The food at Asian Buffet Calgary was half-decent for a $9.95 weekday lunch. But my absolutely horrible experience was due to the disgustingly dirty plates! I hope you will enjoy this new entry in my food review series.
How dirty can “clean” plates be at Asian Buffet Calgary?
- I found left-over spots of rice on “clean” plates (like 5 or 6 dirty plates on a stack of 15 or so plates). Now, I wonder if this is a health violation?
- I found left-over bones on “clean” plate. Yes, f**king bones other customers chewed and left on the plate. Again, I wonder if this is another health violation?
- And because I found the plates came out cold from the back. I wonder if the plates were washed in cold water! Now, I wonder if this is a health violation in itself?
You see, we are all humans and I accept sometime mistakes happen. But in this case I actually took the time to tell a staff multiple times (actually THREE times! twice during the meal, one last time when I left) and the plates were still dirty or cold after this staff checked with the person washing the dishes.
A restaurant with horrible cleanliness is totally unacceptable. I went to Asian Buffet Calgary late January 2009 and I have no idea if their cleanliness have been improved at all but I have no desire to go back to this restaurant. For someone who love to eat, it is terribly sad to see the dirty dishes have killed my appetite to ever go back to Asian Buffet Calgary again.
I don’t know if people get sick from eating at Asian Buffet Calgary but I wonder why people would take such risk?
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Tuesday, 10 February, 2009 at 5:53 PM
[...] House Sunday Brunch – A food review After my previous horrible Chinese buffet experience, I was very pleasantly surprised by the nicely prepared food at the Carriage House Sunday Brunch [...]
Thursday, 11 June, 2009 at 10:30 PM
I think the place is just fine. I love going there….I love their food. Nothing is dirty X_X
Friday, 12 June, 2009 at 12:05 AM
May be they learned how to wash the dishes correctly now.
For me, I won’t eat there again as I was truly disgusted by what I saw and the manager’s inability to get the problem corrected when I pointed out the obviously dirty dishes to her. Knowing the problem and then unable to fix it is inexcusable.
Good luck in eating there. For me, I just don’t feel safe eating there.
Thursday, 20 August, 2009 at 7:41 PM
Dear Kempton and readers of the ideas Revolutionary blog,
My name is Sean and I represent Asian Buffet in this response to the above review of Asian Buffet Calgary. Through recent review of online statistics, it has come to our attention that we have had visits to our website (www.asianbuffet328.com) through referrals from this blog. I decided to take a look to see the context in which the referral was made.
I am very sad to hear that you had a bad experience at Asian Buffet. At Asian Buffet we try our best to provide a safe and clean dining environment for our customers. With regards to the cold dishes that you mentioned, I can assure you that all our dishes are washed with industrial grade dish washers. The dish washer uses high pressure hot water jets together with industrial dish detergent to wash off physical waste and grease. The high powered wash is followed by blasting the load with superheated steam to completely sterilize the dishes. In fact, when the dishes come out of the washer, it is often too hot (over 100°C) to handle and is thus cooled before being taken out to the buffet table. Usually the plates are taken out to be used after 5 minutes of passive cooling, however when it gets busy it may sit idle for much longer. This is probably why you saw the cold plates coming out from the back.
With regards to the rice and bone that you saw on “clean” plates, I am deeply sorry and saddened to know that such a problem occurred. It is not often that we get complaints of dirty “clean” dishes – I personally have never heard such a complaint. However, in light of this knowledge please believe me when I say that our employees will be informed and will be encouraged to be extra cautious when washing the dishes.
Sorry for posting such a long comment and I hope you’ve had the patience to read through it. Again we apologize for your bad experience at our restaurant and are saddened to lost your patronage. We hope that you may give us another chance. However, if that is not possible, then we simply thank you for your blog post as it has brought a potentially serious problem to our attention.
Thanks,
Sean
Thursday, 20 August, 2009 at 8:49 PM
Hi Sean
Thanks for leaving a comment for Asian Buffet Calgary. While I don’t dare to compare my food review with the Hong Kong based food critic Chua Lam 蔡瀾’s food review , I do share one thing with him. I don’t enjoy writing negative reviews.
Even long established eatery like the one in Fairmont Palliser had its bad day, so I do believe in second chances. And I sincerely hope Asian Buffet Calgary has improved the cleanliness of the dishes and the responsiveness of your staff (and manager).
There is one thing I tell all restauranteurs/entrepreneurs when I meet them. Try your best to talk to and pay attentions to customers, listen to your customers. It is not just the job of the mangers (or senior staffs) to make sure everything is tidy and food are nicely presented. Train all your employees to be alert and be able to do fix things and the right things for customers.
Good luck,
Kempton