Eastern Tiger Restaurant has replaced Top Taste, which replaced Noble Palace in Phillip, Woden. A friend organised dinner there on Sunday night which was when I found out that Eastern Tiger provide an Asian all you can eat buffet!
The fit out inside has been modified so that all seating is now upstairs to allow room for the buffet stations downstairs.
There’s a LOT of food. Three types of soups – chicken and sweet corn, mushroom and pumpkin. I tried the pumpkin and there was something not quite right about it – too creamy and powdery. The chicken and sweet corn was pretty average. There are plenty of deep fried items like chips, wedges, fried calamari, samosas and spring rolls.
And deep fried prawn cutlets, fried chicken wings, chicken nuggets, fried dim sims, fried dumplings (unfortunately stuffed with imitation seafood sticks) and prawn crackers. I found the baked cheese mussels in this section too – very cheesy!
Then there’s an assortment of meats – sausages, roast pork, roast beef, roast lamb, ham, BBQ steak and BBQ chicken. And yes there are two types of gravy to go with all of that.
At the next station, you’ll find the Asian meats like BBQ pork, roast pork belly and roast duck. I kept missing the duck meat whenever I went to refill the plate, but the BBQ pork was nice.
Another station had all the popular westernised Asian dishes like honey chicken, beef and black bean, garlic prawns (these were hidden at the bottom of what looked like a tray of creamy sauce), sweet and sour pork, fried rice and noodles. There’s also pasta available on another station but I had no room left to try it out.
There are cold dishes like prawns that you’ll need to peel (and I hear were pretty good), mussels, sushi and several salads to choose from (I liked the smoked salmon salad but mainly for the amount of smoked salmon in it). For dessert, there’s banana cake (surprisingly yummy), pavlova, warm tapioca, bread and butter pudding (didn’t like this one), apple pie, lime jelly, five flavours of ice cream, toppings, cream and fresh fruit.
For those that have not experienced a buffet such as this, follow these steps:
- Pay at the counter and then you will be shown to your table
- Stacks of clean plates, bowls and cutlery are provided at the buffet stations. Pick one up and start piling on the food. The sky’s the limit!
- After you’ve finished plate #1, you can leave it on the table as staff regularly walk around to clear dirty dishes.
- Go back down to the buffet stations, pick up another clean plate and repeat step 3 as often as your stomach can handle. Don’t forget to pick up fresh cutlery if needed.
- Make your own cup of tea or coffee using the machine at the front counter. There’s also a water station available.
As we were seated towards the back of the restaurant, there were another set of steps near the back that we could use to get to the buffet stations. I noticed the steps got dirty easily with splashes of some sort of liquid and food scraps left on the steps. It must be where the dirty dishes collected from the tables are placed before being moved to the dishwasher. Anyway, be careful on those steps as I can imagine people slipping with a plate of food.
For the connoisseurs with finer tastes, Eastern Tiger is probably not for you. There is plenty of food but it is rather average and mainly using cheap ingredients. A lot of the food is fried or greasy, not great if you’re on a diet. On the plus side, there is so much choice and it is great value for money. The kids seem to love the place and were going hard with the five flavours of ice cream. Unlimited soft drink is available for an extra $2.50. House wine is $6 a glass and bottled beer from $6. You are guaranteed to be full before rolling out of this restaurant.
Prices for adults are as follows:
Lunch: $16.50 Monday to Saturday and $23.50 on Sunday
Dinner: $23.50 Sunday to Friday and $28.50 on Saturday
Prices for children between 3 and 14 years old (kids under 3 years old eat for free):
Lunch: $1.00 x age Monday to Saturday and $1.20 x age on Sunday
Dinner: $1.20 x age Sunday to Friday and $1.50 x age on Saturday
Eastern Tiger is open seven days a week and is located at 28-30 Corinna Street in Phillip. Bookings are recommended. It was busy for a Sunday night!
Foodgasm 5/10
Value for money 8/10
Service 7/10
FPJ score 20/30
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