Royal Buffet — Restaurant in Cranston

Pretty decent.

Parking sucked but only because the place was packed and people don't know how to drive. Seriously watched two separate pairs of cars almost hit each other while I was sitting in my parked car (was finishing a podcast with five minutes left).

Inside, loaded with people but service for seating, utensils, and drink orders was pretty quick. And we had a party of 6. Several buffet tables, everything looked fresh, even the salad (usually the worst station at Chinese buffets). Lots of fruit, good selection of typical Chinese food items, including beef, chicken, and seafood. I only noticed one soup selection but I was moving quickly. Their white rice was in a steam tray right next to the seafood, which was a little odd, but tasted fine (no cross contamination from fishy items dripping into it due to customer mishaps). They had a dessert station and ice cream as well. Typical but good to know they were present.

Restaurant looked clean (3.5 stars out of 5) for a buffet, table was clean (4 stars), restroom was recently mopped but was haunted by a super nasty dump and there was nowhere for the fog to escape (2 stars). No trash on the floor, no toilet paper on the floor, etc. Soap and hand napkins were stocked, trash can not overflowing.

The food itself was a pleasant surprise for a buffet, especially at this price point. The true measure of a decent Chinese buffet is the quality of their boneless ribs - most places have tins of dried out and sauceless rib meat. Royal Buffet ribs were sauced and flavorful, moist and chewy (but not gamey). Crab rangoons were decent, general tso's chicken was "just ok" but not blatantly bad. Their Chinese mushrooms were decent as well as their buttered string beans. I really didn't find much fault in anything I tried. The fruit was fresh and kept well. I witnessed several tins be refilled without looking like anyone was waiting for the refresh. And best of all, they are among the rare buffets with Pepsi products for drink selection instead of Coke products. I mean Sprite is fine but for full fat guy thumbs up, you need Mtn Dew with your Chinese food. 4...

my girlfriend and i decided to eat here real quick around 9. we know they close at 10, but we weren’t expecting the best food. just a quick bite. our waitress rushed us so much throughout the whole experience. my plate was taken when i came back with a dessert plate, because my girlfriend wanted me to come with her to pick things out and i didn’t even finish it. afterwards, our waitress was literally lurking and waiting to give us the check when we didn’t even ask for it, not even close to done eating. then i was so dissatisfied that i didn’t want to tip, as any human has the right to. when the waitress saw 0, she said, “no tip?” at first i felt bad so i handed her a 5 and asked her to break it. then she completely disappeared and basically waited for me to get sick of waiting. then i realized i was just being forced to tip when i have free will and don’t want to(these people are lucky i empathize, but they just take advantage of people like that). i’ve never been forced to tip anywhere before and the food was a 3/10 at best because they were cleaning up a whole hour early before closing! when i was a food runner as a teenager i remember closing starts at CLOSING time. not an hour before. i had to ask for my 5 in 1’s from another waitress and i was still hounded to tip the whole time. actually ridiculous. i genuinely hope the worst for that girly 💜 all she did was bring two drinks and a rushed check. this is why these waitresses will just rot here forever ! this place...

I absolutely loved it here. It is not fancy food but they actually have pretty nice dining booths and set up for a buffet. It’s a great all you can eat place with standard Americanized-Chinese fare. I LOVED the options. It reminded me of being a child to come here. Everything is the exact way I was expecting the buffet to be. Weekday lunch is SO incredibly reasonably priced. Highly recommend for that. I was afraid to try the seafood but my bf was not: he ate clams, sushi, etc and was fine! I ate literally everything else and it was great. Most of the fruit is the kind that is in syrup (which I LOVE on the mini mandarin oranges but hate on the peaches) but it didn’t hurt my rating because it’s exactly what I expected from a buffet. As with all buffets: it’s best to try a little bit of every thing first and then go back up for seconds because you never know what you’ll fall in love with. It was exactly what I wanted and exactly like the buffet I used to love in East Providence when I was a child. A lot of the items remind me of frozen dinners but I still enjoy them and will totally come back here in like a month. I was surprised that I even liked their dessert. The cookies were great. I was surprised. It may be the heat lamp that makes them so good but even though I was super full, they made the...