But really... I have this rule about never eating anything or at a place whose name I cannot even pronounce. And I should have stuck to that rule. In fact, if it were not because of a pregnant friend who got a really serious craving for dimsum, and specifically dimsum from Tsim Sha Tsui (and who was already 'wet-dreaming' about it days before our date), and a husband who was very curious about their conveyor belt all-you-can-eat buffet, I wouldn't have gone there.
The pregnant friend
Their buffet costs 390-something pesos, without the drinks, and I knew it was too expensive. One order of steamed fried rice (normally PhP35) and one order of spring rolls or quail egg siomai (normally PhP35) are already enough and filling for me. And that would have cost me less than PhP100. I knew that thinking up of something else to get that's worth the remaining PhP300 was going to be very hard.
This conveyor belt made Harbor City fare worth more than 3x as much.
If you notice, the conveyor belt had big spaces where there's no food.
Anyway, we did give it a try. And I have to say it's better for you to actually not go for the all-you-can-eat buffet unless you have a super elastic tummy capable of expanding into five times its original size. Go take a regular table instead of sitting around the belt. That way you wouldn't regret paying 400 bucks or more per head for something you can get for only around 200.
Overpriced food that's not even worth the doggie bag.
The food wasn't great, sorry. My husband says it's a glorified Harbor City, or Dimsum Break. In fact, I like Harbor City more. The entire three hours we were there, we were actually hoping something worth the expensive bill would come out of the conveyor belt. But it didn't come. Sad to say, there were only around five or six different kinds of food that rolled out. Okay, I am being mean... Five or six is way too few, but it should give you a picture of what to expect. The worst part? They rolled out only two kinds of dessert! One was the usual sesame seeds-covered botchi (does anybody actually still eat that?) and the other was that gelatinous cake (supposedly in ube and in almond, but they didn't taste like what their colors said). We saw the dessert cart pass by -- with all the yummy-looking stuff, like egg tarts and mango float -- and asked the waiter whether there's chance any of those desserts would come out of the buffet belt soon. But he said you have to pay for those separately. OHHKAY.
At least, they tried to impress us with the interiors.
So I guess by the first paragraph of this review you can already tell we don't give it two thumbs up. No sense wasting any more space here, really. We would just like to warn you that the conveyor belt is a bait! So don't be deceived.
Tsim Sha Tsui, by the way, is located at the second level of Ayala Terraces, along the lines of Hukad and Mooon.
This post was written by F.
Nice :) Never was a fan, too. The interiors were of cebu designer Philip Rodriguez.
ReplyDeleteHi Glamarazzi:
ReplyDeleteI have friends who swear by the ala carte food, not only was it affordable it was value for money. But the hakao is bad, even by harbor city standards. Philip Rodriguez, I have to look him up. At first I thought they copied the interiors from the HK original.
Hmn, Philip Rodriguez is a fashion designer, right? The resident designer at Pierre Angeli in Ramos? He does interiors, too?
ReplyDelete-- This is the F in A+F, by the way (so as not to confuse you). The comment above was by A. :)