Category

3121 Old Philadelphia Pike (Rt 340), Bird-in-Hand, PA 17505. (717) 768-4400

http://www.plainandfancyfarm.com/

Plain and Fancy Farm offers a buffet served family style. Upon entering, you’ll be in their gift shop, where you can purchase a bonnet, apple butter, sweets, postcards, and other assorted souvenirs.

Some of the many dishes include:

Baked Ham with Cider Sauce

Mashed Potatoes

Chicken Pot Pie with Homemade Noodles

Iced Raisin Bread, Corn, and Golden Fried Chicken

Shoo-Fly Pie - a gooey mixture of molasses, brown sugar, and spices.

Apple Dumpling with Vanilla Ice Cream

Here’s the same Apple Dumpling, but I cracked the crust, so you could see the whole apple. Stay away from this… I didn’t think it was any good.
I was a little bit disappointed since I had heard so many wonderful things about Plain and Fancy. I was expecting the best tasting food, but I didn’t think it was anything special. It was good… just not extraordinary. Fried chicken is fried chicken.

There was one treat that stood out though! Their Shoo-Fly Pie is so incredibly delicious! It was warm and gooey with a nice chewy consistency (much like a brownie). It’s even better with some vanilla ice cream =)

I will say that their service is excellent. We had over 250 people in our party and most of them were 8th graders, so to be able to deal with all that noise, attitude, and behavior is pretty astounding!

Taste: 7/10
Presentation: 3/5
Service/Atmosphere: 5/5
Total: 15/20

During the month of April, enjoy Barona’s buffet Mondays-Thursdays for the special price of $8.95. Thursdays is all-you-can-eat PRIME RIB which usually costs $21.99. And even better… show your Club Barona card (you can sign up for free) and save an additional 20%!

Barona offers a variety of different stations, including Chinese, American, Mongolian, Mexican, and Italian.

They have some of the best desserts any buffet has ever had!!!

Chocolate Cake, Fruit Pies, German Chocolate Cake…

Cookies, Rice Krispy Treats…

Cream Puffs, Eclairs…

Chocolate Fountains, Chocolate-covered Rice Krispy Treats, Pretzel Sticks, Marshmallows, Strawberries…

Cheesecake…

Made-to-order Cherries Jubilee and Bananas Foster…

Sugar-free treats…

Creme Brulee, Mini Tarts…

Flan, Mousse…

2515 El Camino Real, Carlsbad, CA 92008, (760)729-3888

My uncle from Norway came to visit us this month and it seems like my relatives always want to go eat at buffets. I’m not too fond of buffets myself, but I go because my family pays for it (free food why not?). Grand Buffet is mostly a chinese buffet, but they also offer other items like american food, sushi, and a Mongolian grill. At a price of $12.95 which seems normal for a buffet during dinner time.

I started off with my rendition of a sushi plate. The rice was was bland and I think they didn’t even flavor the sushi rice with rice wine. I ended up just picking the fish off the top and leaving the rice behind. The fish was not melting in my mouth and tasted off. I had to pretty much drench the sashimi pieces with soy sauce and wasabi to hide the taste of the fish. Next I decided to move on to the crab, so I could forget about the bad tasting sushi. The crab was deep fried and wasn’t anything spectacular either. There was barely any meat and I tasted oil most of the time (bleh!).

Moving on to my finger foods plate, which was a definite plus to the poor seafood I had earlier. I got creative and decide to arrange my food in a circle. The bbq chicken on the skewer was very well marinated and tender, It would have been good with a bowl of rice. On to the main course! My Chinese food plate was mediocre. I felt like I was eating food from a fast food Chinese restaurant… you know the one’s that load up on the msg and oil.

I didn’t try their Mongolian bbq because I was already full. Even though I was full, I just had to have dessert. I loaded my plate with every single selection of pastries they had. The cakes were really dry and hard and you really couldn’t tell them apart in terms of flavor. The one that did stand out was the coffee flavored cake, but that was dry as well. The best thing was the apple pie tart. I must say it was delicious! Had I not been full I would have gotten myself some ice cream to go along with the apple pie tart.

Taste: 4/10