HongXin Oriental Buffet — Restaurant in England

Terrible Customer Service!

Me and my partner had booked a table for 18:30. Upon arriving we were asked to sanitise our hands and sit in the waiting area. Once seated we were given a paper menu and prawn crackers with sauce and hand wipes. The table was sticky and hadn’t been cleaned at all, and on the floor you could see lots of food as pictured below. The drinks menu was not made of paper and when I saw the waitress clean the table next to us, she did not clean the drinks menus as well as the table. Our table was placed under the air conditioning, which made both of us very cold.

After around 20 minutes we still hadn’t had our drinks order, even though multiple waiters and waitresses had walked past and not even looked in our direction once. The tables next to us had excellent service but we were completely bypassed. When the drinks arrived, we had to say to the waiter that we hadn’t ordered yet and hadn’t had our starter.

When we finally had our order taken we had to wait another 40 minutes until we got any food brought to our table. The duck (advertised on the menu as a middle course) came out before we had the starter and it came out cold. We told the waitress that brought the duck over that it was cold and we hadn’t had our starter yet, so she took it back and reported it to somebody else. The starters then came out about 20 minutes later. Because of the air conditioning, our boiling hot food was cold within 5 minutes which made it a very unpleasant starter.

After the starter was taken away we then had our mains come out before the duck, so we asked for the duck instead. The woman who gave it to us the first time claimed that we cancelled the duck when we did not. Once we had our duck, they tried to give us the mains as well which would’ve got cold so we sent it back and got glared at for doing so. After we had finished the duck, it was then 20 minutes before our mains came back out. By the time the mains were finished, we wanted to leave because it was getting late, and by this point we had been there for nearly 3 hours! It took a long time for someone to come and clear up our plates after finishing but we got a takeaway box and within 10 minutes of asking for it, everything was taken away.

A lady then came to speak to us before our dessert to see what was wrong, so we explained everything to her. She was just explaining what they ‘usually’ do with everyone else and didn’t apologise - she claimed that it was all because they didn’t have many staff, but I’ve seen restaurants with less staff do much better than this. The woman was extremely rude and was asking us the same questions over and over. When we were explaining what time we got there, she interrupted us saying “I don’t care what time you got here, I just care about when you ordered”. She wanted to know exactly how long it was before we got our food and didn’t seem bothered about us at all.

After around 20 minutes of talking, she offered to buy us a drink for free. We wanted to leave as it was late so we asked if she could take our drinks off the bill instead. She then rolled her eyes and stormed off to speak to her boss. 10 minutes later she said that she could only take one of the drinks off, which with the Eat Out to Help Out Scheme meant that she had only taken £1.45 off our bill! After that we got our dessert, which they had to ask us for our order 3 times. Obviously there is no communication between staff.

I am disappointed and frustrated with how a restaurant could treat anyone this badly, it is safe to say that they will never again have...

Volcanic King Prawn Eruption of Food poisoning, Very expensive £8 worth. 💔😭 I was looking forward to this treat to myself, the reviews were right, Hongxin Buffet has really gone downhill in quality since I last visited with my family in the Fall of 2017 (Had all-you-can eat buffet & they had halal options e.g. the chicken, now there are no longer halal meat options available).

On Fri 29th May 2025, I waited outside the restaurant till opened & till it was the takeaway time. I went to ask if the £5 buffet voucher could be used on a takeaway box, it couldn't, & I certainly wasn't going to pay £18.50 for all you-can-eat buffet in our current cost of living climate, I felt a bit duped driving a long way for a potential £5 off. It was at this point that I should have followed my gut instinct & just left but considering, I had waited 30 mins for opening time & meticulously gone through the menu online for possible options, I regrettably decided to still get a takeway box (not value for money ~10 cm x 5 cm).

Oh yeah, apart from ~3 dishes (e.g steamed rice), practically everything had Gluten in it. And I felt duped coz some of the dishes on the online menu (e.g. the sesame prawn toast that I was craving, the smoked shredded chicken, coconut fried rice etc), were not available in the restaurant, they had chicken prawn toast instead.

Got a takeaway box which was £8 & glad I could mix & match (excluded sushi & pizza & dessert options), the food looked fresh (I naively thought I'd be safe going nearer opening time), I had mainly all the Prawn options including the Volcanic king prawns, squid, some salt & pepper potatoes, 3 mini hash brown pieces, some egg-fried rice & Indonesian rice, 1 veggie spring roll, 1 prawn cracker & part of a poppadoms looked fresh and tasted delicious (the chilli levels have been 'Englishified' e.g. the volcanic dish was not as spicy as the name implied. I added chilli oil as a garnish. Anyway, looks were deceiving, I ate the food straightaway in my car onsite, & the only meal I had, hours later that evening was a banana & apple. Around 14 hours or so later, I had food poisoning, luckily I took acidophilus capsules & rested so it resolved quickly; I can't pinpoint which Hongxin dish it was, maybe the array of prawns or the open bowl of chilli oil perhaps. Either way, they need to investigate the source of the issue.

Anyway, I won't be back unless the food hygiene situation improves, & if there are more gluten-free, dairy-free &/or halal options without cross-contamination issues. Well done on labelling the allergens for each dish, very helpful. I have fond memories of this place so I do hope things do improve.

It's self-service. Their hospitality was good with the Host being the most friendly & welcoming in greeting me & saying goodbye. The other staff (some looked a bit tired) answered my questions & thank you for not following me like a hawk like they do in some Asian establishments. I got cutlery & a plastic bag to go which I was glad about.

I'm also glad that there wasn't loud music blaring, it was a subdued and calm atmosphere in...

Today was my second and last visit here! We booked a table for two and were seated immediately when we arrived. Having a look through the drinks menus on the table I couldn’t help but notice the menus hadn’t been cleaned in weeks, very sticky and food/drink residue all over them - not very nice especially when the place seemed very quiet to begin with when we were seated! My partner ordered a jug/bottle of water for the table with ice and the glasses that came out with it were filthy!

I had a couple of small plates as today’s choice was very limited and then I decided to go to the grill for some chicken. The “chef” cooked it and placed it on my plate. Once back to the table I cut into it to find it was raw in the middle! Not pink or a tad undercooked, FULLY raw! I went back to the grill and showed the chef he took the plate off of me and proceeded to cook it on the grill for longer, then handed me the same plate back! I said no thank you, you can keep that it’s had raw meat on it! Due to this I ended up refusing the chicken back the second time as he clearly doesn’t know what he is doing when it comes to raw chicken, I said forget it I no longer want the chicken at all. I waited until then end to mention to a manager out of courtesy and respect, (I had a couple of deserts which were all bland and tasteless) then proceeded to the bar near the entrance to pay. I asked to see the manager before I paid to explain my experience especially with the chicken on the grill and the “chef”. The manager/owner (I assume) was very attitude driven when speaking to me about the issue, cutting me off mid sentence, telling me I was wrong for not mentioning it to him (infront of everyone which is why I waited until the end as I didn’t want to cause a scene) and wasn’t apologetic at all, I didn’t receive a single apology from the chef or the manager. He barely let me speak, I was going to state I was unhappy to pay the full amount due to the experience I had but he didn’t let me get that far, he instantly put the attitude on and stated how he won’t be giving me a full refund (that I didn’t ask for in the first place as he wouldn’t let me speak) And said he will knock half of the bill off (for two people) as it happened to me not my partner mine will be free, which I stated was absolutely fine that’s the only reason I mentioned it as I wasn’t happy paying full price for a very bad experience, I said thank you to the manager and he glared at me and walked away. No, “sorry for your experience, hope you have a better time next time” just a glare… I remained polite and respectful through the conversation and couldn’t help but feel he did not! I will never eat here again!

I normally go to jr global bufet (aka cosmos) I have been there a good 15 - 20 times and haven’t got a bad word to say about them! The only reason for trying HongXin was to change it up a bit and try something different… never again cosmos every time now! I can get over the un cooked food things happen but the attitude I received from the manager without an apology...