First Anniversary Dinner at Feast Buffet, Sydney CBD

Half-year felt like only a while ago and we’re already celebrating our first anniversary. Richard took me to another feast — or Feast at Sheraton on the Park in the CBD, an international seafood buffet place that has been on my wishlist for a while. Vickie, seafood and dinner buffet? Hell yes!

We had a 6 pm booking and got a table fairly close to the food with comfortable space around. It’s near Chinese New Year so the place had appropriate decor and a fortune cookie for every diner on the table. Too many words! Let’s get straight to the food!

Feast Buffet: Seafood

Feast Buffet: Sushi

Feast Buffet: Now that’s a Vickie-sized platter of smoked salmon

Feast Buffet: Bread

Feast Buffet: Cheese

Feast Buffet: Dips

Feast Buffet: Salad

Feast Buffet: Cold Cuts

Feast Buffet: More Salad

Feast Buffet: Carvery

Feast Buffet: Asian Crispy Chicken

Feast Buffet: Pizza

Feast Buffet: Couscous and braised lamb; not many exciting hot dishes

Feast Buffet: That creme brulee was far too sweet

Feast Buffet: Dessert

Feast Buffet: Serving size for the cakes were a bit big

Feast Buffet: Almond pudding and a super sticky sticky date pudding

Feast Buffet: Fruits

Feast Buffet: One of each; roast beef, lamb, turkey, pumpkin from the carvery

Feast Buffet: My first dessert plate

Seafood

Seafood! Meant to be the highlight of the buffet, I believe, and it was… slightly disappointing.

I loved the giant platter of smoked salmon, but the other seafood wasn’t overly exciting. The oysters tasted fresh but were small in size, and the crabs were dry. I didn’t get seafood in the beginning like everyone else who flocked to the area first thing, though, so what I managed to grab might just have been undesirable leftover bits.

Antipasti

A huge selection of antipasto dishes with various breads, cheeses, cold cuts, salads, olives, dips, spreads… I had some cheese (brie and blue, yum!) and cured meats. Nothing much to complain here, but also nothing much to write home about.

Hot Dishes

The hot dishes were… all right but not overly memorable. Enough variations here, and my favourite was actually the roasted pumpkin. Hey, I cook; I know how long it takes to roast that thing properly. Worth it even though the serving tongs were super sticky. tongue

Pork crackling was also available, which all looked exciting until the actual bite. It wasn’t crispy and there was no crackling. I ended up having pork skin uncomfortably stuck in my teeth. Richard and I both agreed that the dish was a massive letdown.

Carvery and Asian

The staff at the carvery station was very friendly, and I tried and enjoyed a piece of every roast (beef, lamb, turkey). Dim sum was also secretly served in this staffed area with meat buns, siumai (“dim sum”) and dumplings hidden in steamed baskets behind the counters. Wish it was a self-served like the pizzas also available near that area.

Dessert

Dessert was… all right. There were loads of choices of sweet foods here, but I thought some of the dessert servings were a tad on the large side and most far too sweet — a shame, because the creme brulee was so pretty, too.

Overall

As I sit down to prepare the entry, I noticed that while I generally enjoyed the food and thought the service was absolutely excellent throughout, I seemed to have more to critique than praise. The original price was $99 per person for the Saturday night, but with our Starwood Preferred Guest 15% discount it came down to around $84. Still not the cheapest buffet, but for the good range of food, environment and service, I think it’s worth it. Now please fix the pork crackling!