Lychee Buffet in Bellingham, WA

Updated: 31st Jan 2015; This restaurant is closed according to Urbanspoon.com.

With the Canadian Dollar getting so strong against the US Dollar, we thought it is a good idea to pop over to Washington state to buy stuff and to stuff ourselves silly with buffet. Buffets in the US is always so much more bigger, better and cheaper than what we normally find in Vancouver.

Bellingham is the closest US city to Vancouver, which is just 15 minutes drive from the border. Bellingham is a thriving little city and I heard over the radio that it is the 6th fastest growth small city in the US … all of this is attributed a lot to it’s close proximity to Canada. Much of the economy of Bellingham is due to the cross border shopping and business.

We had always went to the Old Country Buffet in the Bellis Fair Mall but decided this time to look for another place. We found the Lychee Buffet just off the I-5 at exit 253. The address is 819 Lakeway Drive.

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Lychee Buffet is a chinese style buffet. We went on a weekend and they have the Seafood Special Buffet then. The crabs, oh the crabs … all you can eat! We had a fun time cracking the crabs and peeling the prawns (did I say the prawns?) with our hands. Nice, really nice, dipping it the cocktail sauce.

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There must have been at least five different selections of prawns. The prawns were no tiny-weeny types. There are also oysters and clams. Did I forget to mention salmon too?

Anyway, there were at least 30 different dishes on the main buffet bar. All in, I felt that there must have been at least 80 different dishes in all.

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As always we ended regretting eating buffet. We stuffed ourselves so full we can hardly sit upright. Arkensen was so full that he did not even take his ice-cream. I am sure we have put in an extra kilogram or two by tomorrow.

The quality is not too bad but they were not great either. Well, at least they don’t look and taste like they have been left under the heater overnight — looking dried.

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Grand Pacific Buffet in New Westminster

Updated 17th Jan 2011: This restaurant had closed according to Urbanspoon.com.

“I heard” is good; “I saw” is better; “I tasted” is best.
~ Ben Yap

The chinese employees at my workplace organized a Chinese New Year lunch celebration today. We do that every year. This year, they have graciously invited Suanne too for the lunch because they wanted to also make this a farewell lunch for me. For the first time, the organizer decided that we go to a buffet for a change. We went to the Grand Pacific Buffet in New Westminster. The Grand Pacific Buffet is a buffet with Western, Chinese and Japanese food with predominantly Chinese food.

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There were a lot of varieties. The food is so-so but then it’s not fair to compare buffets to the normal restaurants. I was wary of MSG with the tell-tale thirstiness after the meal but nope, it was not at all. Suanne and I went for two full rounds and ended up sharing the dessert. The photos below does not tell much but anyway, these are our second round plates. It’s about $8 for a weekday lunch.

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Good food goes best with good company. These people are not co-workers but has been friends to me for a long time. I was always the odd one out with this group because I do not understand their brand of Mandarin. It does not matter, as long as the food is good — they are the SME’s (Best Buy’s overused term for Subject Matter Experts) in Chinese food around Burnaby. (more…)

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