Review of Great Wall Buffet – Pickering
Clean Mom does NOT like buffets… but the rest of us do so, with coupon in hand (for a free adult buffet dinner), we ventured to the Great Wall Buffet in Pickering.
Here’s what we discovered PLUS some interesting facts about Chinese food that you may not have known!
Details: Great Wall Buffet ,1099 Kingston Road, Pickering ON (just West of Liverpool), 905-839-8833, www.greatwallbuffet.ca.
Ambience: This restaurant location has been through so many hands… I still remember when it used to be The Olive Garden (mmm…garlic bread…). The Great Wall Buffet appears to match the prototypical Chinese buffet. We were seated in a booth but unfortunately had some rowdy young kids and teens sitting in two booths next to us… not that fun. The most interesting difference I noticed between Great Wall and Mandarin (where we usually go) was that the servers were NOT smiling… at Manadrin, they always are!
Entrance
One of the buffet tables
Kids Stuff: Not expected or necessary given the buffet nature of the restaurant. Washroom was a bit small but serviceable. Overall state of the restaurant was clean.
Kids Food: Here’s where the restaurant fell down. The rice was dry which was unusual. (How do you mess up rice? By leaving it out in the heat lamp too long!) Book Boy and Ballet Girl didn’t even like the Jello! Not a good sign for a family dinner destination.
Coolest Thing About Restaurant: 2 for 1 coupon sourced from the junk mailers you get in your mailbox. Saved a bit of dough.
Worst Thing About Restaurant: You get what you pay for; poor quality food and grumpy wait staff. And kids 6 years old and older are $8.99… ouch!
Tips to Consider: If you must go, just make sure you bring a coupon.
Three Things You Might Not Know About Chinese Food:
1) Why is MSG (monosodium glutamate) used in some Chinese recipies? “Umami”, popularly referred to as savoriness, has been proposed as one of the basic tastes sensed by the human tongue (along with sweet, sour, salty and bitter). Eating food seasoned with MSG stimulates the tongue’s “umami” receptors, enhancing the “savory” flavor of food. Some people experience dizziness and headaches when eating MSG, although the US FDA considers MSG as a generally safe ingredient.
2) In most dishes in Chinese cuisine, food is prepared in bite-sized pieces, ready for direct picking up and eating. In traditional Chinese cultures, chopsticks are used at the table. Traditional Chinese cuisine is also based on opposites, whereby hot balances cold, pickled balances fresh and spicy balances mild. (from Wikipedia)
3) If you need to learn how to use chopsticks, here is the best video tutorial we could find. For your kids, here’s what you need to buy! Very cool!
Dinosticks!
Overall Experience: I wish I could say better things about this restaurant … but I can’t. Total price for our family (tax and tip included) was $40, even with the coupon! Unfortunately, we will not be returning.
For an alternative Chinese Buffet in the Durham Region, check out our review of the Imperial Buffet in Ajax.
Rating: 2.0 stars out of 5
Other Posts That Might Interest You:
- Review of Pickering Markets – Pickering
- Review of Imperial Buffet – Ajax
- Review of Massey’s Restaurant – Pickering
Tags: Restaurants, Review, Videos
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Thanks for the report Incredible Dad! Saved me a trip!
Our family definitely prefers Mandarin!!
My husband and I had dinner at GWB tonight. Thanks for the coupon, our disappointment was lessen. Not much selections; you get what you pay for. Imperial Buffet is much better. For Japanese food, Sushi Mountain is definitely way better.
Food was ok. Mandarin is better.
Hi Rome and James,
Totally agree. Thanks for your comments and let me know if you find any other good places to eat around town!
ID
the food isnt great i’ll admit, but Mandarin and Imperial arent much better. All these buffets are the same. Low quality food!
Your better off getting take out from a real chinese food resturant
“And kids 6 years old and older are $8.99… ouch!” …..give me a break
Hmmm… Thanks for your comments Mike!
I have to say I like Mandarin better… maybe just the brand name affecting my judgement. Haven’t tried Imperial yet though… I know there are coupons floating around.
Let me know if you find any other good restaurants!
i try the GWB today is good food all the chinese buffet are the same i try the Imperial one time the food is very low quality and suck.
O ! YA every one now Great Wall Buffet have one year buffet coupons
they only $24.99 each you can use any time buy one get one free in one year they lunch price only $10.99 if two person go there taht mean each person only paid $5.50 on lunch where you go i just buy the coupon is very good dail
I just got a coupon for Imperial Buffet and hope to try it within the next couple of weeks. I’ll let you know how it was (IMHO) via a review. Thanks for your comment!
My family and I booked a reservation with the Great Wall Buffet in early December to guarantee a seat for December 25, 2010. We were a party of 4, but made sure to ask that it was okay to use 2 coupons for our meal, the manager said yes so we went on Christmas day. On our arrival the initial feel of the restaurant is a cold, dark, desolate seating area with 4 small buffet tables. There were marijuana leave designs on the window blinds, a disgusting amount of dust on everything, especially the ceilings and ducts, as well as disgusting washrooms that were flooded. After we got seated we told the seemingly disgruntled waitress that we had 2 coupons to use to cut our bill by approximately 40$. She told us that even though the coupon says “Any day including holidays” That you in fact could not use it on Christmas. We could not understand her reasoning so we requested to speak with the manager. The manager spoke terrible English and spent five minutes making excuses as to why we could not use the coupon. After spending much time trying to decipher her terrible use of our language we came to the conclusion that there was no real reason she could not accept the coupon, she was just making excuses for herself. What most upset me was she said we can not use the coupon because they are serving turkey today. I decided to try this turkey and turns out there was nothing left but bones when I got up there. After being there for 2 hours from the starting of dinner the turkey was not refilled and I was unable to even try a single piece of turkey which is a shame, considering it was the only supposed reason we could not use our coupons. The food tasted cheap and seemed to fill you up faster than it would at a more luxurious eatery such as the Mandarin. The crab legs were impossible to open and were just a complete waste. The silverware was cheap and mangled, the plates were chipped and cracked, and the food was scarce. It was easy to tell that the remaining food had been sitting out for many hours or even days before we ate it because it was very dry and not fresh. The service was absolutely abysmal. We waited 25 minutes to ask for our bill, but the waitresses never came so I had to physically stand up and go find one to ask for our bill, meanwhile I saw multiple servers text messaging in the back at this time. In total our bill was 93$ even though we felt like we ate a total of 20$ of food. The manager tried to make us feel unintelligent and wrong, we would have left if it wasn’t for being Christmas day and everything being closed. I would rate this restaurant a 1/5, either they need to rehire every single person and change all their food, or reduce the cost from $19.99 per adult to $4.99.
I am one of the employee in this restaurant. Honestly, most of the food is overnight, the quality is not good as you see. besides, the service is really bad. oh, i don’t wanna talk it. sucks!
I watched this restaurant go up and often went for lunch with co-workers. No complaints in the past. BUT NOW…under new management and the SERVICE I received from the HOST WAS ATROCIOUS!!! Very poor quality and extremely rude.
I wanted take out and has some questions. When I asked to clarify the size of the rice bowl she rudely answered me by saying, “I TOLD YOU …it is blah blah blah”. I pointed it out to her and she became defensive. I felt like I was bugging her and wasting her valuable time.
The customer behind me told me that she began justifying her tone to him while I was gone.
To make matters worse – She gave me incorrect change. (Basically short changed me a twoonie) When she came back with my steamed rice from the kitchen I advised that she short changed me and her words were, “I don’t think so – I never make mistakes” Wow!
I was made to feel like I was trying to rip them off of two dollars and a liar. The other customer came to my defense.
This hostess who never makes mistakes sure did last night. Very disappointed with the “Great” Wall. I will not be back.
http://www.chow.com/restaurants/900322/great-wall-buffet
We have been to the Great Wall many times and always enjoy ourselves
Thank you Keith Bentley
We always go there with coupon in hand..or a coupon from any other buffet (which they readily accept) and enjoy ourselves. The food is yummy. I would definitely recommend this place.