I am allergic to seafood so I don't usually go to those all you can eat buffets at hotels on my own. Even though I eat like a food monster, it still appears to be not completely worth the price. I'm more suited for all you can eat barbecues and hotpot. I would know cause I got kicked out once for eating too much steak. Still, I've been to quite a lot of these buffets because people like to hold events and treat people to dinner at these places.
I got free tickets to the Café Hyatt from Revu Taiwan earlier this year and was originally going to come in May. But exactly the day after I received them, there was a COVID-19 outbreak and we went into level-3 alert. Recently, the pandemic has subsided a bit here in Taiwan and buffets are open again. So I took Ares to go eat our hearts out.
First, I gotta praise and thank Ares. He knew that I would write a blog post when we get home as per usual, so while we were waiting to be seated, he reminded me to eat and not spend all my time taking pictures. While we were eating, he only took one type of cuisine each time and even plated the food nicely. Then he took pictures of his plate before he ate. He ended up taking even more pictures than I did. Half of these photo credits go to him. The warmer photos are taken by his Huawei, the brighter photos were taken by my iPhone 12.
Café Grand Hyatt All You Can Eat Afternoon Tea Buffet– COVID Measures
To ensure everyone's safety, I would still like to remind everyone about this. Though the COVID-19 situation has subsided here and our vaccine coverage has increased, we still have to do our best to prevent the spread of the pandemic. Café Hyatt is a buffet instead of having our food brought to us, so there are certain measures we must follow. Masks must be worn at all times when we leave our seats. There are also disposable gloves in the food area that should be worn when getting food. The preventative measures are pretty comprehensive. When I went, everyone was following the rules as well. We all deserve gold medals for being model citizen!
Now let's talk about the food at Café Hyatt. Before we get into the details, here's a recap:
Japanese Food: 5/5
Indian Food: 4.5/5
Salad Bar: 5/5
Western Cuisine: 2/5
Chinese Food: 1/5
Dessert: 4/5
Café Grand Hyatt All You Can Eat Afternoon Tea Buffet Review–Japanese Food
Most people come to hotel buffets for seafood so let's start with that. Not a lot of all you can eat buffets serve sashimi. I think I've only seen it at Shinyeh's Japanese buffet and the buffet at Le Méridien Taipei, which is super expensive by the way. If you like Japanese food and raw fish, I would definitely recommend coming here. I don't eat seafood but sashimi and sushi are Ares' favorite. Naturally, getting this heaping plate was his first stop after looking around. Large strips of raw fish are kept in a see-through fridge and the sashimi is freshly sliced upon order. There were mackerel, snapper, swordfish, and Ares' favorite–salmon. I could only relay Ares' description, he said it was great. (No, additional adjectives sorry. My dad is like this, too.) Normally, he only likes sashimi but he said that the sushi rolls were also delicious. He wanted seconds but he decided to try other cuisines first. He even briefly considered whether it is worth it to come here just for the sashimi some other time.
The miso soup was also different, it's more like a fish soup. You can find pieces of fish in it. Ares said that he was really impressed by it. Miso is an acquired taste and he usually dislikes strong miso soup. He said that the miso wasn't too strong and did not overpower the taste of the fish. He really wanted me to try it but I really didn't want to risk an allergic reaction so I was happy with just watching him eat.
Café Grand Hyatt All You Can Eat Afternoon Tea Buffet Review– Indian Food
This didn't look impressive at all. Actually, it kind of looked like a mess cause that's what curry looks like, what can you do? So we skipped it several times but it ended up being our favorite! Just a reminder, vegetarian Indian food still contains garlic and other spices. After all, Indian food is all about the clash of spices. So it doesn't comply with every vegetarian diet.
For those who are confused by this statement, some religious vegetarians in Taiwan aren't allowed to eat spices either because they are "too stimulating" and would "cause them to become susceptive to human desires." I love human desires, I have a bunch, so I guess it's okay that I love spices. Just look in my kitchen drawer and you'd know.
Café Hyatt serves Indian curry, masala, and various chutneys. We agreed that the naan was a bit dry and hard, I didn't like it, but the basmati (spiced Indian rice) was so good! I could eat it alone and it gives off this light aroma with a hint of a milky taste. Ares' favorite way of eating this was to put a little bit of every curry, masala, and chutney next to each other so that they meet in the middle. He kept saying "The part in the middle is the best!" He likes the combination of the flavor. I usually hate having my food touch each other, but he fed me a bite like that and it was amazing! The curry and masala taste great being eaten separately as well, just make sure that you add chutney, it's such a plus. It's sour, sweet, and savory at the same time with a hint of spicy. I could almost forget that there was no meat! I ate three plates of this alone. I told you I am a food monster, don't doubt that for a second.
But I still think it would be nice if there were some meat choices. There was a fish curry in the beginning–which really makes no difference to me but it was there–I think it ran out quickly cause I didn't see it again later. If there would be a chicken masala or beef curry it would be perfect. By the way, the chickpeas in the chickpea curry was not cooked very well. I use chickpeas a lot so I immediately noticed that it wasn't fully cooked. But the sauce was delicious so I just avoided the chickpeas and ate the sauce with other stuff.
Café Grand Hyatt All You Can Eat Afternoon Tea Buffet Review–Salad Bar
I love the salad bar. There were many different raw greens to choose from. There's a variety of vegetables/fruit to add to your salad as well. There were celery, okra, cauliflower, black fungus mushroom, carrots, and chestnuts. Just looking at all those colors made me so happy. There were also nuts, dried fruit, and multiple dressings on the side.
I sprinkled mine with some mixed nuts then drizzled some balsamic and olive oil. Though Ares made fun of me for being a goat, I thought it was great. But he also mentioned that most people probably don't want to fill up on salad at an all you can eat buffet, which makes sense, but I don't really care. I just want to enjoy something that I like.
Café Grand Hyatt All You Can Eat Afternoon Tea Buffet Review–Western Cuisine
Next, we are entering a minor landmine zone. I love that we call eating food that turns out to be terrible "stepping on a landmine" in Chinese. It's so accurate, it should be a thing in English, too.
For the roast chicken, I got a piece of chicken thigh so it was tender, of course. But I don't know why it was so flavorless. I can see that there were vegetables and rosemary next to it but I couldn't smell or taste it on the chicken at all. It wasn't salty enough either, it got better after we asked for salt. The skin was very crispy so it would be good while it was still hot, but it's really difficult to eat hot food at buffets. I think it would be great to remove the meat from the chicken and eat it with the aforementioned Indian food. DIY chicken masala! Am I a genius or what?
I usually go for the steak and roast beef at buffets because, well, I love beef, and no seafood for me. I'm not sure why the roast beef at Café House is fully cooked. A lot of hotel buffets have roast beef. I always ask for the rare parts but the chef at the stand told me that it's all well-done because it was cooked in the oven whole. But it's a huge chunk of beef, if you cook it in the oven whole and don't overcook it, the center should still be rare. Unless they're trying to make smoked brisket? It looks like they might be going for something similar, but brisket doesn't look huge and round like that. There's also black pepper sauce and gravy on the side, which is not really how you eat smoked brisket either. Bottomline, he said it was roast beef so I'm done trying to figure out what it is. This is the first time I've ever eaten well-done roast beef in my life, I'm so confused.
Normally, I don't add any sauce or topping to my roast beef, steak, or brisket. But this roast beef was dry and devoid of flavor. I see spices but they didn't do much. I also had to dip it in salt and Ares made fun of me for stepping on a landmine. I saw quite a lot of people taking this but they all added a lot of sauce. Good beef that is well-seasoned should not have to be drowned in sauce! If you like roast beef, I recommend Far Eastern Café at Shangri-La's Far Eastern Plaza Hotel.
There was also truffle risotto and seafood pumpkin soup which Ares loved. To me, the soup has a light pumpkin aroma and a heavy seafood smell. Because I don't eat seafood, I am very sensitive to the smell. Ares said that he couldn't really detect it, so maybe for most people it's a light seafood smell and heavy pumpkin aroma. I am very terrified of stinky seafood but the pumpkin soup smelled pleasant to me, which means that they probably use pretty fresh ingredients. There's seafood and fish in it but you don't see them in the photo here because Ares asked the chef at the stand for just soup. The soup is baby yellow which is different from what I am used to and what we make at home. The one we make is a lot more orange. Maybe it's a different type of pumpkin or they add more milk. The risotto has a very strong mushroom and truffle taste. I don't like truffle but I can tell whether it's good. The risotto was very creamy and the rice was perfectly al dente. But the risotto is very rich so we kind of got tired of it quickly. They give you just a small plate when you ask for one which is actually the perfect amount. By the way, take a look at the picture with the risotto and mackerel. What is this Michelin style plating with that great sauce texture! Round of applause for Ares.
Café Grand Hyatt All You Can Eat Afternoon Tea Buffet Review–Chinese Food
Major landmine zone, I personally think you can skip this section. I do like Chinese food! But I don't know what's going on here. Yeah, Ares was smart, he took one look and walked away. Maybe I just can't stand it cause my mom is too good of a cook.
My only favorite was the blanched vegetables at the noodle stand. There are a lot of toppings to choose from on the side. I dressed mine with chili sauce, vinegar and sprinkled some green onion and chili slices. It was great.
There are 3 types of noodles to choose from at the noodle stand: thin noodles, thick ramen, and wide noodles. I loved that part. Most noodle stands at hotel buffets serve regular noodle soup topped with minced meat sauce or seafood. I happily bounced to the noodle stand only to realize that they were serving ShangHai scallion simmered noodle soup. Please don't do this to me, my grandparents are from ShangHai. This is not how it is done. I used a direct translation for the title of the dish because that helps you understand how it should be made. First of all, thick and wide noodles should not even be an option. Simmered noodles are supposed to be thin noodles slowly simmered in the soup until they turn extremely soft. You can't just blanch noodles in water, add scallion soup to it, and call it scallion simmered noodles. NO. I have already said that I wanted to order something when I realized this so I quickly made an excuse saying that I don't want to have an allergic reaction to the dried shrimp in the soup. Actually, my seafood allergy is not that terrible, I've never had a reaction to scallion simmered noodles. It's one of my favorite dishes.
For the Mapo Tofu, I don't think they stir-fried the bean paste, soy sauce, and minced meat well enough before they added in the rest of the ingredients. It tasted like tofu with soy sauce paste. The kimchi pork was very confusing as well. The fat on the pork was not chewy and the kimchi was off. It felt like biting into a melting lard dipped in soy sauce. The rose chicken was good though. It was the best meat dish from that day. It was tender with a hint of cooking wine.
Café Grand Hyatt All You Can Eat Afternoon Tea Buffet Review–Dessert
We had such a great time having the dessert! Although Ares and I don't usually like desserts, sharing a huge plate of dessert is just so much fun. There is a huge variety of desserts and everything is small so you can try a little bit of everything. The ice cream is Häagen-Dazs so there are no complaints there. They also had macadamia ice cream that day, which is one of my favorites.
My entry to the world of cooking was actually desserts, so I am extremely picky. I didn't like the pastries too much. But they were still good paired with ice cream. I liked the chocolate caramel macadamia cake. It was very smooth and creamy. The mini lemon tarts were pretty good, too. It's one of the very few store-bought lemon tarts that I found lemony and sour enough. But they missed the spot for the perfect tart-to-filling ratio. The tart is a bit thick, which I like, because it gives the dessert a crunchy texture. It just needs a bit more filling to balance it out.
Ares, on the other hand, thought most of them were great. Every time he took a bite of something he would tell me that I HAVE to try it. But I was already so full! Anyway, the desserts were good, I'm just picky, it's my personal issue.
By the way, I completely forgot about the fruit section. It's next to the drinks. There were grapefruits and pineapples that day. For drinks, there were grapefruit juice, orange juice, and lemon water. In a fridge in the corner which is easily overlooked, there are Coke and Sprite.
Café Grand Hyatt All You Can Eat Afternoon Tea Buffet–Reservation
If you are coming here, make sure you make the reservation way in advance! I made my reservation on 10/6 and the soonest I could get a seat for 2 for weekday afternoon tea was 10/28.
Though there were a few terrible dishes, it was good all in all. It's also one of the more affordable hotel buffets. I hope you don't think that I don't recommend this place, I just want to help you guys avoid the landmines so that you wouldn't have to choose between wasting food or wasting stomach space. Ares and I were super full. We haven't eaten out in a long time and had a wonderful time.
Café Grand Hyatt All You Can Eat Afternoon Tea Buffet Information
Address: 1F, No.2, Songshou Road, Xinyi District, Taipei City
Reservation hotline: (02)2720-1230
24hr online reservation: https://www.tablecheck.com/en/shops/grand-hyatt-taipei-cafe/reserve
Opening hours:
Breakfast 6:30–10:30
Lunch 11:30–14:00 PM
Afternoon tea 15:00–17:00
Dinner 18:00–21:00
Café Grand Hyatt All You Can Eat Afternoon Tea Buffet Pricing
Weekday lunch and dinner: adult NT$1,738; 5–12 years old NT$869
Weekday afternoon tea: adult NT$968; 5–12 years old NT$484
Weekend and national holiday lunch and dinner: adult NT$1,848; 5–12 years old NT$924
Weekend and national holiday afternoon tea: adult NT$1,188; 5–12 years old NT$594
(I've already added the 10% service fee to the prices.)
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