Dragon Pearl Buffet

It was my uncle's birthday on the weekend and he wanted a buffet, so we came and tried Dragon Pearl. I've been hearing a lot of people mentioning about it recently too, so I was a bit curious in trying it. But of course, considering its a buffet, you never expect to have amazing food when its mass produced.

I thought this was cute. The huge "dragon pearl" (I would say dragon ball :P)

Too bad you cant take the whole ball but only pieces of it. I never tried it though.

I must say there was quite a variety of food to choose from. I briefly took some snapshots of what I ate that night.

Their sushi was alright. Nothing amazing of course, but not horrible to cause a stomach ache.

The white colored sashimi on the right is 'abalone tuna' sashimi. They only served salmon and tuna sashimi though. Others were either sushi or rolls. Their spicy salmon roll wasn't even spicy.

The middle is a slice of prime rib. It was alright, not great enough for me to finish it though. The squid ring was actually pretty good, not the crappy ones that you would still be chewing 10 mins later. The small green onion pancake on the side was good, but nothing special. Incase you were wondering, yes, the yellow thing stuck in a stick is a bbq-ed pineapple. Random, yes I know. The pineapple was actually really sweet. 

Of course there was a lot more variety food-wise, but I just didn't take a picture of it. There was peking duck! But of course the skin wasn't crispy, but still acceptable.

If you go on weekends, they give each customer one free HALF lobster. (there is 2 here lol)

Tasted like..lobster? Don't know how else I could describe it. You add garlic or butter yourself.

Near the entrance there is a station where they make "hand pulled noodles" at the spot. My dad claimed it being really good and chewy. A must-try.

I must comment that their desserts are quite good. They have a wide selection of cakes, and what I like about it is the desserts were either cut into a small piece or already divided into a small portion. 

Yes, they have strawberry dipped chocolates! But I have a feeling they probably didn't wash the strawberries before dipping it into the chocolate. I swear the chocolate cookie is from pilsburry and not made from the house. Beside the cookie is bread pudding, super sweet. In he middle of the plate is a nanaimo bar! I was surprised to see that there, quite sweet though. Below it (the white blob) is rice pudding, tasted bad in my opinion. On the right next to the nanaimo bar is cheesecake! This was really good, I recommend trying it. I also recommend trying the creme brule (at the right of the picture). It tasted really good, especially the burnt brown sugar coating at the top, delicious! They also have waffles, and I made my own green tea ice-cream waffle.

Thought I should share a funny scene that happened when I was picking my dessert. I saw brownies at the table and since I love brownies, I wanted to try one. But I saw lumps in the brownie so I wondered if it had nuts inside it. I asked one of the ladies that was working there in the kitchen, seemed to me like she didn`t understand English. I asked if there were nuts in it and she was mumbling. I swear I heard her mention hazel nut. When I tried to reassure, she said 'cuhcu-nut". Then I realized she meant coconut. I asked if its only coconut and how sure she was, she just smiled and mumbled. At that moment, I gave up and just said I won't try it. Not only that lady, but I found that a lot of people working there didn't seem to really know much English. Quite sad if you ask me.

One more interesting story that made my day. They give everyone a fortune cookie when you pay for your bill. This is what mine said.

I must say, never got a 'dirty' fortune cookie. Creative I guess?

Food: Alright

Service: Poor. At first my mom and I asked for hot tea. My uncle later asks for a pot of hot water only and they tell us they ran out of pots........The waitress actually said "as you can see we have a lot of customers today and really busy so we don't have any pots". Funny, cuz when I passed by peoples tables I never noticed people drinking tea but mainly just cold water. With such a big restaurant, it would be smart to buy more pots. Aside from that, we asked one waitress for more cold water, and she replied "I'm not a server". Some service huh?

Price: Expensive. For dinner, weekdays is $23 and on weekend is $26. The extra 3 bucks is for the free lobster.

Atmosphere/Decoration: I have to admit I do like the decoration and it is quite nice. One thing I found really awkward was, they sell jewellery. Who would actually buy jewellery at a buffet restaurant...

Overall: I personally don't like buffets though since I can't eat that much to begin with. Or maybe it was because I didn't have much expectations to begin with, I actually thought the food was alright. I would say this place is quite decent quality-wise in food if you are looking for a good buffet place. Compared to Wasabi, or Mandarin, I do think they have more variety instead of only chinese food.

Dragon Pearl Buffet

865 York Mills Rd.