SHADY MAPLE SMORGASBORD - 2023

 It has been awhile that we have been able to travel to Pennsylvania and have a chance to go to one of the Pennsylvania Dutch buffet restaurants. We choose Shady Maple for two reasons - one that it is the latest open buffet of any of the buffet restaurants in Lancaster County and two because it has been one of the leading buffets in this area that we have visited many, many, many times over the years and since the start of this site. We were only in the area for one night and this is where we dined.

It was a Wednesday night in early August. We arrived at about 5:45 pm which is very early for us to get to any restaurant for dinner, but because we did not know for sure what we would find in terms of crowds and the earlier hours of closing, we wanted to be sure - since we made the trip - that we would get in and have the time to enjoy the meal without being rushed because of their new hours.  They stop letting diners in at 7:30 pm. This is one half hour earlier than their regular hours have been for years when they closed at 8:00 pm.  They recently announced that they would serve until 45 minutes past that time. (Which is not bad - considering the others are open until 7:00 and seem to shut down at that time.)   I had not expected a line as when they send out emails trying to increase business. There was a line when we arrived. Two lines at two cashiers (as always you pay when you enter) and the lines went back from the cashiers to the entrance doors. We waited on line at least ten minutes to pay. (They now are using the "Shady Maple Rewards Card" that their supermarket uses and the card is free - apply on their website". You hand the cashier the card and it is scanned and you earn rewards money with payment for your meals.  If you have reward money coming to you, you are asked if you want to use it for the meals you are paying for. As always at Shady Maple, the tip is included in the price of the dinner. You do not tip at the table. After we paid we then went to the dining room and there was a another line to wait to be seated. That line was also long and it took another ten to fifteen minutes before we were at the front of the line and were seated at a table.  (This all takes away from dining time when there are shorter closing hours - and while it was not as much as an issue here than it could have been - for those buffets closing at 7, it would make a difference.) 

While "officially" Covid is considered over, there has been an increase in Covid cases so far this summer - equivalent to numbers a year or so ago. Some employees were wearing masks. Most were not. No one dining that we saw was wearing a mask (we were not) and the large dining rooms were crowded. They still put out disposable gloves to take - if you want to - to put on your hands when you handle the serving pieces. This is a good thing considering the number of people that are there and handling the serving spoons and clippers, etc. We saw no one wearing any. We thought about it and did not. 

One of the reasons the buffet restaurants have all shortened their hours is that they cannot find new employees to work since Covid started and this has continued not that it has "ended". There seemed to be a good number of table servers, those at the grills, and those putting out refills at the buffet tables. I recognized a number of employees that I had seen in past visits - before Covid. 

The grills were busy and crowded. The buffet tables were crowded with diners and at times it was hard to move down the aisle.  Many did not look (or act) local though there were local people there as well and I saw two Amishmen at the buffet tables filling their plates. The day that we were there was the last of three days with dramatically different weather from the severe storms that this area has been having weekly since the start of July - these three days were sunny and cool in the 70s without high humidity. That is one of the reasons why we picked this day to go - and our visits to local places during the day - we saw the same large crowds. Apparently a lot of people decided to take this opportunity to go there. (Following days were to go back to hot and stormy!)

We started the meal with a cup of Chicken Corn Soup. This is a chicken stock soup with noodles, corn, and pieces of carrot.  The soup tasty but it was salty  - more so than it should have been or has been in the past here. 

The Wednesday night grill special is Prime Rib.  I have not had Prime Rib since before Covid started three years ago. I have looked forward to coming on a Prime Rib night at any of the buffets here that serve it one night a week and that was the first thing I went to get when we had finished the soup. You can ask for how you would like it done and they are carving from different pieces to slice you what you ask for. I always want beef rare and I got as a nice sized slice of rare Prime Rib rare.  I ladled some Au Jus gravy from the hot container on the counter. I added to my plate some dried corn and baked apples with dumplings from the buffet tables. Then I tried to make my way through the crowd who were meandering between the grills and the tables.  I was really looking forward to that slice of Prime Rib. 

The beef was tough and hard to chew. There was grizzle through the meat and there was a hard coating of what was put around the outside of the Prime Rib when it was roasted.  I cut around the grizzle and removed that and the thick fat there was in the slice.  I looked for the grain that seemed to be going in different directions in the meat. I managed my way to get small pieces cut to put in my mouth that I could chew through - but I was not really enjoying it.  I had been expecting much better - figuring that Shady Maple's beef would be more tender than the closest thing I have had to steak in some time which has been sliced beef, a quarter inch thick served at a local Chinese buffet cooked on a flat grill at the Hibachi counter - which  is barely chewable.  While the soup had been salty, the Prime Rib needed salt and I added a little.  A lot of grizzle, fat, and hard outer shell was left over on my plate when I had eaten the meat that I had cut away from that.

The two side dishes I picked - the dried corn was good as it always has been here. The baked apples and dumplings are small slices of apple cooked in a sugar sauce with dumplings. In the Pennsylvania Dutch language this is called "Snitz and Knepp"- though Snitz are dried apples that are reconstituted before cooking these apples were more like sliced apples that were cooked.  The apples were very sweet and the dumpling I took was underdone and hard. 

Near the soup was a pot of Chicken Pot Pie - which is not the baked chicken pie you get in other areas that is in a pie crust. The Amish and Pennsylvania Dutch make chicken pot pie as a stew of boiled chicken and large, flat, soft, square noodles with potatoes and carrots and some herbs in the broth.  In the Pennsylvania Dutch language this is a called "Hinkel (chicken) Bot (pot) Boi (pie).  It is one of my favorite PA Dutch dishes. I filled a plate with it.  This was good. There was a little more salt than I would have liked but not so much that it put one off.  The chicken was tender. The bot boi noodles were soft and moist and the seasoning was classic for this dish. This was not a disappointment to me at all!  When I finished this plate I should have gotten more.

Another grill feature that now is on every night is New York Strip Steak cooked on the flat grills at more than one grill station.  Instead of getting more Hinkel Bot Boi,  I had my sights on a real steak! They are cooking raw and unseasoned steaks - as they would come from a butcher on the grills. Again - as always with their steaks - you can ask for it cooked as you like it.  Of course, I ordered a rare steak, I was given a thick and large steak served onto my plate. The steak was almost an inch thick. It was nicely charred on the outside off the grill and being as thick as it was I knew it would be rare inside - as it was - nice and red but not raw!  To the steak I added some stewed tomatoes to my plate and some mashed potatoes. 

I cut into the steak cutting around the small amount of fat. The meat was moist and I put a piece from my fork into my mouth and it was tough and chewy! (What the heck?!) It was tasty.  I managed to cut it small enough to chew and finished the steak.  But again tough and chewy steak was not what I have had at Shady Maple in the past! The mashed potatoes were good and fresh made, as were the stewed tomatoes. 

 My wife who does not like steak took some sliced ham and had looked for sliced turkey that was not out.  It was brought out later.  She - as always - is a picky eater- and is happy with not overdoing it at buffets.

I have gotten to the point not having been in many buffets for some time other than a Chinese buffet that is local that I can't eat like I could in the past - so I take care not to over do it.  The steak plate was it for my main courses. 

I went to the dessert buffet area and took a nice piece of chocolate cake with vanilla frosting. The cake was good but a few bites of the cake and suddenly my stomach felt very sick.  I took off quickly for the restroom and just made it in time and I was in there for a long time and had to find another restroom shortly after. Clearly I had food poisoning. What did it I am not sure. It could have been the excessive amount of salt in what I had eaten or the grease and fat in the beef. All I know is this was the worst experience I have ever had a Shady Maple and most of the buffets we have dined at.  My wife ate different things than I did and she was fine!

 It was about a quarter to eight when we were back in the car.  We could have gotten there a little later and not had any problem with the 8:15 closing time - and I heard an announcement that they would close at 8:30 but I could not hear if that was for the building or the buffet. There is a large gift shop on the lower level of the very large restaurant that used to close at 9 - so perhaps that was what the announcement was for. 

This was not the good review I anticipated writing before having this meal at Shady Maple. It is, without a doubt, the worst review I have ever written for this restaurant over the years.  Is it that everywhere beef has gotten so expensive that the quality of the meet that is available is just not up to what it once was and is tough and chewy?  Buffets are not fine steak houses with the best cuts at $50 to $100 dollars and more!   I am thinking so! If I had not had the Prime Rib and the steak would I have had a better experience on this visit? If I just had the Hinkel Bot Boi I know I would have. I just don't know about the beef or the large quantity of salt that was in the foods I ate!  My wife liked what she had. 

Go, don't go? It has been better. I has rarely been this crowded on any week night - even in the summer - but this has been a very unusual summer! I have rarely been disappointed in anything I have eaten here in the past! This buffet is the largest buffet in the world! That is true!  This site has awarded our Best Buffet of the Year award many times. It would not get that award - which we have not given in a number of years to any buffet - this year based on this meal.  Will I go back? Probably - at some time - but I will choose what I eat more wisely! BUT it will be a long time before I forget this experience and it may be a long time before I go back.

Foxwoods Casino Festival Buffet - Connecticut

I had not realized that we had not been to Foxwoods Casino Festival Buffet since 2013. That last visit was a disappointment and the year before that it has been as well. This had been a regular birthday dinner trip until then. I guess following that I took my own advice and we headed for Lancaster for my birthday buffet dinner. We have been trying to plan trips around rather poor weather reports and I saw that Thursday was going to be cool but nice and I wanted to go somewhere for a buffet. I started poking around to where to go. I decided that for another single day trip to Lancaster it really was too expensive and hopefully we will get there for several days at some point soon. I looked northward to Connecticut and started looking up the current pricing at Mohegan Sun and Foxwoods for their buffets. Mohegan Sun is $30. Foxwoods is usually $24 but on Thursdays if you are 55 years of age or older - during a special they are having - the buffet at dinner from 6 pm to 9 pm when it closes is $9.99! I looked at my past articles. I felt things must have changed - maybe in the past five years. I looked around at reviews and they are mixed - some good and some terrible. For $10 each for dinner, a nice day out with a stop at a favorite spot in Connecticut before getting to the casino, and only one bridge toll - despite the recent jump in gas prices - we would go!

I could talk a lot about getting there. I will just say that the Waze app let me down and sent us out of the way and onto some rather dangerous roads that were single lane and twisted around high hills with one spot having a big sign reading "Dangerous Curve!"  That these roads brought us back to the same large main road it sent us off of - with no reported problems on that road convinced me that this is not an app to rely upon at all.

So we got to Foxwoods, later than we had planned and went straight to the buffet to have dinner. There was a line as I anticipated there would be but we only waited about fifteen minutes to get in. Needless to say, there were a lot of seniors also there for the regular $24 buffet for only $9.99 - but that is fine. 

Every night there is an option to a pay $10 extra for either a sirloin steak of snow crab legs. The week end buffet includes steak and snow crab legs at no additional cost - though I am not sure if you would be getting the same steak as the one you pay extra for. It is not right that they are charging the same every night (except Thursday nights for Seniors) and not including steak and crab legs as they do on weekends. It would be understandable if the price was higher on the weekends - but it is not. So that annoyance aside - onto our dinner.

Overall the selections and food stations are the same as they had been. There is a Seafood Station, a Carving Station, an "International" Station, an Italian Station, an Asian Station, and a Barbecue Station. There is a area in the middle of the dining room with soups and a salad bar with make your salad and prepared salads. The price includes unlimited soft drinks.

As usual, we started with soup. When we were seated my wife told me to go up for soup while she waited for the server to give our drink order. We had been sitting for about five minutes and no one had come over. As I was on my way back to the table with my soup, my wife was walking up to the soup area and she told me the woman server was very nice and took the drink order without any confusion. Plus one right there.

There are four soups - as there have been in the past. There were two thick soups and two thin soups. There was New England Clam Chowder, a red bean soup, a thin vegetable chowder, and chicken rice soup. In the past there were often all thick soups - this variety is much better. I chose the vegetable chowder. I was going to pick the New England Clam but decided on trying something different and I was not sure I wanted a thick heavy soup. The vegetable chowder was very good. It was a vegetable stock with a bit of a tang to it - either vinegar or a seasoning, There was a visible seasoning that looked like what is found in red clam chowder or minestrone. The soup was full of vegetables. As I got down to the bottom of the bowl I wondered if I should go and get more - but no, I decided that I would get on with the meal.  My wife took the chicken rice and felt it could have had more in it - but it tasted fine.

The salad bar was next - and we did not take much. Not that there was not a lot to take. We were not going to make big salads. We took a little of this and a little of that and not much at all, There was a really nice looking Caesar Salad but with the recent problems with Romaine lettuce and a national Ecoli scare I decided against that. Despite articles that say it has past, there was a report of four more cases including one in NY just the past week of when I am writing this. What we took from the salad bar was tasty. I tried some Tortellini salad with black olives. It was good. 

On to the main event! I walked around all of the stations deciding. I knew that at least once and more likely twice I was going to get the Prime Rib that was being carved. The other carving was pork roast with pancetta. What caught my attention were barbecue ribs in the Barbecue area, the sausage and peppers in tomato sauce, tortellini bruschetta (not sure why bruschetta as it just seemed to be thick tomato sauce), a macaroni in white cream sauce, and the Prime Rib kept calling me. And I took a little of each of this all - except the Prime Rib. When I was about to get  up to the carver from the line, he was left with a full half of a Prime Rib and a slice of Prime Rib from what he was carving from that was about an inch and a half thick. He was not carving thick slices. He cut that thick slice in half and he gave the woman in front of me that and gave me the other half. My first thought was that this was too much to start off with but I took it back to the table. It was supposed to be rare. It was pink and it was more medium rare, but as I have been writing, when I have been writing lately, I have a craving for beef, steak in particular but Prime Rib is a good second. The Prime Rib was mostly tender. Around the cooked edges there were some spots that had to be cut out as they were more grizzle than meat.  It was a little less than flavorful and I wound up adding salt which I rarely do. It was fine. The sausage was good. The tortellini was nice. The macaroni in white cream sauce, most would say was just right - but I am not a fan of  al dente macaroni. To me it is under cooked and hard to chew. I much prefer pasta/macaroni that has cooked to not quite soft but not at all hard. It tasted good but it was not as I like. I don't really get this passion for almost raw macaroni. The rib was tasty but I only took a small piece and there was no bone which I saw when I took it. It was covered in a pleasant barbecue sauce that was not too sweet and I liked what I ate. I put this on my get some more of list for the next trip up.

The Seafood Station has fried shrimp, fried calamari, a fried batter dipped snapper that looked dark and over fried, a cod fillet in a green curry sauce, and peel and eat shrimp. I passed all of it up. There were no fried clams on this night as they had been at least five years ago. I was not going to try anything in curry - I had an almost two hundred mile drive home after this dinner. I would have taken the snapper if it was not overdone.

I took two more full ribs. There were two focaccia to choose from- one with vegetables and cheese and the other with pepperoni and cheese, both with tomato sauce. I took the vegetable focaccia. There were crab clusters - but these were stone crab clusters - a half crab that were broiled or just put in a fryer. I took a half to try it. I took a meatball. I went over to the Barbecue Station and took some red skin potato salad. I went back to the table. My wife was up at the carving station. She is not a fan of beef and she was looking for turkey which has been here - again, at least in the long past. There was no turkey but the pork roast and she was not certain she would like the pancetta that was on it. Remember, my wife is a picky eater. When she came back without any carvings we had a discussion about this and she said the turkey was what she had always liked the most to take here. She does make do finding things.  These two ribs were good. They were almost fall off the bone ribs and they were very tasty. The focaccia was very tasty. The crab - well... When I got back to the table I was smelling the ocean which for raw fish is a good thing but it was the crab. OK. Stone crab is very hard to open, This seemed to be a bit brittle and it broke in half. I tried to pull out some of the white crab meat inside the cluster with a fork and came out with a little shreds of meat and a lot of a hard shell like substance that was over the open end of the cluster. It was then an effort to get these sharp little bits out of my mouth. I went back into the shell to try to get some actual crab meat and a little did come out - which I could taste - but again there was this shell. I stopped at that point and pushed the crab to the side of my plate. The potato salad was good.

What was to be my final trip up and you know it was going to be Primer Rib! There was no line and I could see the carver cutting up the rest of what he had out into small slices of well done beef. I said to myself - and my good wife - that I would wait. I wanted a new Prime Rib and it was still an hour and a half to closing so they would certainly bring another out. Rather than go back to the table with an empty plate - as my wife had already taken what she was going to have, I took some sliced beef in onion sauce. This was in a tray at the carving area. There was also a chicken dish there. I took just a little and some more vegetable focaccia and went back to the table to wait for Prime Rib. I finished what was on my plate and I saw people gathering at the Carving Station. My wife was not going to go up for more until dessert. The Prime Rib was red, rare and juicy! He cut one slice and I asked for two and he cut a second. He was cutting thin slices - more like one slices roast beef but at this point in the meal that was OK. I put some red skinned boiled potatoes on my plate and went back to the table and really enjoyed this beef.

There were other things to choose from and there were several vegetable dishes. I did not take any fried chicken but it did look good! 

During the course of the meal the server cleared the plates off the table each time we went up for more and she came and asked if we would like refills on our drinks which she brought promptly. She was an excellent server. In 2012 and 2013 my articles about Foxwoods talk about the poor service we had.

It was time for dessert and I went to look at what there was. The dessert area is a long counter with glass shelves going up full of baked goods. There were several things that looked good. Some labeling could have been better. There was a cheese cake that was topped with something - maybe caramel but there was no sign. There was a Boston Cream cake. There was a chocolate chip cookie cake that tempted me. I have to note this about the desserts - the Sugar Free desserts were the nicest looking desserts that were out - nice looking iced and cream layer cakes. I don't eat sugar free because one never knows what they have been sweetened with and some common sweeteners are sugar alcohols which are laxatives - fast working laxatives. There was a soft serve sundae bar - the soft serve ice cream looked icy. I went down to the very end and found bread pudding! I took that - thought about also taking the chocolate chip cookie cake - but didn't and headed back. The bread pudding was a little on the sweet side but fine. (Not as good as the bread pudding at Golden Corral which is my favorite.)

This was a good meal for $9.99! Was it a good meal for $24? Hmm. Nothing was bad. Nothing was wrong with anything I took. I enjoyed everything that I ate - but I can compare this to other $24 buffet meals that I have had and this was just OK - in comparison. I am looking strictly at value. Again nothing wrong. I would certainly go back on a Thursday night for $9.99 each and I am driving a distance for this!  We are not gamblers. I love casinos - the atmosphere, the money risked. But I can't afford to be a gambler. We go strictly to eat and walk around.  If it was not Thursday - that may be a dilemma in deciding.  There are two buffet choices - one is Mohegan Sun which we were at a year ago but I never got around to writing about. It was OK - but now it is $30. There is also now a Golden Corral in Connecticut which I have not yet been to. It opened with some difficulties and a reader wrote and told me to avoid it for awhile - and I have still not yet gone. When I do go, you all will know about it. But $12.99 or whatever this Golden Corral is charging (another article will talk about recent price increases) is a lot better than $24 and $30 each - and just about every Golden Corral I have been to has had good steak.  Ah yes - children are allowed in the building and in the buffet. They cannot go onto the casino floor where there is gambling.

I can say confidently that the negative reviews that I saw on Yelp and Trip Advisor was not the experience I had. It was pretty much all positive!  I wish I was close by - without the trip we have to get there - as I would be there most Thursday nights! The special is not on holidays - so Thanksgiving is out! 😄

Three Times Prime Rib

We were in Lancaster, PA for a Fall trip and, of course, every night was a buffet - actually every night was at one of the top buffets for the past year. It just so happened that the nights we went to Yoder's, Shady Maple, and Dutch-Way/Gap Prime Rib was the feature for that night. Prime Rib can vary a lot at buffet restaurants and at these three there were differences. There are times that I prefer Prime Rib to steak - if the Prime Rib is good.  Given a choice between a bone in slice and a slice with no rib bone, I prefer the bone in slice but I have never come across a buffet restaurant that serves a bone in Prime Rib.

We first went to Yoder's Restaurant - Tuesday is Prime Rib night there. Yoder's Prime Rib is carved at the grill and they will try to accommodate your request for rare, medium, well done. While I was up at the grill someone before me had wanted theirs very well done and they had that piece on the grill top for extra cooking. I wanted mine rare - no surprise to our regular readers - and the carver cut into the Prime Rib at a spot where the meat was rare - red rare - and sliced me off a nice slice. The outside of the Prime Rib was a herb rub without any type of sauce added. The meat was very tender. It did need a little salt to bring out the flavor but that was fine. There was very little fat in the meat and even less grizzle. Later in the meal I went back for a second slice and this time the carver was different and she carved a very thick piece - thicker than I really wanted given the point in the meal I was at - but she cut a generous slice. This time the meat was not as rare as the first but again the meat was very tender. Both slices were very tasty - even though the first needed a little salt added.

Wednesday night is Prime Rib night at Shady Maple Smorgasbord. It surprised me how crowded Shady Maple was for mid-week Fall. Prime Rib is carved to order at two of the grill stations at Shady Maple. Here they have different Prime Ribs to carve each done to a different wellness. I saw one carver at a very rare looking Prime Rib and I went over to him for a slice. The slice was generous and this slice of Prime Rib was the most like in appearance to a slice of Prime Rib that one would get in a menu restaurant. At the side of the grill counter was Au Jus gravy to ladle on your meat yourself. There was also ground horseradish to spoon on. There was a large circle of fat at a corner of the slice. The outside of the Prime Rib was black and semi-crispy and the meat was coated with a sauce that tasted like a combination of Worcestershire Sauce and A1 Steak Sauce. This was cooked onto the outside of the Prime Rib. The outside had a distinct flavor because of this. I was given a slice per my request that was red rare. The meat of this Prime Rib was interlaced with grizzle and while eating there was a lot that had to be cut off around what was cut to eat. It was tasty but chewy. It was good enough but because of two nights of Prime Rib for dinner, I did not take a second slice and continued the meal with several of the many other good things that Shady Maple has to offer.

Friday night (and Saturday night - but this was a Friday night) is Prime Rib night at Dutch-Way restaurant in Gap, PA. The Prime Rib here is also carved at the grill. One Prime Rib is out for the carver to serve from, but from past visits I know that if you ask for a piece cooked differently from what is out, they usually have it. I asked for rare, as did the man after me. The carver told me that he had to go and get another Prime Rib that he could cut off rare slices from and he went off. When he came back he had a tray with a Prime Rib in it. He opened a hot draw inside the carving station and picked up the remaining Prime Rib on the cutting board and added that to what was in the tray in the drawer. He pulled out the tray and put it aside - to be brought back into the kitchen when he was done carving my slice and the slice for the other gentleman there. He cut into the middle of this Prime Rib and it was pinkish-red inside. Not as rare as I had hoped for but still rare. Perhaps one might say it was medium-rare, but that is better than well done and dry. This slice had some fat marbled through and just a little grizzle mixed in. The outside of the Prime Rib at Dutch-Way is crispy and also may have been a steak sauce cooked onto the outside. It was tasty, there was little to have to cut around and perhaps if this night was not a night we had to drive back for a three plus hour trip I might have eaten more of the fat than I did. The slice was a good sized slice. Did I go back for another? Well, no but only because on the buffet was Dutch-Way's meatloaf and since I have been good meatloaf craving for awhile, I forgo another slice of Prime Rib for some really good meatloaf.

Of the three buffet restaurants, I found the Prime Rib at Yoders to be the best. It was the most tender by far. It had little waste on the slice and it was tasty. There was no sauced crust on the outside to detract from the taste of the meat. It was also the most satisfying. Yoder's on a Tuesday night is the place to go for all you care to eat Prime Rib along with their other good things on the buffet.

All three buffets are linked at the side of this page.

Premium Weekends at Golden Corral

Early in 2016 Golden Corral instituted a new "promotional feature" - an increase in price to $13.99 on dinner from Friday night, Saturday night, and Sunday all day. This promo actually ended and prices went back to usual but then recently it was brought back.  For the additional cost you get "Prime Rib", teriyaki steak, and fried butterfly shrimp. If you happen to unfortunately be in a Golden Corral that already has a $13.99 dinner price all of the time, your special promotional price is $14.99. On top of these prices you pay for your soft drink at well over $2.00. So your "affordable" buffet dinner with soft drink becomes over $16.50 or $17.50 each.  Add sales tax and tip and you are paying a lot for a dinner for two or more. Does this seem like a feature to promote? It does not to me.

I have been to Golden Corral's twice on a weekend night for this promo and just my luck both were the already $13.99 priced Golden Corrals. I wish that I could say that the addition of Prime Rib makes this "premium" price worth while, but I have to report that what they are presenting as "Prime Rib" is far from it. My first premium meal was at a Golden Corral that has been marginal in my past experiences there and I thought that perhaps it was just at that particular Golden Corral. The Prime Rib there was 90% fat with barely any edible meat on the slice and in between the fat was grizzle. This is not Prime Rib - a poor cut of roast beef perhaps, but not Prime Rib. 

The second Golden Corral that I went to on a weekend night was in a different state. I was hopeful that this experience with the Premium weekend price dinner would be better - it was a better Golden Corral in general and one I had dined in before. I cringed when I paid over $35 at the register for two. I looked at the Prime Rib at the counter and was uncertain if I was even going to try it again. I started with a steak - and steak at many Golden Corrals is done well (depending on who is cooking at the grill). The steak was good. I was going back for another when I decided that I would try the Prime Rib at this Golden Corral. The carver sliced off a thin slice - not much thicker than a slice of roast beef - and put it on my plate. No fat- good sign. When I sat down and went to cut off a piece to eat, it was hard cutting with the steak knife that had no problem shortly before with the thick cut of steak that I just had. I put it in my mouth and I could not chew it. Tough is too mild a term for this meat. I made an attempt but again, it could not be chewed. I tried cutting into another part of the slice - no better. I was able to get a few bits of meat that could be chewed and go down. IT was not tasty and overall again, this was not Prime Rib.

At this Golden Corral I get to try the teriyaki steak.  It was pretty much the regular Golden Corral steak pre-grilled and put out on the buffet server. This particular piece was red rare - just like I like my steak - but others passed it by as not cooked enough. The teriyaki sauce was not overly sweet and the steak was good. Did the teriyaki sauce and not being cooked to order as the regular steaks are justify an additional dollar for the meal?  Of course not.

My wife did have the fried butterfly shrimp - as she was going to try to get our money's worth out of her dinner - and she said that they were OK but no better or different from the fried shrimp served frequently at Old Country Buffet - at the regular dinner price. She was annoyed that several of the usual dishes that she often eats when we are at a Golden Corral were not being served as their place on the buffet now had the Prime Rib, the teriyaki steak, and the fried shrimp.

Overall - Premium Weekends at Golden Corral - big FAIL! As my readers should know by now that I very much like Golden Corral. I look forward to dining at a Golden Corral when I am somewhere near one. They have had some odd promotional features in the past - this one is one of the worst - and that is accentuated by the increase in price for something that is not what it is presented to be. So - Golden Corral, go back to regular price weekends - forget the not quite Prime Rib - move on to a real promotional feature at regular price or just stick with your regular menu as it is really good on its own.