After a sudden closure, and months of waiting for "Renovations" to be complete at Szechuan City, the grand re-opening occured last week to the pleasure of many. Of course "renovations" in mandarin translates to "under new management" in English. I apologize in advance for the cell phone pics, but my DSLR died a couple weeks ago :(
Upon entering the "new" Szechuan City, you are asked to pay ahead of time before being seated - just like before. On our visit, it did not seem like the new owners/management had their debit system up at the time, so at press time, the only confirmed methods of payment include credit card and cash.
The buffet set up consists of a approximately 5 meter long buffet station, a dessert bar, and a wide variety of drinks which includes pop, coffee, water, and juice which just happens to be in a "Slush Puppie" machine. Normally, something inside a Slush Puppie" machine would indicate it is of the iced variety. Not the case here... also note the labeling of the right canister in the picture below and compare it to the colour of the liquid inside. We buffet goers were slightly confused for a moment and it warranted an image capture.
The service under the new management at Szechuan city is actually very good. I was very impressed with the care the servers put into their work. Plates were cleared promptly and the staff also striked up a conversation with patrons.
Now, onto the most important part.... the food.
As one can see in the previous review of this establishment, it has received a rave review from the buffet blog. Unfortunately, under the new management, Szechuan City will be unable to hold its dominating 4.3/5
The main buffet table contained items such as several chow mein rice and noodle dishes, ginger pork, mussels, beef and green beans, deep friend chicken, squid, snow peas, sweet and sour pork and some others which I did not sample.
Soup selection included hot and sour and won ton soup. The won ton dumplings were fairly decent but unfortunately, the only other ingredient in the mix was broth. I like to see some vegetables in my wonton soup so I thought this could be much improved.
Going back the rice/noodle dishes.. I found them to be bland..In fact... I started to feel Szechuan City doesn't use MSG in these dishes. Well, at least perhaps it was forgotten in the batch I sampled. To be honest, the flavours of most of the dishes seemed a bit off, and perhaps with a little bit of tweaking of the sauces, can be good with the mostly quality ingredients present.
I enjoyed the beef and green beans and other vegetables, such as the bokchoy were decently cooked. The ginger pork, unfortunately seemed too fatty/tough, and I ended up second guessing the legitimacy of the pork labeling.
As for fish, you had a choice of squid, mussels, and another assorted fish type dish. I did not sample the squid or the mussels, but my chime ins did and hopefully will send me their reports soon. I did however, try this assorted spicy fish dish. I forgot it's exact name... but it's best to be avoided. See the picture below for the random ball of grey processed mystery meat and/or fish. It was rubbery, had no taste... yes I tasted it.. but I did not swallow.
Of course, the most important part of a chinese food buffet is the spring rolls. I am happy to report, the spring rolls at Szechuan City are excellent! So good in fact, I ate at least three. According to other reports, sushi was available, unfortunately I cannot confirm this as none was present during my visit; however, I did see what looked like to be ginger and wasabi in the dessert bar area.
Highlights for dessert include fresh fruit, rice krispy squares and soft serve. I hadn't tried the soft serve prior to my most recent visit, but its fairly satisfying after you've stuffed yourself. I washed down said rice krispy squares and soft serve with a great cup of coffee. I had a hard time finding the cream, so if you do end up heading off to Szechuan - the creamers are in the dessert bar.
Overall, I was disappointed to see the food quality - with exception to the spring rolls - head downhill from the establishments previous glory days. The restaurant definitely has the good service going for it which I love to see, but the food needs some adjustments. Perhaps my suspicion of the missing MSG is correct, or just the fact the restaurant is getting over its first startup bumps. I'm happy to speculate and give them the benefit of the doubt, but the bottom line from my experience shows the food needs work.
Price for Dinner: $14.95
3.0/5
3.0/5
Posts
6 comments:
That review was worth the wait. Thanks, Angelo!
Why the hell would you want MSG?
Read your review before my visit today. I think you went before they had all the 'kinks' out.
They had the slush puppy machine with the iced strawberry and blueberry slushies. However, the coffee machine was not working. There was sushi (one type of roll).
Yes, the rice and noodle dishes were quite bland. And their spring rolls were good. We really enjoyed their salt/pepper squid and pork chops. They even had prawns and fried scallop too.
But, Szechuan City has moved back to the top of my hubby's list because they still have the Kleinberg Bars! However, their ice cream was so soft that even my kids wouldn't touch it.
Also, there was MSG in the food. Still thirsty four hours later...
Thanks for letting us know about your visit!
Good to hear the ol' slush puppy machine in back up and running. Also great to see Kleinberg bar are still available!
I had lunch here the other day. Food was good. SERVICE was EXCELLENT. The staff was so friendly. My fav is the eggrolls, crispy and not greasy. mmmm
within about 10 of entering we were the only customers in the restaurant at 7pm, I expected to soon be getting the famous "we want you to leave so we can close" look. But to my surprise I was approached by an employee, possibly the manager, she said we shouldn't feel rushed and there would be fresh items being brought out. the Majority of the vegetable items had been sitting too long and were either dry or overly soft. the deep fried items were all up to standard, as was the won ton soup. The desert/sushi bar left something to be desired. The cube of white looking jello, my girlfriend helped me to identify the flavour as rancid coconut, I chose the red cube of Jello because red is my favourite flavour! I would like to try this location at a busier time when the food is fresher and rotated more frequently. The coca cola was delicious
Post a Comment