Over the years I have tried the food at several Golden Corrals including Chubbuck, Idaho, Albuquerque, New Mexico, and most recently at St Petersburg, Florida. Once inside any of them and one quickly realizes they are all essentially the same – with very few exceptions. They are, in their own words, “an endless buffet” of cafeteria food. We will judge them accordingly.
In most things we are a left to right, top to bottom society. We read in that way, we stock our shelves that way and arrange the work on our desk almost subconsciously in the same manner. Curiously, the food lines at the Golden Corral start on the right with the salad bar on the right and the dessert section on the far left. It is of no actual importance but I have always wondered why…

I have been to this particular Golden Corral in St Petersburg (actually, Largo, Florida) many times. It was a favorite of my late father-in-law, Sonny, and several of his cronies. Recently one of his old friends, Bob Malory, called to catch up on recent activities. A dinner date was set and we were going to the Golden Corral. Perhaps Sonny would tag along in spirit.

I am not a gourmet in the sense that I don’t have one single set of absolute standards by which I judge all foods. Rather I have a more flexible style where I judge the food by what is expected, as with Golden Corral I will compare it to, as I noted, to cafeteria foods. I would probably be uncomfortable in a true, group gourmet setting, nit-picking the food and demanding the chef shave only the freshest truffles over my food. I have, on an occasion, attended a company holiday dinner that was given at a local gourmet bistro. The entirety of the restaurant was taken over for the event. The menu was abbreviated to accommodate feeding all the guests at once. I chose the médaillons de boeuf. They were nice, circular cuts of beef presumably from the tenderloin. Sliced thin they were cooked through and drizzled with a bit of sauce, possibly a pan reduction. It was a long time ago and I think I remember a bit of mashed potato, a swirl made with an icing tip, slathered in butter and toasted with a torch. A bit of green fluffy something or other finished off the plate. It was a very pretty presentation. What there was of it was very good, but there were no seconds offered. So, after a taste of a meal, when the party was over, I had to stop at a drive-thru on the way home to get a burger and fries to molify my hunger.

More properly, I suppose you could really call me a gourmand, a person who likes to eat a lot of good food. As a very active young man lots of food was not a problem. In later years I can’t burn it off as fast and the “lots of food” has caught up to me. I the last few years it has been a lot less food but always remembering the big feeds of the past. It has made me realize that inside every gourmand there is a trencherman waiting to get out. On the night of our visit to Golden Corral, I decided to set my trencherman free.

On this day, as is my wont, I started out down by the salad bar. Usually I have a large plate of salad. I like a busy salad, filled with all kinds of delightful crispy and tasty things. Of all the Golden Corrals I have visited, they all provide an excellent salad bar. There are a variety of lettuces as a base, and then it gets interesting. There are bean sprouts, mushrooms, cucumbers, tomatoes, cheeses, peas, bacon bits, hard boiled eggs, croutons, ham bits, bits of grilled chicken and beef, fresh fruits and melons (just all kinds of luscious and wonderful things) and the list goes on and on. As I say, usually I fill the first palae with salad, perhaps in anticipatory atonement for the pigging out later. I must admit that the healthful aspects of the piles of greens on my plate were somewhat offset by the slathering of dressing, usually either Ranch or 1000-Island, that I generously applied. On this day, on a whim, I walked past the salads…

My first stop was at the little alcove next to the red meat grill, it is where they have their developing ethnic food items. I could see fajita chicken and little fried tortilla bowls to make a salad. I like fajitas a lot and if there had been some soft tortillas for me to make a burrito instead of a salad I just might have indulged. Instead I went for the Chinese food. On my previous trip to Golden Corral, they also had Chinese food to offer which I did sample. My impression was that it was a learning experience in progress for the chefs in the back room. I thought I would give it another try. The offerings were fried rice, sweet and sour chicken, sweet and sour pork, and fried spring rolls. Over on the other side of the grill I found some breaded fried shrimp which I added to the plate.

The fried rice was bland, seasoned with a bit of soy sauce more for color tan taste, a few, and I mean few, kernels of corn and some green peas mixed in. It didn’t taste bad, it just didn’t have much of a taste at all. As an aside, I have been to a lot of the local Chinese take outs and even some sit-ins. What they offer as sweet and sour chicken they call New York style. I don’t know if New York appreciates the bum rap but it is not what I would call sweet and sour anything. Some breaded and fried chicken, nothing else and a bit of watery red sauce served alongside. Golden Corral, even though their product seriously needs improvement, is a quantum leap ahead of the New York style offered elsewhere.

On the plus side there was no shortage of meat; more than half the dish was the meat portion. There were vegetables and fruit as a good sweet and sour should have including peppers, onions and pineapple. On the negative side, it seemed the meat was pan fried (and a bit over cooked, tough and dry) rather than breaded and deep fried. The vegetable suffered the same fate being cooked to the point of softness and without a mouth feel or texture. The sauce was too mild and too thin. It didn’t have the sharp vinegar tang of the sour all soothed by sweetness. It didn’t cling to the meat and vegetables. It was just there on the plate without adding a lot of substance to the food. Again, it didn’t taste bad, it did have a bit of the oriental flavor but there is a great deal of room for improvement.

The spring rolls were a diminutive variety, about half the size you might expect of an egg roll. The filling was cabbage based I believe but with no distinct taste. The wrapper was fried to a nice golden crispness but the inside filling came up short giving an overall bland impression. A small saucer of chili sauce with a dab of Chinese hot mustard to dip the spring rolls would have helped immensely. Perhaps Golden Corral should take a hint from McDonalds and offer some dipping sauces like McDonalds does for chicken nuggets.

The fried shrimp were very good. However, they were spiced much like some chicken nuggets and their flavor almost overpowered the rest of the food on the plate. By themselves they would have been very good; nice large shrimp in a spicy breading fried to a nice crispy golden brown. It was not a good pairing with the Chinese good and that was my bad.

For my second plate I decided to continue with the theme concept and wandered about to see what I could find. The linguini caught my eye and I decided to go Italian. A nice helping of linguini and a ladle of the marinara sauce suited me just fine. Looking about, that was all there was to the Italian offerings, not even a crust of garlic bread. So, I added a few mushrooms from the red meat bar as well as some fried peppers and onions. The linguini was cooked just right, al dente, to the tooth. The sauce, based on crushed tomatoes, was little changed from when it came from the can in texture and taste. Some herbage had been added but I could not distinguish any oregano, basil, or any of the other popular Italian seasonings. It did not cling to the pasta. After I would wind a fork of linguini, all the sauce was still in the bottom of the plate. The mushrooms were a flavorful welcome adjunct to the linguini. They were cooked just right, a nice mouth feel without being rubbery. The peppers and onions were cooked just about right; a slight resistance to the bite but not crunchy like raw vegetables. They were an also welcome adjunct to the dish.

For my third sojourn I decided to go comfort food. Mashed potatoes and gravy supplemented with some more of those mushrooms, some steamed broccoli with cheese sauce, and a ground beef steak in gravy. I was quite surprised by the potatoes. I really can’t tell you if they were fresh mashed or from a mix. On the one hand I can’t believe Golden Corral makes their mashed potatoes from real, whole potatoes. That would be too labor intensive. Yet the potatoes I tasted didn’t have that mealy texture and flat taste that announces instant mashed potatoes. I have to rate the potatoes very high. The side of gravy was a nice dark brown, thick enough to coat the potatoes and only slowly seep downhill. It was not salty like you might expect from a gravy mix. The gravy on the ground beef steals was, however, just a bit salty. The almost perfectly round ground beef steak might be likened to a Salisbury steak but it was more akin to meatloaf in texture and taste. It had a good flavor. It cut with a fork but did not fall apart. The broccoli was steamed to tenderness and the cheese sauce had good flavor. If I had been told that I could have only one plate of food, knowing what I know now, I would choose the mashed potatoes and gravy, ground meat steak and the broccoli and cheese sauce, albeit in a slightly larger serving.

Janis and Bob both braved the line at the red meat grill. Janis asked for medium rare and had a nice cut with a nicely pink middle and Maillard-browned surface with grill marks. She said it was just perfect and was large enough to satisfy her appetite. Bob asked for a thinner cut and he was served appropriately. He said it cut easily with the table knife service provided but was perhaps just a bit on the chewy side.

All in all, we ate to out satiation points, didn’t find any bad food and really enjoyed some of the others. It was good company in pleasant surroundings; a genuinely good night for all.

I have included at the end some pictures from previous visits to compare with this adventure.