Maui Beach Hotel Rainbow Dining Room — Restaurant in Maui

Saw an ad for this on Facebook, Maui Beach is back with their dinner buffet! Sounds delightful, prime rib, seafood boil, desserts, and more! I soon found out why there were no pictures of this so-called "buffet".

At a $55 price tag for a prime rib buffet, how bad could it be? Bad. Very bad. Personally, I think we got prime ripped.

The atmosphere was horrible, almost like a scene from Stranger Things. As soon as I walked in, I felt like I shouldn't be there. There were like three big parties going on all at the same time, and I honestly felt like I was interrupting/crashing their parties. It almost felt like I paid money to attend and eat at someone else's party.

I would have taken pictures, but I didn't want to invade one of the big parties' privacy, I mean, they did take up like half of the room.

Anyway, besides the disruptive parties that were taking place, the food should be good, right? Wrong!

That "prime rib" was so dry you could use it as a shammy cloth. Not to mention it was extremely salty, like they threw it in the ocean for a little bit.

Fried noodles and seafood boil were there too; skip them, they're salty too. Hell, everything was salty; it's like they don't want you to taste the food.

So you're thinking at this point, you're getting quite thirsty from all this salt and dry rib. Well, that's great because the sodas are $6 a pop, and no free refills. But hey, they do free refills on water and iced tea, that is, if anyone comes to your table to refill it.

Desserts, my favorite part of any buffet! You can't mess up desserts, right? Well, today, officially, Maui Beach has proved me wrong.

That white cake that looked seemingly okay had a secret ingredient added to it. Upon the first bite of this payload of disaster, all I could taste was onions. It's like they either stored it bare bones in a fridge right next to a pound of onions, or they deliberately were spiking that cake with it. Regardless, they kept it coming; the next batch of that cake was the same thing, it's like they tried to mask the flavor with the icing, thinking nobody would notice. It's not even Halloween yet, and Maui Beach is out here playing trick or treat with their guests.

I sat there with my appetite ruined, unable to continue eating anything from here. My empty plate from the first run was still there, and my drinks were still empty.

After leaving this episode of the Twilight Zone, I shot straight to McDonald's (basically the only thing accessible at the time) to get that taste out of my mouth.

In conclusion, everything was a disaster, and I wouldn't wish this experience on my worst...

No alcohol was served when we dined here in 2021. That would've been nice to know at the time of reservations which they failed to mention as we definitely would've made other plans as we were celebrating a birthday, not having a church dinner. Hello!?

EXPERIENCE: We were informed of the slap-in-the-face news by a family member who arrived at the restaurant ahead of us. While we could've done BYOB (told to us after-the-fact) with a $2/person charge, we were already on our way with the celebrant and didn't want to be delayed even more.

We were immediately greeted by the gal at the host stand to who I asked why their bar was closed. She referred me to a gentleman who was on his way to greet us and who I assume was the restaurant manager. He stated that due to COVID, they thought it'd be best to pause alcohol sales. Fine, but guests should be told that up front.

Tables were spaced apart and the buffet is no longer self-serve. While understandable, the buffet experience is marred by having to deal with someone to assist you with your selections. Good thing they weren't busy as there were only two people assisting behind the buffet.

Dishes and silverware have been replaced by eco-unfriendly paper plates and plastic utensils. Pitchers of water are left in the middle of the tables and replenished frequently. The dessert table has been replaced with a self-serve freezer doling out ice cream bars, sandwiches and popsicles.

BUFFET: *Fried rice - spouse loved it even if it looked pale & simple

*Chow mein - very good

*Prime rib - I think it was prime rib but whatever it was, was very fatty and chewy; avoid

*Chicken - battered & deep-fried; very good

*Fish - baked filets that were tender & tasty

*Salad - romaine with just olives as a topping choise; 3 dressings; I chose ranch which tasted like nasty Hidden Valley

*Shrimp tempura - these were the short, stubby version with the smooth batter vs. the long pieces with the "rough" batter; still good

*Corned beef - it looked like roast pork due to its dark color and was finished with gravy; very odd preparation

SERVICE: We were checked on quite often and thanked on our way out. Great job.

OVERALL: Selections have lessened but what was served was still good. $25/person is...

It seemed like they were really short staffed. We stood at the door for a while before anyone noticed us, eventually we were sat at a table and given menus. It took even longer for someone to come nack and take our orders. We chose this place because we thought there would be a buffet that the hotel had advertised happened daily. but apparently it only occurs on holidays now. While they took our order another family was sat down. They got their food before we did and being so close to the kitchn we could here that they didnt even see our order yet. Slowly our food came out. Cold, cooked wrong. The clam chowder rastes like the progresso can but watered down. The steak was cooked well done when we asked for medium rare and also didnt taste like it was seasoned. I felt bad for the workers who were there because they were constantly apologizing...