Popular buffet lives up to all expectations
9:30am Tuesday 16th August 2011 in Eating Out
I HAVE a confession to make: I broke a cardinal sin on Sunday.
But I did at least go to church. Well, a church of sorts.
The sin: I had a Chinese instead of a Sunday roast.
The church: The Chinese Buffet.
It was my first time. I had no idea what an institution TCB was — it is a veritable temple of indulgence — and I was welcomed with open arms.
Hidden away in Bridge Street, the modest ground-floor entrance belies the large canteen-style dining room upstairs.
Pew upon pew of happy worshippers gorging themselves on unlimited Chinese food at the £10 Sunday buffet.
It is good food too — no better or worse than you might get from your local takeaway — but it is the sheer scale on which it is prepared that amazes me. There’s room for at least 200 diners, and the place was packed.
It does exactly what it says on the tin — this is a Chinese buffet.
Or, as its website boasts, THE Chinese buffet.
It’s help yourself, with several selfservice stations offering starters (vegetable spring rolls, samosas, crispy duck pancakes), soups, a salad bar, a range of Chinese and Cantonese dishes, rice and noodles, and kids’ heaven, the dessert station.
There is, too, a curious addition — the teppanyaki grill, which has its origins more in Japanese cooking.
Here, your chef will prepare your meat of choice in front of you.
Before that, I had excellent spring rolls, crispy seaweed and duck pancakes, prawn toast and a bowl of thick chicken and sweetcorn soup.
If you are not careful here, you can easily be full before you have finished starters, but I bravely carried on.
Next up, char sui Cantonese style, with egg fried rice, which again, was good.
The dessert station offers everything from the Mr Whippystyle DIY ice-cream machine to chocolate fondue with marshmallows.
For me, it is awful, but I suspect it is every child’s favourite part of the meal.
TCB is ridiculously family friendly.
There were dozens of youngsters running round the place, but they weren’t annoying.
Children only really act up in restaurants when they’re not catered for.
I had a pancake, which, like the chicken, is cooked in front of you, over at the teppanyaki grill.
Very nice it was too, with lemon and sugar.
Food critics hold a lot of power. A good review can spell success, a bad one and it’s damned.
But The Chinese Buffet has a loyal flock who come here every week, religiously.
Between the Bolton restaurant and its sister venture in Wigan, they serve 5,000 customers a week.
That’s one hell of a congregation.
This is one place that doesn’t need my blessing.
