Until recently the Red Hot World Buffet is somewhere thats always been on my list of restaurants to visit. For one reason or another its never happened though so when I got asked if I would like to visit and review it I thought Oooooh yes please!
The Red Hot World Buffet is a restaurant that boasts 300 dishes from different world cuisines including Indian, Thai, Japanese, Chinese, Mexican and Italian. I love buffets in general but there is always a small part of me, when I first visit, that wonders whether the catering will be for the masses i.e. mostly frozen ok-ish quick and easy food. I expected a bit of that with our visit here too.
How wrong we were. We visited the restaurant in Manchester and the first thing that strikes you is how organised it all is. We were seated straight away and the staff couldn’t be friendler or more helpful. I found the service was excellent and plates were cleared away very quickly without being annoying or giving the impression of hovering around to see what the customers are doing. There is not the rush of buffets and the venue is quite large so creates a relaxed atmosphere in a place where people are to-ing and fro-ing with their dishes.
The food area looks huge at first glance and we found ourselves walking around it all just to familiarise ourselves at first. The thing that stuck out for me the most was the presentation. Everything is laid out with so much care and detail. It is obvious that presentation is an important feature of the restaurant and it works very well as a distinguishing feature when compared with other buffet restaurants.
I tried a few things mainly from the Chinese, Italian, Indian and Japanese counter and everything is very nice and flavourful. The one thing I didn’t quite enjoy was the Thai Green curry but everything else was very very nice. I could have spent the whole day visiting the noodle counter having different stir fries made for me. There are a lot of stations that provide a made to order service and I love these. I resisted the urge to be too adventourous but even the straight forward musroom risotto turned out to be lovely.
The desserts area is very impressive. Each portion is small but its a good way to encourage you to try other varieties (or simply help yourself to more of the same!).
I think from our whole trip I only had one negative which in this case were the toilets. Whilst they were very clean, I thought they could do with a massive coat of paint on the doors. The restaurant is so modern looking and well presented its a weird contrast when you walk to their bathrooms and see something that needs a bit of decorating. Its a minor thing but if you happen to be visiting you’ll know what I mean.
The friend I took along is a bit of a connoiseur when it comes to restaurants and she was visibly impressed, even using the word “brilliant”. I would thoroughly recomend this to anyone that loves buffets and good food. It is very family friendly and has a good choice of kids counters too, although there is enough kid friendly dishes in each of the cuisines. I would definitely go back for more. The confirmation for us was well and truly nailed as we walked out and saw the queue had stretched to the outside doors.
We were paid to review the Red Hot World Buffet. All opinions are my own.
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