Birthday Dinner at Sydney Tower Buffet, Sydney CBD

For my 21st birthday… I don’t know why you’re looking at me like that; I totally just turned 21. For my totally 21st birthday, Richard took me to a mystery dinner place in the CBD with a promise that it’s going to be an epic feed. I thought it would be an all-you-can-eat place because that’s the only thing that could possibly satisfy a glutton like me, and I was correct. We went up to Sydney Tower Buffet; my first time up to the Tower!

Sydney Tower: Afternoon View

Sydney Tower: Afternoon View

Sydney Tower: See that shadow of the tower?

Sydney Tower: My favourite shot of the day

Sydney Tower: Sunset View

Sydney Tower: Evening View

We got there a bit earlier than our booking time and got a nice table on the side. The waitress explained to us how the buffet worked and made sure we knew our section and table number, which was important as the Sydney Tower offers a 360° view of the city — by revolving. A photographer offered to take a photo for us, to which we declined, but I’m sure I ended up as the backdrop in the photos of a few other couples around us.

Sydney Tower Buffet: Seafood

Sydney Tower Buffet: Cold Dishes

Sydney Tower Buffet: Hot Food; beans, potatoes and beef brisket

Sydney Tower Buffet: Hot Food; pasta and piles of delicious “exotic” chipolatas

Sydney Tower Buffet: Hot Food

Sydney Tower Buffet: Hot Food

Sydney Tower Buffet: First of embarrassingly many plates of hot food!

Sydney Tower Buffet: First plate of dessert

It was finally eating time, and here’s the selected review!

Seafood
A bit meh; I was slightly disappointed that there wasn’t smoked salmon in this section. All the buffet I’ve been to at this price range had them.

Hot Food
A selection of Australian and international dishes here. The more memorable dishes were:

• Crocodile chipolatas: Didn’t taste like crocodile to me, but tasty nonetheless.
• Emu chipolatas: Never tried emu before, but loved that it’s available as a more uncommon dish.
• Steamed vegetable dumplings: The wrapper was too thick and there was too little filling, but I still had a lot of these.
• Salt and pepper squid: This was far too salty!
• Fish and chips: Tried the fish; the batter wasn’t very good.

Dessert
Loved it! And I don’t have a sweet tooth so that’s saying a lot. I tried at least one of everything and especially liked the panna cotta; Richard enjoyed the lemon curd tart.

The buffet was $85 a head on the Friday night. The service was great at first but they really slowed down on clearing the plates as the place got busier at night. I also thought there could be more hot dish varieties, but that’s probably just the glutton talking. It’s definitely worth it to take someone from overseas up here, though.

Thank you so very much for the birthday dinner, Richard! heart