Royal China's Latest Offer

One of the good things about tough economic times is that there's fierce competition for your shrunken dollar. This is probably why Royal China at D-Junction, Penampang, is offering a crazy all-you-can-eat dinner menu for RM19.90/US$6 before 10% tax per person. This all-you-can-eat offer is not the regular ready-cooked buffet spread. You are to choose 8 items from the 100-item menu, freshly cooked to your order, and as long as you can finish the food on the plate, you can keep ordering from the menu. Any leftovers will be charged RM/US$3 per 100gm but of course you know unless you leave half a duck uneaten, they will not offend you by carrying out that threat. Between the 6 of us last Wed, we had about 23 items from the menu!


Hot & sour soup and seaweed fishball soup--5/10. We also had sharks' fins soup (5.5/10) and Hub said the fish maw soup (not in pic) was the best (I didn't try it). Btw, restaurants hardly use real sharks' fins anymore, so the flavor is not there. So don't think it's a steal getting buffet sharks' fins.


Roasted pork belly 8.5/10, pork hock & jellyfish 7/10.


Honey chicken wings 6/10 and roasted duck 8/10.


Mussels fritters 7/10 and crispy salad prawns 7.5/10. Prawns were crunchy but small.


Black beans clams 4/10 and rice wine clams 6/10 (we had 2 orders because both Ming and I love clams), mainly because the wine was good but you could tell that the clams were frozen because they were tough and bland.


The best dishes of the night, soy sauce prawns (medium-big, fresh, el dente and delicious) 8.5/10 and Thai-style steamed tilapia 8/10.


Beancurd with brinjals 7/10 and ostrich with ginger and spring onions 5/10. Sometimes I think restaurants use beef, tenderized until they are totally flavorless, and pass them off as ostrich...


Kailan in two ways 8/10 and romaine with fermented beancurd sauce 7/10. I like my veg and these were pretty good.


Sichuan-style noodles 7/10 (order noodles and rice last because you don't want to stuff yourself too early on) and deep-fried lotus root 4/10.

I really, really don't know. I'm not a buffet person and Royal China knows that most buffet-shunners are picky eaters who want their food specially cooked for them. They have come up with this brilliant idea of an a la carte buffet at a price you can't complain. However, I think it's human (or only me) to tire of anything that's too abundant or easily available (yes, relationships included, boys and girls). Somehow I think I'd enjoy the food more if there wasn't so much choice. I just don't think this is how I want to eat.I was too into ordering (or maximizing the offer, the greed and glutton in me) the next round of 8 dishes (we ordered 3 rounds) and I must apologize to my guests Mei and her kids for getting too caught up with the orders and taking of the photos.

I can safely speak for all of us that we won't be eating there again, like that, anytime soon or not so soon. But I must tell you that if you want to pig out (I was so full I couldn't sleep that night!) for that silly price (with tea and tax, the bill was RM172/US$54 for 6! It works out to RM28.70 per person, up from the RM19.90, but still, for buffets, it's pretty cheap), you'd better go soon (book first, the place was packed, including the car park) before Royal China realises they are doing charity buffets.