Family dining at Spice Route’s all you can eat lunch buffet

Cardiff Family dining
Spice Route Cardiff

As I mentioned yesterday, we went to review the The BFG on Friday, as part of our role as blogger ambassadors for The Red Dragon Centre.

While we were there, we were invited to Spice Route for their all you can eat lunch buffet. And we certainly did as instructed, with plates piled high of delicious food, and bellies nicely full upon leaving.

Spice Route Cardiff

The buffet includes loads of options. You can choose from a range of curries and rice (including a number of vegetarian options – I especially like the dhal. I’m not always good with food that is too hot, but it was all manageable for me!), vegetable stir fry cooked in front of you, Indian pancakes served with sauces, a salad bar (providing some great healthy options, including some gorgeous sweet potato and chick pea dishes, plus plenty of salad), as well as side dishes of poppadums, onion bhajis, spring rolls, fries (including curried fries), and even pizza and onion rings.

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Cardiff Daddy’s plate of curries

Cardiff Daddy loves curry, and so was in his element here, as he could try as many as he wanted. I think he had three plates!

My children loved being able to help themselves to their food; the counters were low enough that my eldest two – Little Miss E, 6½ and 4¾-year-old Little Man O – could serve themselves quite independently, which they thought was fantastic fun.

Self-service buffets are a great option for family dining, as it means there’s no risk of over-hungry children getting impatient and grumpy while waiting for their meals to arrive.

The novelty of serving themselves also encourages them to try foods they might not otherwise choose, and because they can have a little bit of everything, you don’t have to worry about them ordering the wrong thing and refusing to eat their meal because they don’t like it. I’m lucky my children are pretty good at trying new foods, although anything too spice they’re not great with, so it was great there were so many different dishes for them to choose from.

Spice Route

Miss E and Little Man absolutely love noodles, so they were both excited to choose the ingredients for their stir fries. The chef impressed us by creating huge flames of fire in the wok, as he set about freshly cooking their food, which took just a couple of minutes.

Toddler Boy I, 2¼, couldn’t quite get his head around just how much food there was, and kept dragging us back up to choose more. He did a good job of devouring his food – although not so much that he didn’t have room for dessert.

Dessert is also self-service with choices including barfi, traditional Indian sweets made of sugar and milk powder; and gulajamun, small dumplings made of milk and deep fried in sugar syrup. There’s also chocolate doughnuts, cheese cake, and fresh fruit, although my children opted for jelly and ice cream served in cones.

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We thought the all-you-can-eat buffet was good value, with lunch costing £7.95 for adults and £4.95 for juniors (age 8 and under), Monday to Thursday (12-2.30pm), £8.95 and £5.95 Fridays to Sundays and Bank Holiday Mondays (12-4.30pm). Dinner (from 5.30pm) is £12.95/£6.95 Monday to Thursday, and £13.99/£7.95 Fridays, Saturdays and Bank Holidays.

Have you been to Spice Route in The Red Dragon Centre? Let me know what you thought in the comments below, on the Cardiff Mummy Says Facebook page or by tweeting me on @cardiffmummy

We were guests of Spice Route for the purpose of this review.

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