£5 Chinese Buffet Dinner at London Chinatown

21 September, 2009

London’s Chinatown is the best place for home-sick Singaporeans craving for chicken rice or any other Chinese food.  However, at £8-10 for a plate of chicken rice, it is quite expensive to eat in some of these Chinatown restaurants.

Chinatown Crispy Duck Restaurant Street

Fret not because while walking around Chinatown, we saw 2 all-you-can-eat buffet Chinese restaurants!  We wanted to try the cheaper £4.95 buffet but it looked like there are quite limited food varieties.  As it was so cheap, there were also very limited quantities due to the huge crowd in the restaurant.

We decided to try the £8.50 buffet at the nearby Kowloon Restaurant because there seemed to be more variety and the food looked good from the outside.  The boss of this restaurant is one clever marketer – by positioning all these food by the window, hungry and curious bypassers will gather at the window to look at what’s on offer at the restaurant.  With this crowd standing by its window gawking at its food, the restaurant looked busy and popular, thus attracting more bypassers – a virtuous cycle for Kowloon Restaurant.


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Chinese Buffet at London Chinatown

Well, we were one of those curious and hungry people gawking at the food and we eventually succumbed to temptation and took up the buffet offer.  The food is so-so in terms of taste and contains lots of carbohydrates – fried prawn, fried chicken, fried vegetables, thick noodles, thin noodles, rice.

Some simple strategies to maximise the value of your buffet meal – eat the more highly prized food (e.g. duck meat, prawns) first, food containing carbo fill up your appetite quicker so they should be KIV-ed.

There are a number of strict rules – you are allowed to dine in the restaurant for only 1.5 hour maximum and you can only use one plate at a time.  The staff is always around to ensure the rules are followed – if not, they will give you a stern lecture.  Also you will be charged if you have excess unconsumed food.  Drinks are charged at exhorbitant rates – understandable business practice of buffet services (similar to what we experienced on the Prague dinner cruise buffet)

While it was stated at the window that the 10% service charge is optional, they have took it onto themselves to include it into the bill, assuming we will pay for their “excellent” service (which we did to avoid the fuss of arguing over 85 pence).

The only good thing about this Kowloon Restaurant is that you will feel very full and satisfying after the buffet meal, especially after a long day of walking and shopping around London.

London Chinatown Kowloon Buffet

Zhiqiang & Tingyi

Comments (13)

  • emeraldReply

    22 September, 2009 at 8:21 am

    Hello ! Your blog is so interesting !!!

  • LeonnyReply

    22 September, 2009 at 10:43 pm

    Hey hey … CONGRATS on being one of the finalists!! 😀 I’ll get to see you in person too then at the Ceremony ya… 😀

    All the best!!
    .-= Leonny´s last blog ..Anya and Vai : Two Years Ago =-.

    • TingyiReply

      22 September, 2009 at 11:56 pm

      Hi Leonny, thanks! Congrats to you as well. I’ve voted for you too! I like the photos you have taken and your kids are very cute. 😉

  • euniceReply

    23 September, 2009 at 12:58 am

    haha now we are contesting in the same category!!! but still… here to comment again. 😀

    when I was in western countries, I really look forward to eating rice! too much about bread can make me sick 😛 Also, instant noodles would become my favourite dish!!

    • TingyiReply

      23 September, 2009 at 8:59 pm

      Hi Eunice, I can understand your craving for Chinese food. Haha…. in fact I was the one who has been craving for Chinese food since day 1 of our Europe travel, my guess is a withdrawal symptom. :p

  • ZhiqiangReply

    23 September, 2009 at 8:06 am

    @emerald – thanks for your comment; your posts especially the one on Taipei 101, is quite interesting too

    @Leonny – yeah.. see you at the ceremony – will be voting for you for Best Parenting Blog

    @travelerfolio – I like Western food e.g. chicken chops, cutlets but too much of it can be quite overwhelming at times 🙂 sometimes we just revert to a quick meal of instant noodles and it could be so satisfying. 🙂

  • Mr WhattaworldReply

    23 September, 2009 at 1:03 pm

    You have a very interesting blog…

    I will read on this until I get the chance to revisit Europe again!! 🙂
    .-= Mr Whattaworld´s last blog ..Swedish Meatballs for Lunch =-.

    • ZhiqiangReply

      23 September, 2009 at 9:10 pm

      Thanks Mr Whattaworld – do vote for me at the Nuffnang Blog Awards for Best Travel Blog too. 🙂

      ZQ

  • bug trackingReply

    24 September, 2009 at 4:51 pm

    The food looks yummy 🙂

  • Movie Soundtracks On CDReply

    26 May, 2010 at 3:14 pm

    I’m happy I found this blog, I couldnt discover any info on this subject matter prior to. I also operate a site and if you want to actually serious in a little little bit of guest writing for me if possible feel free to let me know, i am always look for people to take a look at my website. Please stop by and leave a comment sometime!

  • Ju AnnReply

    31 January, 2011 at 10:50 am

    yums!

  • NishaReply

    12 April, 2011 at 11:10 pm

    I loved reading your blog and its defantly something I will be trying out. I went to Chinatown a few weeks ago for the first time and I loved it,
    Thanks again!

  • oReply

    13 December, 2012 at 6:25 am

    I think your blog is an excellent discovery! Keep on doing this GREAT JOB!!! Regards

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