Sofitel's Spiral Buffet, is it worth it?

The Spiral Buffet is by far the most extensive buffet I've ever been too. But I really haven't been to many so I might be wrong.

By extensive I mean, variety, variety, variety. It also has the most impressive dessert buffet. Being a sweet tooth that I am, I am totally cool with just this side of the buffet table. More about this later.

We're not really allowed to take pictures of the buffet display so I'll just give you a rundown of what were laid out.  If you're facing the buffet table, from right to left, as faithfully as my memory and knowledge would serve me, here it is.

Thai - I didn't get any from here but it looked like coco milk figured in prominently in some of the dishes. I also saw some Pinoy-looking food but couldn't figured them out really.

Chinese - I got to taste some of the dimsums. The hakaw and the vegetable dumplings were good but I love the Peking duck! The hoisin sauce and the ginger oil dippings were to my taste the right partners. Ramir had the spareribs. He said it was tasty but he described this as a cholesterol raising experience. The moment he bit into the meat, there was like an explosion of oil in his mouth. This section also has a noodle soup area wherein you get to choose the ingredients you want in your noodle soup.

Indian - I love this section. I got the grilled chicken and salmon. These were my favorites. I also got the seafood curry and their bread. R finished her plate plus the Indian Rice I got for her.

Japanese - I just picked some of Ramir's tempura. But I also didn't get any from here. This section has all the Japanese cooked dishes - squids, fishes, shrimps, soups and noodles.

Breads, cheeses and sausages - I sampled their cheeses: Brie, gorgonzola, Edam, cheddar. I enjoyed the cheese sampling. R did too. Of course  the sausages are out for me since I'm not really a meat eater. Didn't sampled any of their breads but tried the wheat crackers instead to match the strong taste of cheeses. I also had some of walnuts and pecans with dried fruits. The cheeses, crackers and mixed fruits and nuts make for a nice complementary combination.

Salad - Of course, I'll have my own Caesar salad concoction. Greens are fresh. The arugula is, I think, the freshest of them all. This is the first time arugula doesn't just have a pleasant bitter taste, it also has some sweetness to it and the Caesar salad was good too. There were also other salad dressings which I think were good but he conventional me stuck to my favorite dressing of all time.

Seafoods - oysters, lobsters, crabs, mussels, sushis and sashimis. I should have gotten from this section first but by the time I was here, I'm stuffed. Full to the brim.

So is it worth it? From a groupon site, It's P1500 each for Ramir and I but since kids 6 and under are free, we were able to bring R along. So if you're going to be mathematical about it, it's really P3000 for the 3 of us. I just got the grilled chicken and salmon and a small pita from the Indian section. Cheeses, small wheat cracker, pumpkin soup, Peking duck, some dimsums, salad greens. I want to take in more but everything has it's threshold and I've reached mine. The itsy bitsy teeny weeny space left in my digestive system, as planned, was devoted entirely for dessert and this was the saving grace. I got 1 of almost every kind in the dessert buffet - fruits dipped in melted chocolate, cookies, candies, pastries, cakes, ice cream, I sampled as much as I can. I missed the halohalo though.

The Spiral Buffet experience was a good first time. But Ramir and I agree, that it wasn't worth repeating. Judging by our threshold.  Both of us feel that it's strength of having the most variety is also it's weakness. We can't zero in on anything. Our mindset is just to eat and eat until we can't eat anymore, just to get our money's worth. We realized that it was such a  terrible way to dine. We're better pleased with buffets that offer an array that we can sample each kind then still indulge on what piqued our taste buds the most.

This time, number became problematic.  The "widest array to choose from" became a source of stress, at least for me. At a discounted rate of P1500, we feel that the price wasn't commensurate to what we consumed, but then again it's Sofitel, a luxury hotel. You don't just pay for the food, but also the ambience and the experience.

Thought balloon: When you're scouring for reasons why you spend what you spend, think of the intangible qualities of you're purchase, suddenly, what felt like a rip-off becomes reasonable. Thought balloon bursts. I'm back to where I started. Me thinking, we should have spent what we spent in another buffet and brought the whole Cruz household along.

So really, is it worth it? For the bragging rights, the experience of being able to indulge once in a while,  the grilled chicken and salmon in the Indian section, but most especially the dessert station, I must say yes, not emphatically, but yes.