Szechuan City Buffet

Tried to have buffet lunch there today. I went in at 11:30, restaurant opens at 11 and sign says All Day Buffet. No such luck, there was no food at, nothing. The food trays were empty and clean, no food.
Also no one at door I stood there for a while no one came, walked around for help, no one. There were some Chinese people eating at a table, don’t know if they were staff or customers, they ignored me.
I left.
One star for terrible service and no food in the buffet.

So its just OK. Not bad. Not great. There is a better place just down the road in Little China town. This place is dated and could use a good cleaning. Small selection of items. I’d probably pass having been to other restaurants close by.

I like Szechuan City Buffet, and it’s a been a favourite family destination — among four generations — for years. The staff are very all very welcoming, attentive, friendly, and courteous. The food is hot and plentiful, with a good selection of vegetable, meat, fish, spicy, and sweet dishes, and plenty of soft drinks.
It’s not fine dining, but is perfect for a relaxed, informal outing in a family-​friendly atmosphere with a modest cost.
My favourites are the Wonton soup, spicy fish, and the green beans. Lots of green vegetable dishes, and I always load up on veggies.

Visited Sat Aug 2 for dinner party of 4. We walked in around 8pm and the kitchen was closing soon, the server asked us to look at the available items and tell them which ones we wanted and they would make a refill for those items. There were only 2 other tables in the restaurant so the place was basically dead. We were hungry so we ended up staying. If we knew the city better we would have gone somewhere else.
There are about 20 –25 items in the AYCE buffet, the food was not good at all. Some of the items looked like they had been sitting there for several hours and were getting dried out. Some of the freshly made items were barely edible. There was a decent selection of deep-​fried items like spring rolls, shrimp balls etc. Soft drinks were included. For ice cream there was only vanilla and chocolate. Only fresh fruit available was pineapple from a can. I have more fresh fruit available at home! The servers were very friendly and spoke cantonese and reminded me of my mom haha.
Damage $ 18/​person. I hope I don’t get an upset stomach. I would not come back here again.

Ate there today and it was horrible. The best part of the meal was the rice Krispy treat at the end. The food in the buffet was cold and/​or soggy.

Gone downhill with new ownership alas. Some food is still decent but a shadow of its former self.

18 months ago this was the best restaurant in town for Chinese food. Then a year ago it changed ownership. I finally tried it again a month ago, and it is really fallen. The deep-​fried items tasted like stale rancid cooking oil, the rice had no flavourings, and the prices were a fair bit higher than they used to be.
Being one of the few buffets in the area, I can certainly live with the food but if given a choice I would go elsewhere.