JRC Ilford restaurant review

September 9, 2014
Edamame beans, prawns, fish cakes and sweetcorn

 

A selection of desserts from Global Buffet in Ilford
Lamb chops with fried onions and rice
So here I go again, on the buffet crawl. This time I went to JRC Global Buffet Ilford, and the clue’s in the name.
Italian, Thai, Indian, Chinese and Japanese were all on the menu at the food fest.
Th golden elephant at the Global buffet in Ilford
The buffet mixed quality food, such as scallops cooked fresh before your very eyes – with some cheap and cheerful options such as onion rings, which tasted suspiciously like those from Iceland.
Prawn toast, potato croquettes and garlic mushrooms at the Global buffet

 

A line of food items at the Global buffet, Ilford
One note of caution of any who only eats halal meat – not everything at JRC Global Buffet was halal. We made this mistake initially when we loaded our plate without discrimination, before spotting the halal sign on some, but not all dishes.  This resulted in some food wastage. But we perhaps naively assumed that all the dishes would be halal given the location. So a tip if you’re visiting, check the signs. Also they also serve some pork dishes, such as in their dumplings.
Baskets of seafood at the teppanyaki section
The cuisine was definitely more leaning towards the Far East, with an impressive range of delicacies such as seaweed salad, a super-hot tom yum soup and deep fried okra. Oh and of course, a table of sushi.
Soup and oriental starters

 

A basket of seaweed salad
It was also good to see that chefs putting the food together seemed to be from the respective region they were representing. I’ve been to ‘world’ buffets before where every chef was of Indian origin and as a result the food didn’t taste authentic of varied (NB. That’s not me being racist, of course you’d be suspect of an Indian restaurant run by Italians, and vice versa).
Indian starters
Meat cutlets and vegetables for the main dish
Having been to more than my fair share of buffets and finding that the they’re often the jack of all and master of none, I was pleasantly surprised with the range on offer. And while there was more far eastern food than any other cuisine, I didn’t mind this so much as in quite a fan and it allowed me to experiment with dishes I haven’t tried, such as prawn with chive dumplings- what a revelation.
Seafood on ice, ready to be cooked on the Teppanyaki
The teppanyaki was also a great addition, there were generous options such as scallops in butter and prawn with lemon, which you have prepared before your very eyes.
My husband, who’s more of a meat eater, opted for lamb and beef with black pepper sauce for his made-to-order options. The teppenyaki only gives you a small portion of meat or fish, but this is only fair as people were queuing to order. You can also only choose two options, but that’s not to say you can’t go back again and get more. We however stuck to our two, as by this stage we were at bursting point.

 

Despite my feeling near-nausea, I was insistent on trying their more mainstream options such as chips and pizza, just because I love it.
And of course, we couldn’t leave without piling into their dessert. See the shameful evidence below. And this was only a small representation of what was on offer. For the uber sweet tooths, or children, there was also an extensive sweets section.
Jellies, carrot cake and shots of pannacotta for dessert
plats of food at the Global buffet in Ilford
So I left the JRC Global buffet pretty much in the same way I leave all buffets – full, bloated and slight ashamed, but having said all that, I would still visit the Global Buffet again.
HalimaBobs

About the Author

HalimaBobs

I’m a British-Bengali Muslim mum-of-two. My pictures aren’t filtered and neither are my words. I’m not a makeup artist, chef or lifestyle guru. I’m just me, sharing honest beauty reviews for brown skin, halal restaurant finds, travel inspo, mum life hacks, easy Bengali recipes and more. If that’s your bag, keep reading!

Follow HalimaBobs:

Leave a Comment: