It’s been years since I’ve been to a traditional buffet, where there are food stations to select to your heart’s content. As a child, we’d visit them for large family dinners - our parents were glad there were enough options to satisfy picky tastes and we could leave the table to walk around without them being judged. Somehow, we stopped going as my cousins and I became better behaved and our parents’ appetites shrunk.
Hence
when Spoonful invited me out to try their buffet and my eyes swept across all
the food, a pang of nostalgia ran through me. The layout feels familiar - the buffet
area in the middle with various rooms of seating surrounding it – but the
amount of choices were remarkable, figuring out where to start can be a
challenge!
There’s
of course an array of salads, but I steer clear of these at all costs. There’s
no way I’m filling up on salad, even if there is an area that you can customize
with Japanese cold noodles, edamame, and more. Soups are kept in domed heated
pots that give an intergalactic feel to the restaurant - I was a tad
disappointed that there wasn’t my go-to hot and sour soup, but there was
lobster bisque, Chinese bone broth, mock shark fin, and wonton.
Beside
all this was a sushi bar that had SO many maki, sushi, and sashimi choices. As
pretty as they are to look at, sushi is never good at buffets… sitting on ice
causes the rice to get hard and dry. A piece of dynamite roll confirmed my
suspicions. But boy, do they look tempting.
With the
plethora of seafood options, my first plate was dedicated to crustaceans and
fish. A lady stands guard overly freshly shucked oysters, cold sea snails and
chilled crab legs, ensuring items like the raw oysters are kept sanitary. From
the hot section, the baked garlic scallops in shell were tiny but delicious.
I
had all this before realizing there was another seafood tower on the other side
of the room, filled with mussels, snail, octopus tendrils, and cocktail shrimp! The restaurant is a place for seafood lovers, offering even more choice on
weeknights when there’s also crawfish and baked oysters (on Wednesday), and stir-fried
BC crab (on Thursday).
From the
Brazilian churrasco grill, the steak was surprisingly good, a perfect medium
rare when taken from the middle. I only wish they left off the sweet teriyaki
sauce to preserve more of the beef flavour. Generally, most of the meat items I
had were delicious: the roasted duck well marinated and the skin of the roasted
pork giving off a lovely crispy crunch.
While
Spoonful offers a variety of stir fried noodles and rice (smartly kept in domed
heated plates to resist getting dry), I went for the made-to-order pad Thai –
the same station offers an array of freshly made Italian pasta dishes as well.
I was happy to see the pad Thai sauce was brown instead of the bright pink meaning it's made with ketchup. It tasted pretty authentic, but less sauce could be
used as the tamarind was overpowering and it could be stir-fried longer to give
it more wok hay. If you like heat,
you’ll also want to opt for the “very spicy” pad Thai sauce, I could barely
taste any chili with the “spicy” one.
Spoonful
invests in specialized equipment to keep things heated as optimally as
possible. Like the domed heating plates used for the noodles, deep fried items
are kept as a single layer in hot boxes and there are flat top warming
grills for items like taquitos.
I barely
made a dent into trying everything. Just to name a few more items they also
offer lobster mac ‘n’ cheese, a variety of savoury tarts, beef ribs, the
traditional choy suey buffet items (spring rolls, fried chicken wings, etc.)… *deep
breath* … grilled teriyaki items, duck rolls, grilled pineapple … it
goes on and on! Surprisingly, the thing I missed most were hot stir-fried
vegetables. The stir-fried green beans were ignored and dry, so I stuck with
the plain broccoli and Shanghai bok choy.
For
those with a sweet tooth, Spoonful has TWO huge dessert stations containing a
variety of cakes, tarts, cookies, Jello, and custards. There’s of course a
waffle station and a soft serve ice cream machine that’s great for topping the
waffles.
As if
this weren’t enough, they also have a cascading chocolate fountain with
marshmallows, fruits, and bubble waffles for dipping. A rotating ice cream
station is also a cool feature and since there’s someone there to scoop it for
you, I didn’t have to worry about sticky hands getting into it or the ice cream
becoming too soft as the freezer lid is left open.
By the
entrance are candy pod stations with a variety of chewy candies - just looking at
them made my teeth hurt! Needless to
say, Spoonful dominates in the dessert category - any sweet lover would be in
heaven.
The
coolest feature has got to be the doughnut machine where you can see the automated
spout pipe the batter into the hot oil and the doughnuts conveyor through until
the end. Talk about nostalgia, the station reminded me of Tiny Tom doughnuts
from the CNE.
I’ll
admit, the doughnuts smell better than they taste as they’re oily. Perhaps it’s
my fault, I had to get the freshly fried ones that just dropped off the
conveyor belt. Maybe if I took them from the basket and gave them a chance to
drain it would be drier. Nonetheless, adding some red bean ice cream to it and
forming a doughnut ice cream sandwich made the oiliness less noticeable.
For all
the options, their prices are very reasonable: for adults, lunches are $17.99
and $23.99 and dinners are $27.99 and $33.99 for Monday to Friday and weekends
and holidays, respectively. They also offer a host of specials to seniors (60
years + of age), birthdays (50% for the individual on the day of their birthday
or 10% for the whole table during the
month), and if you promote them on social media (10% off after posting on
Wechat, Facebook, or Instagram).
As an affordable
buffet, Spoonful is one of the better ones I’ve been to. If only we visited the
restaurant as a child … it’s like a magical AYCE Willy Wonka world.
Disclaimer: The above meal was complimentary. Rest assured, as noted in my mission statement, I will always provide an honest opinion.
How To Find Them
Location: Brampton, Canada
Address: 499 Main Street South
Address: 499 Main Street South
Website: http://ispoonful.com/
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____________________________
Gastro World's Grading System
- Anything under 5 - I really disliked and will never go back
- 6 - decent restaurant but I likely won't return
- 7 - decent restaurant and I will likely return
- 8 - great restaurant that I'd be happy to recommend
- 9 - fantastic restaurant that I would love to visit regularly and highly recommend
- 10 - absolute perfection!
Is That It? I Want More!
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