Mount Everest Cafe

1 Reviews on “Mount Everest Cafe”

• Passepartout-Too-Too

  Should buffet restaurants be judged by a different standard than other eateries? It’s not easy to keep the food quality high when everything sits out for long periods of time on a steam table, but the economics of preparing large amounts of that food are not greatly different than the economics of keeping all the needed ingredients to hand in the kitchen. So, while some allowance must be made for the buffet serving style, it’s not really so different. We ought to be able to expect a certain quality at a buffet just as we would at the diner down the street or the pub across the parking lot.This place doesn’t really cut it. From dal to kheer, the food rarely reaches the level of mediocre. The tandoori chicken is made from the cheapest poultry commercially available, and rather than the dry red meat provided at most Indian restaurants, the dish served up here is more akin to buffalo wings, but without the spice. Plain white rice is on the table, along with pullao rice, but neither is very interesting. The saag swims in a vaguely buttery sauce, crying out for a few chunks of paneer, or something to enliven the blandness of the unadorned vegetable. Vegetalbe curry is chunks of potatoes and hints that the person before you got the last of the good part of the dish. The kheer is as thin as the dal, and to call each one’s flavour subtle would be an act of charity. All in all, of the dozen or so foods offered — about half as many as any other Indian buffet I’ve ever been to — only the naan lived up to expectations. The ambience of the place (at lunch on a weekday) had a kind of forlorn quality to it, as though perhaps they were trying to save on the electric bill by removing light bulbs. The tables were topped with sheets of paper cut too large, so be careful where you set down your water glass. The service was adequate and the price was about what you would expect if there were twice as many things to sample on the buffet. THE CURMUDGEONS RATINGS (explained, more or less, on the Curmudgeon-About-Town blog):FOOD: 2 chili peppers (out of 5)SERVICE: 3 chili peppersAMBIENCE: 2 chili peppersVALUE: 2 chili peppers

  March 28, 2019, 2:46 am

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