I’m not afraid to move out of my comfort zone – I may not always like it, but sometimes taking that step either reaffirms your convictions or changes them.
Bizarrely, it’s the same reason I regularly try fresh tomatoes. I don’t like them. It’s a texture thing – give me tinned, grilled, dried, sunblush, no problem. Fresh will have me pulling a face like a two year old sucking a lemon.
But I’ll still try them again occasionally just to check, and now I know I don’t mind a cherry tomato or two, which is more than I’d eat even 5 years ago. Progress.
So when my arm was twisted, just a little, to visit Red Hot World Buffet, despite my initial misgivings, I decided to give it a go.
The idea is simple, head in (or preferably book in advance, this place gets very busy), get taken to your table. Drinks are ordered at your table, food, well food you head into the buffet and go for it. Whatever your preference, Italian, Indian, Chinese, or heck, get a plate of desserts and pig out, it’s all on offer. And with prices running from £8:49 (lunch Monday to Friday) to £14.99 (dinner Friday/Saturday nights) it’s not difficult to see why it’s so popular.
Keeley and I headed by on a Tuesday evening, after work (and after the gym for me, got to earn my calories) for a leisurely dinner. Greeted and seated swiftly, we ordered our drinks and then took it in turns to visit the buffet.
It’s huge. The choice is incredible – as well as your standard buffet style offerings, pizza and crab claws, spare ribs and pasta there are also additional stations, where you can select items to be cooked to your own specifications.
This means that my noodles were cooked to order, not overdone and sitting in a warming dish for a long period of time.
Another positive for me is the labelling – gluten and dairy items are labelled clearly, a definite plus for those allergy sufferers.
And as for kids? It’s a wonderland. Of course, they immediately want to hit the dessert options and the chocolate fountain – and we saw one or two frazzled parents trying to convince their five year old that they should have something savoury to eat first, before the ice cream.
With the choices on offer, there’s something to suit every fussy eater, don’t like vegetables? No problem. Hate fish? No problem there either.
Bringing in a bunch of 15 teenagers all with different likes and dislikes and huge appetites? Yep, sorted there too.
So the verdict? It’s still not for me. I’m not a fan of this sort of bulk buffet, I worry that the quality of food will suffer. And in some cases it felt like it did.
The creme brulee was really good, but the vegetarian pasta barely tasted of anything. The Margarita cocktail was bitter, but the red wine was a good one. The almond financiers had been out long enough to make them stale, but the passion fruit cheesecake was fresh and tasty.
Whilst I can see the positives, I think I’ll give it a little while before I head in for another ‘try’.
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