The Laughing Buddha, Stratford 9/02/2012

I go to Stratford Upon Avon College and for one of my projects I had to do a review of a local restaurant on the radio at college. So I decided to do a review about The Laughing Buddha in Stratford town centre because it only a five minute walk from college and as it if a buffet I felt its a cheap and appropriate option for students.

As you walk in the restaurant it looks like a typical buffet style restaurant where all the food is laid out down the middle with seats and tables either side.

The waiter came over and took our drinks order which are quite expensive (typical of buffets)
I had a pineapple juice and the three girls I was with all had a glass of water.
The buffet is £6.95 each.

These are the starters I chose, the starter section had quite a big choice of all the usual chinese favourites. 

I had spring rolls, prawns toasts, wan tons and duck pancakes with cucumber, spring onion and hoi sin sauce. I covered the spring rolls, prawns toasts and wan tons in sweet and sour sauce as it is my favourite! They had a choice of sweet and sour, curry or soy sauce. The starters were nice, they are usually the best of a chinese meal for me! The duck however with the pancakes was very dry and didn't taste that fresh. The prawn toasts were really crunchy and were exactly how they should be! Overall a nice plate of starters.

I felt the starters were tastier than the main options however there was quite a big selection. I choose: sweet and sour chicken, chicken with bamboo shoots in black bean sauce, BBQ style crispy pork, ribs, egg fried rice and noodles. The food was nice but I do feel that £6.95 is quite expensive for a lunch time buffet when there are cheaper and better buffets around as I felt at the Laughing Buddha you could tell when eating the food that it had been left out a while and wasn't incredibly fresh. But I did enjoy it and tasted like traditional chinese cuisine and filled me up all afternoon!