The Chinese Buffets in Sheffield thread- all discussion in here please

went last sunday, and it was shocking.

yes the interior is nice, but the service was crap - they put a number block on ya table so people know table is taken

had gone to get food and they had tried to sit someone else at our table!

the food was over cooked and the lack of choice was a bit bad.

and the tip thing, this should be advertised before you eat, which i saw nothing sayin about it

not going again. jumbos and no1 are far superior.

wokmania all the way,tasty,fast,comfy

and it doesnt look like a school cafeteria

The 10% service charge is incredibly cheeky. We weren't told about it beforehand, and when we queried it with the girl on the till she just went "Well I've only just found out we do it too" great service.

A lot of the food was either overcooked or undercooked, but they do have a whippy icecream machine ^_^

Alas i come bearing grave news. Having sought after a new chinese buffet in Sheffield i was looking forward to the prospect of Wokmania, the interior looked very nice and the free refils idea merely drew me in more. When we arrived it looked very nice inside, with big comfy chairs and plasma screen tv's with Takeshi's Castle on! However things started to spiral downhill. We sat at a table and went to get some food....

The selection was mediocre at best, with a few products having run out and not been refilled. I had to ask 3 different waiters if we could order some drinks, and when we did my friend accidently ordered John Smiths instead of the advertised Tetleys, and upon realising the error of his ways corrected himself. However when the waitress came with our drinks, she served us our soft drinks, and my associate a can of John Smiths, warm with a glass. Now i cant believe a restaurant would have cans of something they dont sell, and not keep them refrigerated if they did. Now i dont want to accuse anyone here, but there is a Tesco Express next door..... do the maths.

The first plate was average, the noodles slightly cold, and some of the chicken curry was just plain filthy. There was something in it i dont even want to think about what it could have been, that I had to spit out.

Now the second plate was where the fun started. My friend, the same who had been charged £2.50 for a can of John Smiths from Tescos, found a broken bit of glass in his food! Obviously a complaint was made to the manager, both the waitress and our manager gave the impression that we had some ulterior motives and somehow placed the object in my friends meal, but this was not the case. The manager seemed befuddled and told my friend his meal would be taken off the bill. I was not happy however as this incident had put me off the meal and none of my mates had any more food.

The manager's attitude was not very professional i shall say that, he said he would have a word with the kitchen staff, and i made a light hearted joke about taking a back hand to them, with appropriate hand action. Then he retorted with, and i quote, "No i dont want to mess with them hong kong phooey guys back there!"

I felt that this was not only racist but demeaning to us, and showed that even though this restaurant is fairly new, one would expect the the manager would be level headed and handle a matter such as glass in someones meal, with the utmost seriousness.

This was the final nail in the coffin, we left immediately after paying, me and my 2 friends who had to pay, did so grudgingly and left immediately, quipping we would never return. This was no lie or mere jest, No. 1 and Jumbo's will have our custom from now on.

ok dont think we'll be goin there then

Ive not been to the new sheffield one, but the one in doncaster has very little choice and I think it was more pricey than jumbos.

Went for lunch today - looks nicer than jumbo, the service was better and liked the refillable soft drinks BUT food only alright and not very hot, not much choice - especially in the way of starters and I've felt a bit grotty all afternoon...

For 4.99 I'm not grumbling but I won't be rushing to pay the £8.99 for the grand buffet....

I went last week. Now listen, Sheffield is beginning to get very cosmopolitan and has a fantastic selection of restaurants and places to eat. As a middle-class professional person, rather than a restaurant critic, I don't claim to have a refined palate but I enjoy well-cooked food and reasonable wine. These notes reflect my own experience when visiting restaurants in the Sheffield area. Now, what can I say about Wokmania!!!!????!!!! Innovation is not usually associated with the Chinese restaurant scene, but at last something different is starting to happen and whilst not strictly innovative, it is at least new to this rapidly growing city. Very friendly and unpretentious chinese restaurant with great food. The food was really excellent and always more than I could eat. I am not an endless heap of stomach that just craves craves craves the devine fullness of a hapless meal. The service was great. The décor is contemporary, but the dishes are creations from the chink past. The menu states that it traces the diets of the great armies of Kublai Khan when they left China and headed across other asian areas. The Crispy duck just quacks in the mouth and the beanshoot vegitarian bake with Noodle Tangle is simply holistic. Weldone Wokmania!

The Crispy duck just quacks in the mouth

and it was still crispy?

Vile vile vile. We went last Saturday and we're never ever going again. I did complain, well I made a comment in passing and the manager overheard. He then came to sit with us so he could listen to our views. I explained that the food was bland. I asked him to try the schetzwan (no idea how to spell that) as it was as spicy as a banana. I also mentioned that for £9 you can get a good quality and gorgeous main dish from the Simply Chinese up the road. Although you wouldn't get as much for your money in the Simply Chinese you will certainly get something of much higher quality. The manager was quite sympathetic and explained that he had asked the kitchen staff to tone the food down as he had received complaints that the food was too spicy. He also mentioned that the food in the Leeds restaurant was a lot spicier and it just seemed that sheffield wasn't quite ready for some decent food!! He thanked us for our comments and gave us a 15% discount off the bill, which I was happy with as I hadn't even intended to complain.

To be honest I think it is our own fault for going there in the first place. I have also been to Jumbo and No 1 and although I think that these places are great for a cheap lunch with work mates, I have never been impressed by either of them.

If you want quantity over quality go to wokmania. If you want some decent food go to Simply Chinese!!

+ Good atmosphere / comfortable

+ Soft drink refill

+ Whippy Ice-cream

- Poor service

- Poor food quality

- cheeky 10% service charge

- poor food variety

If I want to go to a Chinese buffet again, I think I will go to Jumbo instead... but if I want a proper Chinese dinner I will prefer Simply Chinese

Went there with colleagues last week after getting p***ed off with No1 treating me as a thief when I dine on my own (payment in advance please? No!)

Wokmania:

- Not nearly such a wide choice as No1 and to be honest many of the dishes were a bit bland.

- Poor service to get a table and worse still trying to get drinks.

- Mr Whippy was broken

- No cutlery in the tray

- Tables arranged such that you have to move people to get back out to the food from many of the seats

+ Nice decor

+ One of the noodle dishes was actually pretty good

The automatic 10% "service" charge was an insult: I wouldn't have left anything given the service we recieved and I'm on company expenses!

*Edit: Went to Jumbo's Monday night. Not greatly impressed with that place either. Looks like No.1 "we treat you like a thief if you're on your own" comes out on top.....