Last Saturday night, my little bro Jason went on a trip down memory lane and headed along to Rendezvous Hotel’s Winter Buffet. I really think there’s something about Asians and buffets 
My family were regulars at Atrium, Miss Mauds, Hyatt, Sizzlers and even Pizza Hut! Anyway, I’ll leave it to Jason to tell you our story and what he thought of Rendezvous Hotel’s new Winter buffet.
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Rendezvous Hotel’s Winter Buffet is on every Friday and Saturday night for the rest of winter. You may have been to this buffet back in the day when it was known as the Pines, enter 2015… it has been given facelift and renamed to the Straits Café.
I’ve had quite a history with the Pines, there was a period in my childhood where I went multiple times in a year as a result of my parents and their friends rounding up discount vouchers from The West Australian or Sunday Times and gearing up for seafood overload.
I’ve always had a love hate relationships with buffets… I love the variety and quantity of food readily available, but then feel absolutely comatose afterwards from overeating. I never learn my lesson though, this was a cycle repeated on this said evening and will be so for many more times to come.
Being of Chinese background, I come from a long tradition of buffet eating that has been passed down from generation to generation, and the number one rule is to come with an empty stomach and a strategy to “eat your money’s worth.”
Here was mine:
So I started in the cold section where there is a great selection of salads, cold cuts, sushi and the mightiest of them all… seafood. I loaded up with seafood only of course.
The Straits Café’s seafood range includes prawns, mussels topped with a tomato salsa salad and oysters. All of the seafood were really fresh, the prawns were juicy and the oysters were creamy with just a slight bitterness to them.
Once I ate enough seafood, I then moved onto the salads and sushi.The sushi was just as good as if you bought it from a Japanese takeaway or restaurant.
The Thai squid noodle salad was fantastic, it had a subtle sweet chilli dressing reminiscent of Thai food and the noodles were the noodle equivalent of al dente.
Now it’s time for hot food.
The hot food section for the night contained a variety of international dishes including Beef Stroganoff, Shepherd’s Pie, Cream of Mushroom soup and more. I decided to get a small tasting of everything on offer and then come back and load up with which ones were my favorite.
There was even Butter Chicken with Naan and spiced Basmati rice. I was hoping it would be a bit thicker and creamier like the ones you’d find at most North Indian Restaurants like Saffron Indian Restaurant. I still enjoyed it though, it reminded me more of a South Indian curry like the ones at Jessie’s Curry Kitchen Cafe in Inglewood.
The highlight of the night for me was the mountain of self-serve pork crackling… if you read my last post on 150 EAST, I have an obsession with roast pork crackling. I lost count of how much crackling I ate during the night and got to the point where I was actually sick of it…. I’m sure the cravings will come back in 24hours.
The roast pork was tender and I loved that it was carved into thin slices. I had it with the usual combo of apple sauce and gravy. My side dish of choice was the cheesy potato gratin bake… it was really creamy and was topped off with a yummy melted cheese crust layer. I always try to get more crust to potato ratio
Now for the finisher… dessert.
The dessert section consisted of a selection of cakes, cheese and a freezer full of ice cream with the choice of nuts, marshmallows, smarties or Allens party mix lollies as toppings .
My mom and I decided to share a tasting plate of cakes. My absolute favorite of them all was the fruit trifle which contained canned apricots… something I loved as a kid. After this plate of dessert, I had to call it a night.. I couldn’t eat any more and was ready to pass out from my food coma.
The Rendezvous Hotel’s Winter Buffet has a smaller variety of hot food and desserts in comparison to some of the other buffets in Perth such as Atrium at Crown and the Café Restaurant at Hyatt. But one of its stronger points is the unlimited crackling, variety of salads, sushi and the freshness of the seafood.
For $59 per person for adults, it’s definitely worth checking out it if you love to gorge on pork crackling, prawns and oysters… the prawns were some of the juiciest I’ve had at a buffet.
Disclaimer: foodie cravings was invited as a guest, please see disclosure policy for more details.
