There was considerable excitement at the Manchester Evening News when we first heard about the local buffet restaurant where food was being served by a robot.
Some 37 years since Sico the robot delivered cake and wished Paulie a happy birthday in Rocky IV , it seems the future has finally arrived at The Chinese Buffet in Wigan.
As someone with fond memories from afternoons spent at Chinese buffets as a hungry teenager – without a robot in sight – I jumped at the chance to see how the game had evolved.
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However, the robot turned out to be the least strange thing about my experience there.
Leaving the multi-storey car park next door with my partner, we arrived at The Chinese Buffet’s slightly-confusing back entrance on a Sunday afternoon – something which would turn out to be a costly mistake, but more on that later.
Our food arrives
(Image: Manchester Evening News)
Back at the start of the pandemic, when we were busy washing our hands to the tune of ‘happy birthday’, I had feared we might have seen the last of buffet restaurants.
Thankfully that hasn’t proved the case on the other side of Covid restrictions – although some buffet restaurants have changed the way they operate.
The Chinese Buffet is one of those – and as we arrived we were handed over a QR code to download the restaurant’s app before being taken to our table in the less-than-one-third full restaurant.
I don’t believe in saying ‘the customer’s always right’ – some people can be horrifically rude to hospitality workers who are just doing their job.
Still, I was stunned to find a place exists where the customers – namely myself and the other helped – could be constantly in the wrong.
A waitress took our drinks order – two glasses of Pepsi Max – and asked if we’d be interested in the platter for two to start.
Instead, we chose to read the online menu and geared up for what would be our first ‘mistake’.
We had been told we could order up to six items at a time – three per customer – to be delivered by the robot.
But while we were just looking at starters for our first round of the buffet and didn’t know how big the portions would be, we chose three starters to share between the two of us.
It soon became apparent this wasn’t the way things are expected to be done at The Chinese Buffet though – as a slightly bemused-looking waiter reminded us we could have ordered six things, and left us feeling like we definitely should have.
Still, we were soon cheered back up by the sight of the robot bringing over our food.
The robot turned out to be the highlight
(Image: Manchester Evening News)
A member of staff plates up your order and places it on the robot’s trolley, before it makes it’s way through the restaurant to your table with a face lit up, and arrives in exactly the right spot.
It’s a moment of giddy magic and a lot of fun – although a waiter still comes along to move the plates from the trolley onto your table, leaving the feeling that the whole thing is a bit of a gimmick.
Our starters – vegetable spring rolls, spare ribs, and salt and pepper chicken wings – arrived comfortably before the 12-minute wait time the app had predicted.
Often it’s the case that the quality of food at a buffet isn’t quite as good as in a regular restaurant, and so it proved here, with our starters being a mixed bag.
The salt and pepper chicken was easily the pick of the trio – the meat cooked to perfection and served hot, with the flavor spot-on.
Next we tried the ribs, which themselves were fine, but came served in a rather bland and overly sweet sauce.
But the spring rolls were particularly poor – with a crisp pastry shell covering up a mushy sogginess that left the vegetables inside unidentifiable.
Salt and pepper chicken, spring rolls and spare ribs
(Image: Manchester Evening News)
For our next round of food, we went for two of our favorite dishes, chicken with black bean sauce and sweet and sour chicken.
And with the words of the waiter still ringing in our ears, we made a conscious decision to order our maximum of six items – as egg fried rice, noodles with beansprouts, salt and pepper chips and crispy seaweed made up the numbers.
The food came – again ahead of the app’s predicted time – and the selection was again hit and miss.
There were no complaints with the sides – the seaweed had a deliciously delicate flavour, the chips were as good as the salt and pepper chicken had been, the noodles were tasty and the rice was served piping hot.
The two mains let the meal down though.
The chicken in black bean sauce was the pick of the pair, but it came with such tiny pieces of green pepper and onion you were left wondering what had happened to the rest of it.
The mains and sides in round two, except the seaweed, which was polished off first
(Image: Manchester Evening News)
And if that dish was light on the green stuff, it was virtually none existent in the sweet and sour.
With a bitter sauce and just one measly bit of pineapple, it was far more sour than sweet, while the spongy meat had lost all resemblance of battered chicken.
We polished the dishes off – with enough food from that particular order to fill our plate twice each – and were at a more than satisfactory level of fullness.
While we did ponder ordering another round of food, but felt we’d be overdoing things, and certainly wouldn’t manage the magic six that the staff seemed keen for us to order.
We asked for the bill and along came the first of two shocks that would round off our experience at The Chinese Buffet – the bill for £46.18, which topped the £50 mark after a tip.
Given we could have had a meal at one of Manchester’s best Chinese restaurants for a similar price, while many takeaways would serve up better quality food, we felt it was a bit steep.
Inside The Chinese Buffet – with a robot setting off with someone’s order from the staff-only section
(Image: Manchester Evening News)
I later discovered that The Chinese Buffet does a cheaper lunch service Monday to Saturday – at £12.50 rather than £19.99 per person for food – so admittedly that was poor planning on my part.
Yet it was what happened next that left us truly astounded.
As we finished our drinks, stood up and began to put on our coats, the woman who first greeted us in the restaurant came over to question why we were leaving so soon.
“Did you not realize it’s an all you can eat buffet?” she asked, stunned that we were already full.
“You’ve barely had anything.”
We were taken back, caught firmly on the back foot, and were left feeling embarrassed in front of the other diners sat nearby.
Ironically, we had not focused on ordering six dishes in that second round of food, we probably would have stayed for a third or even fourth sitting.
We arrived at the less-than-welcoming back entrance for The Chinese Buffet
(Image: Manchester Evening News)
Had she been watching us and counting our dishes the whole time we were there? Were the staff gossiping about our embarrassingly small appetites?
We briskly made our escape – this time through the main entrance on Standishgate – and couldn’t think about anything else on the way home.
I really wanted to enjoy my trip to The Chinese Buffet.
Having seen a video of it on Facebook, the prospect of being served my food by a robot had captured the imagination.
And there’s no doubt the staff are going above and beyond to make sure people feel safe as we emerge from the pandemic – the restaurant was spotless and the unique ordering system well organised.
Had we popped in for the cheaper lunch menu a day earlier, it might have just about been decent value for money.
But with so-so quality and after being pushed by staff to keep ordering food not once, but twice, it’s really hard to recommend The Chinese Buffet.
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