While we were in Bellingham, my family was deciding between going to Applebee's or Old Country Buffet for dinner. We chose the latter and I'm glad we did. Old Country Buffet was surprisingly much better than it used to be a few years ago!
They were advertising their "Shrimp 5 Ways" and that made me want to try it out even more. :P
The price for dinner is $10.49 for anyone over 13 years old, I believe. If you want unlimited drinks (pop, juice, coffee, milk, tea..etc), you have to pay an extra $1.99 per person. Maybe they implemented this recently but I don't recall having to pay extra for drinks a few years back. I personally would not get the unlimited drinks again because their selection isn't THAT great anyways and water is usually sufficient for me. But for $1.99, it's not that big of a deal :P
As you can see from the exceptionally poor lighting in this picture, I have awkward photography skills but here is a rough idea of what the interior looks like.
My whole family started off with soup and I was happy to see the classic Chicken Noodle Soup, Creamy Tomato Basil, and Vegetable Stew.
The Chicken Noodle Soup was too salty, but I didn't mind it too much. It had good chunks of chicken, noodles, and assorted veggies. It tastes like canned soup though.
The Creamy Tomato Basil soup was pretty good. It was not overly creamy and had a decent amount of fresh tomato in it.
Kirma really liked the Vegetable Stew She said it had ample amount of vegetables in it and she even got seconds!
Their salad bar looks pretty decent. The salad greens, pasta salads, and fruit were pretty fresh and frequently replenished.
Here is the spinach salad I created to start off the dinner. On the plate (farthest side) is a Strawberry Walnut Salad so I took a bit of it. It had walnuts, salad greens, strawberries, and mandarin oranges.
Here is Kirbro's salad creation. He said he forgot how heavy the salad dressing was for the Cesar Salad so it made him really full.
Here is Kirpa's salad creation. He basically just took a bit of everything from the pre-made salad bar (ex. coleslaw, potato salad, fruit salad...etc).
I was surprised to see a Make-Your-Own-Taco section so I used my creative skills and made myself a nice taco. Hehe. I would have preferred a soft tortilla opposed to the crispy shell but i couldn't find it in the station. I feel like they should have had both options.. so maybe I missed it?
By the way, they have... MELLO YELLO! Is it just me, or have you guys also not seen Mello Yello around in ages?! The last time I remember drinking this was at least 10 years ago O.O..
Since Kirbro is a growing teenage boy, he got himself the (as I call it) "Man Platter". Cheese pizza, fried chicken, fried fish, chicken nuggets, and chicken wings...what more can he ask for?
Here is my random platter of stuff. From top left in a clockwise direction, there is spaghetti with meat sauce (meh, wouldn't get it again), chicken and dumplings (not bad, but wish the dumplings were smaller so it's not just a huge ball of carbs), roast beef (wayyyy too tough!), enchiladas (very cheesy and good), a chicken nugget (great crunch on the outside).
I felt so awkward taking these pictures because I felt everyone staring at me going "why is this girl taking pictures of the food... it's just a buffet O.O"
I happened to sneak in one more picture without people looking. :P Cause I'm ninja like that.
Here comes the "Shrimp 5 Ways"! So starting from the left in a clockwise direction, that is the Shrimp Scampi, the Popcorn Shrimp, the Coconut Shrimp, The Butterfly Shrimp, and the Buffalo Shrimp.
The Buffalo Shrimp (left) was very crunchy and had a good kick to it. The batter was too thick however, and I opened it to reveal a minuscule shrimp inside. Weirdly enough, I didn't mind that the shrimp was so small. The Butterfly Shrimp was by far the best of the 5 shrimp variations. The batter was sinfully crunchy and the shrimp were on average larger than any other variation. The tail was so crunchy that I ate that too :D
The Shrimp Scampi (top) was pretty bland. The pasta was overcooked as well and was drenched in way too much oil. The Coconut Shrimp (center) was okay. Not the best coconut shrimp I've ever had but not the worst either. The Popcorn Shrimp (right) pretty much just tastes like the Buffalo Shrimp without the spicy kick.
The front item is some cheesy potato bacon mixture. It was pretty good! SUPER unhealthy though.
The Dirty Rice (left) tasted really interesting and I liked it a lot. The only downside was the overload of salt. The Macaroni and Cheese (front) was very creamy and cheesy. It didn't taste grainy or powdery so it's a thumbs up for me.
This was all the dessert I could handle after eating so much. The honeydew and cantaloupe were sweet and fresh. The banana in strawberry syrup was also pretty good as well.
Based on their affordable price and decent quality of food (some items were ok, but some were delicious!), I would come back again for lunch or dinner in the future.
Happy Eating!
Ooo I just came to Old Country Buffet last week(my first time) and was told it's a lot better now too! I also really liked the selection here, mainly because it's everything that I would choose to eat lol We enjoyed it so much that we're heading down again next week :)
ReplyDeleteOoh I'd love to see your post on that when you do visit it again! Definitely get the butterfly shrimp! It's delish!
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