Pizza Hut $6 Buffet

This offer's been available for years, but until last week it escaped me. A recent drive to Yucca Valley convinced me to change my mind, especially since it was over 100 degrees outside and my car's A/C fan stopped working. I needed to stay indoors awhile. And come on, it's Pizza Hut!

The basic propostion is simple. $6 covers unlimited access to all the pizza, salad, pasta, dessert (pudding and pizza) you could want. A drink is included so it's a great deal. It's a better bargain than KFC's $10 buffet in Banning though there you have more options overall and way more protein.

As far as pizza quality goes, my gut feeling is the buffet stuff is only slightly less tasty than the usual made to order pies. I detected two types of crust: thin and dusted with oil, and a thicker buttery crust. Both were enjoyable though the thinner crust would allow you to eat a lot more in one sitting.

They have 8 pizzas sitting in the station at one time. They alternate between 6 different types of pizza, it felt like, depending on customer request and actual demand. The only downside to this type of buffet are the slow moments when people aren't eating much and the food on the tray is getting old and cold. In terms of taste, I'd compare the Pizza Hut lunch buffet to Cici's Pizza. I prefer Cici's because they have more pies available at one time, more dessert pizzas, and their offer for all-you-can eat stands all day.

20 slices of pizza for $6 is an unbeatable deal. That seems to equate about two medium pizzas, and that more than sufficed for my food needs for the whole rest of the day. It also provided great fodder for my blog, which has gone lonely lately. It's nice to have something new to write about.

Candied Peppers

I'm a sucker for novelty food products. Salt & Straw, with two locations in Portland, features special flavors of ice cream every month.

Last month, when I was traversing Oregon, one of those seasonal flavors was "Sweet Heat Apricot." The sweet heat comes from candied scotch bonnet peppers. Scotch bonnets pack a punch, but after being all sugared up you can hardly tell. The apricot was balanced.

I visited the shop with Aaron Wakamatsu and we went to town. He got a sensible portion, and the quart for $8 called my name. Video upcoming.

Superior Ice Cream

In November 2009, I took a drive up North and made a 20-mile detour off the Highway 99 to the city of Hanford. It's slightly off the main drag - I remember a long drive on a state highway with a depressing speed limit of 55 mph - but it is a beautiful, charming little town. I really liked the downtown area. They have all those little shops lined up alongside one other, and those predictable lamposts up and down both sides of the street. I was refreshed when I saw this place. It was a nice change of pace after 200 miles of freeway.

While walking around the city, I sampled some pizza from Fatte Albert's Pizza Company. It was definitely good stuff. They claim that their 28" round pie is the largest pizza available in the city of Hanford. I ordered a small cheese pizza, and I must say it was one of the tastiest pizzas I'd ever eaten.... even if it was on the pricier side.

After the pizza, I continued on to Superior Dairy. I found out about this place from the EatFeats website. They were supposed to have a huge ice cream sundae on the menu, and I decided I needed to eat it. Life is simple sometimes.

The place looked nice enough from the outside. I was delighted to find that it was open for business. You never know with some of these places.

On the inside, it was clean and reminded me of those old time diners. The only problem I had was the speed of service - I sat in one of the booths quite awhile before the servers paid any attention to me. I was forewarned though: several reviews off Yelp told the same story. I sure hoped the food would make up for the waiting times.

And there it was on the menu: The Superior Oversize Sundae, or the S-O-S, billed as a 7-scoop sundae with the works. I didn't think I'd need any help finishing this one - no matter what the menu said. I confidently placed my order and asked for a Chocolate Coke to go along with it.

My drink arrived several minutes before the dessert. I thought it had an interesting taste. I'd never exeprienced the mix of Coca Cola with chocolate ice cream, but I think the tastes went well together. It was certainly incredibly sweet and sugary. It was good prep for what was coming out of the kitchen.

SOS! This thing was big! At that point, this was the biggest ice cream dish I'd ever ordered. The most intimidating part of it is the mountain of whipped cream that really prevents you from digging into the sundae. And yes, that is a paper umbrella atop the whole monstrosity. I saved it for awhile, but I haven't been able to find it. I assumed it fell apart and I threw it away.

The ice cream tasted delicious.... vanilla, chocolate, strawberry, and a bunch of sherbet flavors decked out with flavor sauces and a banana. Unfortunately the tastes became muddled together quickly, but it was really high quality stuff.

I enjoyed every bite of it. I just wish the flavors didn't get so mixed up. Ice cream is one of my favorite foods to eat en masse, and it's a better experience when you can savor the differences in taste. I'm going to blame the whipped cream - it was hard to attack the ice cream with so much cream in the way, and by the time I cleared through the whipped cream a significant portion of the sundae had melted over the goblet. I guess I needed to eat more quickly.

I acheived the all-clear in roughly 8-9 minutes. This wasn't a challenge or anything, but I definitely enjoyed my experience at Superior Dairy. If I'm ever in Hanford, I'll make sure to stop by and sample another SOS. Maybe I'll eat two.

Eat All You Can!

Back in February 2010, I had the opportunity to eat at the Choices Buffet at Pala.... for those wondering, Pala is near Temecula. Choices was a good experience for me, easily one of the most satisfying all-you-can-eat binges I've been on. Lots of their food was delectable, and I sampled a few things I'd never eaten before.

I must apologize because I didn't take a photo of my second plate, but I think the pictures I did take do justice to the offerings at this Pala restaurant. Italics will denote the foods that I was sampling for the first time.

 1) King crab legs, jumbo shrimp, lobster tails, and swordfish

2) Prime rib, sirloin steak, lobster tails, roasted duck, veal, potatoes, and leg of lamb

3) Hamburger patties, ketchup, piles of cheese, french fries, lobster tails, and curly fries. This is standard fast food mostly, but it was there - and it tasted better than usual. I really enjoyed the pepperjack and provolone cheeses, which you don't often find at McDonald's or Burger King.

4) This is one of the things that separates higher-end buffets from the rest: custom desserts with real ice cream! I was impressed with this vanilla-banana split, buried as it is under a pile of M&M's. It was refreshing to eat some sugar after all the preceding salt.

5) These fancy desserts came from a display case. I asked the server to put one of every kind on my plate.... they were all good, but I especially liked the ones with chocolate in them.

6) Strawberry shortcake sundae, with an extra chocolate chip cookie

7) The desserts from the other side of the display case. I was feeling a massive sugar overload by the time I got through the offerings on this final plate. Again, I really dug the chocolates, but the tiramisu was awesome too. I'm still impressed by the printed designs on the dessert items.

I had a great time at Choices Buffet, and I think that anyone who likes their food will too. It was not easy thinking about food for several hours after I completed my meal. At about $15-30 depending on the meal, I think this a higher-end California buffet worth visiting.

Go there. Eat.