Is this the most BADLY WRITTEN restaurant review EVER?
If you live in the Blackpool area and are looking for somewhere to
eat out this weekend, you may have looked in The Evening Gazette's
lifestyle section, where this week you can read what I believe to be
the worst restaurant review ever for 'Mr Basrai's World Buffet'. I
don't mean the review is bad in the sense that it is scathing of the
restaurant – just that it reads like it was written by a 9 year
old, and not a particularly bright one at that. Read on and see if
you agree…
RESTAURANT REVIEW: Mr Basrai’s - a place you can taste the difference
Taste the difference? Between what?
Are you sure your daughter didn’t write this article? It reads very much like a child’s homework.
So the choice of venue fell to her, and to my surprise it didn’t include pizza!
Except it DID include pizza, as you go on to say.
Mr Basrai’s World Cuisine buffet restaurant suited my daughter’s inability to choose anything from a set menu, and has been well received by all my social media friends since it opened last December.
We don’t want to hear about your daughter’s lack of decision making ability or that your friends whom we do not know have been Instagramming photographs of a few soggy spring rolls at Mr Basrai’s – we just want to hear about the restaurant!
We arrived on an all-but too familiar wet Sunday afternoon in June, which may have explained why the restaurant was almost empty other than two or three occupied tables.
We don’t want to hear about the weather either! Tell us about the restaurant!
You are literally guided on a culinary world tour as you walk around the self-service area, from Chinese, Japanese and Thai, to Indian, Italian, Mexican and for the less adventurous, British, American and European meals.
You were literally guided on a culinary world tour? Did a Sherpa accompany you and your family as you travelled around the countries of the world sampling the local cuisine as you went? That would be astounding value for £13.99!
Between us we tried, chicken korma, shish kebab, pizza, Chinese mushrooms, sushi, chicken in kung pao sauce, steak, egg fried rice, boiled rice, chips, garlic bread, salad, the list seemed never ending.
You said there was no pizza! And “the list seemed never ending”, yet you went on to make a list? Actually I’m being unfair; as I read that list I did at several points wonder if it would ever end.
Once you’ve eaten all you can, it is only then you realise there is a wonderful dessert area.
You can’t have been paying much attention if, while you carefully surveyed all the aisles of bain-maries with the purpose of writing a review for the local newspaper, you failed to notice the brightly coloured wall of desserts that is right next to everything else.
I have never seen so much cheesecake, crème brûlée or ice cream in one place.
You said “or”, rather than “and” so we are to take it that you are speaking about all these foods in isolation, in which case I seriously doubt your ability to write a professional restaurant review. Nearly all ice-cream parlours would have much more ice-cream than Mr Basrai’s has on display. And they have about two plates of cheesecake – there’s more than that in the cabinet at Cleveleys Kitchen.
However, I saw the staff checking the dishes very regularly, and from previous experiences the quality here was very high with only the odd dish slightly below par.
This is your only comment on the quality of the main courses in the entire article
Sadly, our visit ended on a slightly sour note thanks to the curt member of staff who could barely crack a smile or acknowledge me during payment, which was in stark contrast to the staff who had served us during the meal.
Despite this, Mr Basrai’s is well worth a visit and I’m sure the family and I will visit again.
That’s more like the Mr Basrai’s I’ve experienced.
In fairness, my opinion of Mr Basrai’s is that it is one of the better buffet restaurants in the area, with some strengths but also some glaring weaknesses.
The Chinese food is probably the best, with the usual selection of starters and some good main dishes. One or two are downright disappointing, however. The sweet and sour tastes like ketchup. The noodle bar is great, but a trip there will fill you up so don't go mad if you want to try a bit of everything else.
Over on the Indian side there are also some good things – the chicken tikka is nice, as are some of the other starters, but the mains aren't great. The masala sauce again tastes a bit like ketchup. Overall the Indian dishes don't taste too authentic.
As for everything else – the 'British' food is basically some dried up Yorkshire puddings and the ingredients to assemble a messy roast dinner. It doesn't look appetising enough for me to try so I can't comment on taste.
The 'Mexican' selection is basically some nachos. They probably aren't even Doritos.
The desserts are not quite as amazing as The Gazette reviewer suggests, but they are good, if a little unusual. It's rather like being in a Turkish hotel, with lots of tiny little cake pieces and mini desserts, some of which are nice, others that are not so great. There's a nice looking selection of ice-cream right next to a big sloppy apple crumble.
Snobs won't want to eat here, but that could be said of any buffet restaurant. The customer base at these places is important, as you don't want to see a bunch of dullards prodding at the food with their grubby fingers while their awful offspring sneeze all over it before you go and make your selection. Despite its town centre location, on the occasions I have been the place hasn't been too bad. Everything seems clean and the Food Standard's Agency rating of 4 is as good as I ever seen a buffet receive.
I would say to anyone who knows what to expect at a buffet to give it a try – but don't put your food on Instagram. Nobody wants to see a pile of chicken wings and chips with a bit of black bean sauce smeared across the edge of the plate from your last trip to the food mountain.
As for The Gazette review - what an embarrassment! A professional newspaper would have a professional restaurant critic, or at least an experienced journalist with more than one functioning tastebud who could pass as one, and they would have sent them to the restaurant on the opening night. Instead they have just published the inane ramblings of someone with no writing ability who just happened to chance upon the restaurant whilst out with their family.
Be sure to follow Cleveleys News and taste the real difference.
RESTAURANT REVIEW: Mr Basrai’s - a place you can taste the difference
Taste the difference? Between what?
My daughter has reached that age where a meal is now a birthday
must, along with the ever increasing list of gifts and of course, a
party.
Are you sure your daughter didn’t write this article? It reads very much like a child’s homework.
So the choice of venue fell to her, and to my surprise it didn’t include pizza!
Except it DID include pizza, as you go on to say.
Mr Basrai’s World Cuisine buffet restaurant suited my daughter’s inability to choose anything from a set menu, and has been well received by all my social media friends since it opened last December.
We don’t want to hear about your daughter’s lack of decision making ability or that your friends whom we do not know have been Instagramming photographs of a few soggy spring rolls at Mr Basrai’s – we just want to hear about the restaurant!
We arrived on an all-but too familiar wet Sunday afternoon in June, which may have explained why the restaurant was almost empty other than two or three occupied tables.
We don’t want to hear about the weather either! Tell us about the restaurant!
You are literally guided on a culinary world tour as you walk around the self-service area, from Chinese, Japanese and Thai, to Indian, Italian, Mexican and for the less adventurous, British, American and European meals.
You were literally guided on a culinary world tour? Did a Sherpa accompany you and your family as you travelled around the countries of the world sampling the local cuisine as you went? That would be astounding value for £13.99!
Between us we tried, chicken korma, shish kebab, pizza, Chinese mushrooms, sushi, chicken in kung pao sauce, steak, egg fried rice, boiled rice, chips, garlic bread, salad, the list seemed never ending.
You said there was no pizza! And “the list seemed never ending”, yet you went on to make a list? Actually I’m being unfair; as I read that list I did at several points wonder if it would ever end.
Once you’ve eaten all you can, it is only then you realise there is a wonderful dessert area.
You can’t have been paying much attention if, while you carefully surveyed all the aisles of bain-maries with the purpose of writing a review for the local newspaper, you failed to notice the brightly coloured wall of desserts that is right next to everything else.
I have never seen so much cheesecake, crème brûlée or ice cream in one place.
You said “or”, rather than “and” so we are to take it that you are speaking about all these foods in isolation, in which case I seriously doubt your ability to write a professional restaurant review. Nearly all ice-cream parlours would have much more ice-cream than Mr Basrai’s has on display. And they have about two plates of cheesecake – there’s more than that in the cabinet at Cleveleys Kitchen.
However, I saw the staff checking the dishes very regularly, and from previous experiences the quality here was very high with only the odd dish slightly below par.
This is your only comment on the quality of the main courses in the entire article
Sadly, our visit ended on a slightly sour note thanks to the curt member of staff who could barely crack a smile or acknowledge me during payment, which was in stark contrast to the staff who had served us during the meal.
Despite this, Mr Basrai’s is well worth a visit and I’m sure the family and I will visit again.
That’s more like the Mr Basrai’s I’ve experienced.
In fairness, my opinion of Mr Basrai’s is that it is one of the better buffet restaurants in the area, with some strengths but also some glaring weaknesses.
The Chinese food is probably the best, with the usual selection of starters and some good main dishes. One or two are downright disappointing, however. The sweet and sour tastes like ketchup. The noodle bar is great, but a trip there will fill you up so don't go mad if you want to try a bit of everything else.
Over on the Indian side there are also some good things – the chicken tikka is nice, as are some of the other starters, but the mains aren't great. The masala sauce again tastes a bit like ketchup. Overall the Indian dishes don't taste too authentic.
As for everything else – the 'British' food is basically some dried up Yorkshire puddings and the ingredients to assemble a messy roast dinner. It doesn't look appetising enough for me to try so I can't comment on taste.
The 'Mexican' selection is basically some nachos. They probably aren't even Doritos.
The desserts are not quite as amazing as The Gazette reviewer suggests, but they are good, if a little unusual. It's rather like being in a Turkish hotel, with lots of tiny little cake pieces and mini desserts, some of which are nice, others that are not so great. There's a nice looking selection of ice-cream right next to a big sloppy apple crumble.
Snobs won't want to eat here, but that could be said of any buffet restaurant. The customer base at these places is important, as you don't want to see a bunch of dullards prodding at the food with their grubby fingers while their awful offspring sneeze all over it before you go and make your selection. Despite its town centre location, on the occasions I have been the place hasn't been too bad. Everything seems clean and the Food Standard's Agency rating of 4 is as good as I ever seen a buffet receive.
I would say to anyone who knows what to expect at a buffet to give it a try – but don't put your food on Instagram. Nobody wants to see a pile of chicken wings and chips with a bit of black bean sauce smeared across the edge of the plate from your last trip to the food mountain.
As for The Gazette review - what an embarrassment! A professional newspaper would have a professional restaurant critic, or at least an experienced journalist with more than one functioning tastebud who could pass as one, and they would have sent them to the restaurant on the opening night. Instead they have just published the inane ramblings of someone with no writing ability who just happened to chance upon the restaurant whilst out with their family.
Be sure to follow Cleveleys News and taste the real difference.
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