Iris Buffet

4.8 Average

Food  4      Ambience  5      Service  6      Value  4     

This restaurant is under new management recently. It costs $33/head for dinner. On the night (Dec 2011), the variety was reasonable but due to lack of customers, the food was a bit stale and not very inviting. It's a very tough and competitive business to be in, that's life.

Dec 28, 2011 

3.3 Below Average

Food  4      Ambience  2      Service  5      Value  2     

Not worth the visit. Very limited offer, though it say under new management, but my suggestion is the new management needs to re consider what they are offering will not bring any return customer.

Nov 21, 2011 

1 Not Recommended

Food  1      Ambience  1      Service  1      Value  1     

I'm just going to list my experience:

1. There were only about 3 tables of two people at peak hour lunch time.
2. Where we were seated (next to the toilet) all we could smell was moth balls.
3. We couldn't decide to leave all the sudden because we paid as we walked in.
4. Everything looked like leftovers.
5. One out of every twenty items were labelled.
6. Hardly any variety, most was seafood that we had to cook ourselves and we don't like that stuff.
7. Staff was loud in the kitchen.
8. Staff was so bored I saw a waitress stirring one of the curries in boredom.
9. Ice cream machine wasn't working.
10. I dropped a cube of jelly on the floor (and left it there) just to notice one of the staff members picking it up and placing it back in. (yes, I am serious.)

Basically we had a few stale chips, a cocktail spring roll each, some rockmelon and a cup of coffee and were out of there within 10 minutes. Oh and did I mention everything and everyone there were asians apart from us and another pair of aussies which also looked confused and regretful.

Apr 10, 2011 

5 Average

Food  5      Ambience  2      Service  5      Value  8     

Glen Iris buffet. Food was very very ordinary, not bad but quite ordinary. The only highlight is that there was seafood, not that it did much. The ambience, Very Very Asian styled. Talk Talk and Talk. It was very loud and uncomfortable. Service, there wasn't any, it is a buffet. The price was cheap because it just did its job, it filled you up.

Dec 06, 2010 

1.8 Not Recommended

Food  1      Ambience  2      Service  2      Value  2     

It is entirely possible that the site for this restaurant is in fact cursed. Prior to Iris, the paint on the billboard of some hopeful venture would barely be dry before the furniture trucks carted the tableware to a discount auction house and a new and even more hopeful restaurant venture would start. In this context Iris Buffet has now been there for forever and the cracks have not only begun to show, but are occasionally swallowing the more infirm patrons.

Iris was never a place you went to for a classy meal, it was reasonable value, reliable and had a few highlight dishes as well as better than average "grazing" fare mixed with superb views from full length windows overlooking the parklands and creek. Only the roast station was a horrific scene of abused and semi-mummified meat. Avoid that and the place was your oyster and yes, there were indeed oysters. Surprisingly good ones, in fact!

We went to Iris four or five times in its giddy heydays (the first two or three years) and then it sort of dropped off our radar. A week or so ago, all this changed as my wife, my 3 year old son and I found ourselves in the wonderful parkland that adjoins Iris, windblown, chilled and starving. The perfect prerequisites for not just surviving but enjoying a buffet meal! We stalked across the footbridge, entered Iris and immediately began to doubt the brilliance of our decision to dine there.

It is clear that no one has repainted in the years since we have been there, but I am not entirely certain anyone has properly vacuumed either. The help that was formerly cheerful and welcoming was now even more bored and sullen then the few diners who seemed to be enacting Death's Waiting Room at the tables. Our arrival had just reduced the average age of diners in the venue by more than 50%.

I paid in advance, already suspecting that if this action were my only lingering regret, I would be able to count myself lucky. In keeping with the service and decor, the food had become indifferent and downright glutinous. The bain maries were, well, swampy. Sauces had split or gone gooey. It was not enticing, unless you like displays of home composting techniques.

Long story short, we tried a little of most things and then strategized what we were likely to manage a meal of. Oysters not being in evidence was, perhaps, a well disguised blessing if the five or six despondent examples of superannuated sushi on the platter were any indication.

My meal consisted of mostly blue swimmer crab legs, mini spring rolls and believe it or not, the roast beef, which had not improved over the years but in present company was now a culinary highlight. Salads were peculiar for the obviously missing ingredients.

Remembering a guilty pleasure from former visits I decided on a dessert of crème caramel, which they used to do very well and with a funny little Asian spicy tone to the sauce. Excellent, I could yet salvage this experience.. And label it as nostalgia.
The stainless steel cups of custard were indeed there, but there was no sign of the sauce jug or its little heat pad. Perhaps, they now just poured the sauce into the base of the cup like normal people, I told myself. But no. One stale and unwholesome-tasting vanilla custard (Commercial powdered variety. Superior Foods brand, by the taste of it) and no sauce at all.

I could have dealt with the décor and the sticky carpet. I could have been philosophical about the service and tarpit bain maries, I could even forgive needing to sort through around six or so plates in order to find a couple that were not greasy, chipped or had those special black spider-web cracks right through them, but the dream of crème caramel being snuffed out was the last straw.

Our 3 year old meanwhile enjoyed a dessert of carefully vetted melon-balls and soft-serve ice-cream. Which capped off a meal that even he, with kindergarten-level cooking in his lunch-life five days a week, could not manage to find much appealing in. I made popcorn when we got home, which tied us over until dinnertime.

Nov 25, 2010 

1 Not Recommended

Food  1      Ambience  1      Service  1      Value  1     

Absolutely disgusted, went to a close friend's mother's birthday function (14 of us) for dinner on a weekday. Apart from one table of 3 (which we thought were staff) we were the only customers for the night.

The first dish in the so called buffet I noticed looked like 2 grilled or steamed fish (couldn't tell how they were cooked as both fish only had the heads and skeleton left on the platter! - at most two tablespoons of meat on one), question is when were they served (I suspect lunchtime - we were there at 7.30pm).

Most platters of food looked like they were left from lunchtime - and those left had the eyes picked out of them - They topped up rice and oranges (on fruit platter - rock and dew melon only). Platter of cakes (3 pieces of 2" by 2") was meant to be shared (luckily we had our own birthday cake). Note the pumpkin soup was OK - but again I 've had better from the supermarket (canned).

I hate putting down businesses that try but this was an absolute sham - No variety, Nothing topped up and most left over (I suspect from lunchtime) - the lack of customers says it all - they either have no idea or really know exactly what they are doing and are ready to rip anyone off. The methelated spirits or strong bleach smell didn't help their cause.

In summary I would never ever go back even if you paid me whatever. This is not an "eat all you can buffet" it's a "eat all that is left", which isn't much and of poor quality. My recommendation look elsewhere or you will be disappointed - it may have been good once but it has been run down to the ground now and is well past its use by date!

Jul 17, 2010 

2 Not Recommended

Food  1      Ambience  1      Service  5      Value  1     

This place is really bad. Being a local, I have been here often over the years, but now it has slipped past even the "edible" level. The first thing you'll notice when you are there is the lack of customers. Then you'll notice the distinct lack of food. And finally, you'll notice the lack of food quality.

Some anecdotes sum it up: When the food in the tray is low, instead of replenishing it, the staff just get a utensil and try to spread it out on the tray. Walking into the restaurant, there was a strong toilet/toilet cleaner type smell.

Apr 05, 2010 

5 Average

Food  4      Ambience  6      Service  6      Value  4     

I feel disappointed in this restaurant, not much variety and not much taste.

Jul 19, 2008 

2 Not Recommended

Food  1      Ambience  1      Service  5      Value  1     

There was practically no seafood (there was only fish) unless you pay extra. There was limited food and if you're vegetarian there wasn't really anything to make you full. The desserts were practically non existent and it's really all about quantity not quality. I expected European and seafood cuisine, however, it's all Asian.

Dec 16, 2007 

7 Recommended

Food  7      Ambience  6      Service  6      Value  9     

Good standard food at a great price. Buffet style. Service is pretty much non existent as you serve yourself. Clean and well presented eatery. Ideal for a get together with family and friends including children.

Jun 27, 2006