The Royal Gourmet is one of the most popular eating temples with Asian ambience. Asian, mind you, because besides Chinese dishes there are also hints of Thai cuisine, Vietnamese dishes and Japanese sushi as well as gyoza.

The quality is certainly OK for the German-European taste, but authentic cuisine is different. It also falls on the fact that here practically no Asian guests are to be found.

Beside the menu there is a normal buffet as well as a mongolian buffet. Here the fish/seafood selection is positive. With the meat, however, the choice is very limited. Kangaroo, beef, chicken skewers, lamb skewer, lamb chop - that's it. Not even pig for the grill was available.

The latter is also hardly represented in the normal buffet - but from my visits in Asia I know the popularity of pork in the local kitchen. From comparable establishments as well.

As I said, a lot of things come from the sea - blue shark, parrotfish, zander, salmon, butterfish to name a few, as well as various kinds of shrimp and prawns, green clams with shell, pilgrim mussels (scallops) - a useful selection.

Weaknesses can be found again in the fresh vegetables, which are cut quite roughly.

Staff: friendly and initially also attentive. But in order to order some drinks, one had to call somebody, and in order to pay, one even had to talk to one of the employees at the counter.

Price: From a Hamburg point of view, Berlin has the reputation of being noticeably cheaper. Concerning price and quality, the latter is below Hamburg standard, the price above.

Ambience: The interior is already very "traditional". Unfortunately, it is too kitschy even for an "eastern" with Bruce Lee. What a pity, because there is definitely modern Asian design. If I didn't know better, this would probably shape my image of Asia here. For many other guests at least it will probably be so.

Well then - the buffet is open!