
And now we get to the hole in the doughnut, the Achilles heel of this restaurant: for the carnivores amongst us, there is no feast here, although it is not a famine either. The smoked sausage was quite smoky and tasty -- and probably high in sodium. The “hand-breaded fried chicken” was fresh and there was a good selection of pieces, but the breading was on the bland side. The Salisbury steak was bland and hard to identify. The fried fish was mild and seemed fresh, but was nothing special. The baked whitefish was fresh but very dry, needing to be either smothered in tartar sauce or doused with lemon juice. We did not try the tiny broiled shrimp in pasta, or the crab cakes, housed amongst the starches and not the entrees. We went at about 12:30 PM on a Friday and there no other choices. Per their commercials and the signs inside the restaurant, they do theme nights, for dinner-time, with a rotation according to the day of the week.
The visit did not end on a sour note, though, as we raided the dessert area rather gluttonously. The lemon meringue pie was fresh (the meringue was not gummy) and delicious. The chocolate chip cookie pie looked nice but was on the dry side. The banana pudding, topped with vanilla wafers, was good, with numerous slices of fresh banana -- it was not turning dark at all. There was a warm dark chocolate thing in a pan, to be sliced or broken up, with a fudge sauce on top. They had a soft-serve machine with several flavors. My favorite, though, was the bread pudding, with raisins in it and a vanilla sauce on top, served warm. It could have used more sauce, but a dash of half-and-half, meant for the coffee or tea, solved that problem nicely.
While Old Country Buffet is a self-serve restaurant, there are still service aspects. The greeting at the entrance was friendly, and there was a quick but polite a informative explanation of the price options. As I use a wheelchair, and my parents are both elderly, we were offered assistance getting our food. We declined this, but did ask if we could have a tray. While letting customers use trays is not usually done, they graciously granted our request. When plates were finished, roaming staff quickly asked if they could take them, and did so.
One more grumble. With all the varieties of food available and spread out, in steam-table across a fairly large area of the restaurant, labels are needed. They were there -- sometimes. Each island had a glass sneeze-shield, and the labels were mounted on the edges. There was good labeling for the salad area, but not so for the meats, hot sides, starches, and desserts. There were some labels, and my guess is that they were for commonly-available items; there were labels for the fried chicken and mashed potatoes, but not for the crab cakes or the potato dumplings. The staff were quite willing to identify things, but they were generally out in the eating area, doing the clean-up work, and not as frequently in the food section.
Carry-out option: Unlike most buffets, you can do a to-go option, but you must either eat in or do a carry-out entirely. For carry-outs, the prices are:
$3.99 for soup-and-salad, lunch or dinner
$1.99 for sides, each
Buffet to go: $5.99 for lunch or $7.99 for dinner
For dining in, the prices in Pontiac are: $8.19 for adults at lunchtime and $12.09 for adults at dinner. For kids, there is an interesting approach. At lunch, children are charged $0.55 per year of age, and it is $0.60 per year for dinner. Gift certificates are available, and they have a senior card program, wherein senior citizens (over age 60) can buy a card for $1.00 and then get discounts ($0.50 off) on each visit. Those who have a senior card are also entered into weekly drawings to win a free meal.
Old Country Buffet has a very informative website, that includes menu information, nutritional information, a location-search, and information about the company that owns Old Country Buffet, Hometown Buffet, and Country Buffet. The website is, simply:
http://www.buffet.com/
Recommended:
Yes
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Epinions.com ID:
dolphinboy
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Member: Chris McCallister
Location: The Great Lakes of Michigan
Reviews written: 521
Trusted by: 214 members
About Me:
I am a psychologist, new author, and a reviewer on several sites.
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