2515 El Camino Real, Carlsbad, CA 92008, (760)729-3888

My uncle from Norway came to visit us this month and it seems like my relatives always want to go eat at buffets. I’m not too fond of buffets myself, but I go because my family pays for it (free food why not?). Grand Buffet is mostly a chinese buffet, but they also offer other items like american food, sushi, and a Mongolian grill. At a price of $12.95 which seems normal for a buffet during dinner time.

I started off with my rendition of a sushi plate. The rice was was bland and I think they didn’t even flavor the sushi rice with rice wine. I ended up just picking the fish off the top and leaving the rice behind. The fish was not melting in my mouth and tasted off. I had to pretty much drench the sashimi pieces with soy sauce and wasabi to hide the taste of the fish. Next I decided to move on to the crab, so I could forget about the bad tasting sushi. The crab was deep fried and wasn’t anything spectacular either. There was barely any meat and I tasted oil most of the time (bleh!).

Moving on to my finger foods plate, which was a definite plus to the poor seafood I had earlier. I got creative and decide to arrange my food in a circle. The bbq chicken on the skewer was very well marinated and tender, It would have been good with a bowl of rice. On to the main course! My Chinese food plate was mediocre. I felt like I was eating food from a fast food Chinese restaurant… you know the one’s that load up on the msg and oil.

I didn’t try their Mongolian bbq because I was already full. Even though I was full, I just had to have dessert. I loaded my plate with every single selection of pastries they had. The cakes were really dry and hard and you really couldn’t tell them apart in terms of flavor. The one that did stand out was the coffee flavored cake, but that was dry as well. The best thing was the apple pie tart. I must say it was delicious! Had I not been full I would have gotten myself some ice cream to go along with the apple pie tart.

Taste: 4/10