Blue Pearl Buffet & Grill — Restaurant in Silver Spring

A good place to go when feeling hungry, not when feeling picky. I had a granola bar for breakfast and skipped lunch, so it was perfect. The salad bar ingredients were really fresh. The buffet items were hit & miss, but the Sriracha on every table meant that bland foods were easily improved. Everything was well cooked (not over or undercooked). Chefs are clearly competent chefs putting in C, C+ effort. As an example, the cucumbers were sliced into inch thick pieces, the pineapple was cut so every piece had heart and rind, making it tough to eat. But at least all ingredients were fresh and tasty. The buffet was largely unlabeled and most of the labels were inaccurate, but everything was either tasty or at least edible. We didn't need to toss out anything we put on our plate. The American food options (mashed potatoes, Mac & cheese, etc) are clearly for people who are allergic to flavor, or for infants. Don't bother with them unless you think ketchup is spicy. If you want exceptional food, go elsewhere. But if you want a little bit of everything, and you want a buffet experience in a pandemic world, you'll leave full and happy. I would happily return anytime I want to eat a boatload of food. NOTE 1: they expect tips. In cash. You pay before eating, but then they expect cash tips on the table when you're done. You can think "oh I bet that was a fluke, it won't happen to me". Yeah, it will. They will actually confront you about it if you try to leave without tipping. They gang up on you. They guilt trip you. Why they can't just raise their price and pay the employees better, I don't know. It would make things less awkward. They did do a good job keeping our water cups filled, but of course it's a buffet and the level of service is not high. We left 10% tip after they requested it, and they seemed satisfied, not upset or salty about it. They actually made change for us so we could tip. But I've never had the employees of a buffet brazenly solicit you for a tip when you get up to leave. I'd recommend planning to leave a tip so you don't have an awkward encounter. NOTE 2: someone on Google was complaining that you have to pay for parking. OK, yeah, you do. But we spent $50+ for 3 people, $6 in tips. Parking cost $1.25. I don't know how cheap a person you have to be to complain about paying so little for parking. If I park in a multistory garage for an hour, I expect to pay at least $3 if not $5. Go to a big city and spend $12 to park for an hour. In New York, $15 gets you a half hour. If you can't afford $1.25 for parking, make yourself some instant ramen at home. BOTTOM LINE: you get all you can eat buffet, with enough selection that everyone will find something they like, in a world which has suddenly rejected the buffet as an acceptable style of eatery. They offer hand sanitizer. They keep their place clean. They diligently space diners as far from each other as possible. Know what you're getting into and...

If I could rate this place zero stars I would. First off this place is very crowded. It seems like the owner tried to put as many tables and chairs here without thinking how comfortable it would be for customers. Second the food is WAY below average. Nothing was hot. To describe the food in one word: bland. I had lo mein noodles and they had no taste. I had chicken with broccoli. The broccoli tasted as if it had been sitting out for a LONG TIME! It wasn’t even hot. I also had the shrimp noodle soup. I wanted to see if there was something redeeming about this place. Nope I was wrong. The noodle soup was the most disappointing. There were not enough noodles in the soup. Come on now not enough noodles? I had half my soup left with no noodles. The soup tasted bland.The shrimp in the soup was excessive and usually that would have been fine but the shrimp had the antennas still attached. They didn’t take the time to even cut the antennas off so when eating the soup the antennas of the shrimp would be mixed with the noodles so you would end up eating noodles and shrimp antennas. I don’t know about anyone else but I don’t like having shrimp antennas in my noodle soup and don’t like having to sit for 30 minutes to try and peel the shrimp. Now if you’ve read this far let me tell you it gets worse. How? My mom went to the bathroom and guess what was found? Someone had pooped on the bathroom floor. Yeah you read that right. When leaving the bathroom my mom saw an employee finish mopping the men’s room and taking the same dirty water and mop where food was being cooked and prepared.That was the last straw. My mom informed one of the employees of the poop on the bathroom floor and they said they would take care of it. For someone to poop on the bathroom floor and for the employees to be unaware until someone has to tell them is ridiculous. This place was unorganized and the owner was just oblivious or didn’t care. All I have to say is that this place is unsanitary, disgusting, and food is WAY below average. Worst food experience. What a...

Food is mediocre at best. Last time I went, the servers demanded a tip out the whole group after spending $90. I understand that the staff need tips, but the only thing they've done was bring drinks which was only one time. They kept circling around my group of friends to see if we were about to leave and when we were about to leave, 2 asian women came in demanding a tip outta all of us.

My friend who invited us to the buffet warned us of the servers demanding tip but we didn't believe him and just laughed it off. But after that day, I refuse to go there. It would be a different story if the food was actually good, but it's not. It would be different if any of us had jobs but since we're underage, we don't have any yet. Due to peer pressure from the 2 angry staff, my friend cracked and gave a dollar as that was the only thing he had in his wallet. My friend who invited us gave 2 dollars as well meaning he also didn't have money anymore. Even after them being generous, they continued to make a scene as we left.

All in all, it was a total waste of money and we could've gotten the same amount of food at some other Fast Food for way less money.

Edit: After reading similar reviews, it reminded me how the food was also cold. Probably because it was on display for a long time. The tables we arrived at was also dirty with food left on the table from the...