Hot House Cafe (Wednesday night buffet)

I've been to the Hot House Cafe before during a Summerlicious/Winterlicious promotion period. They had a great deal: $25 for  appetizer, surf and turf and dessert. It was great value for money and delicious. 

So when I heard about the Wednesday night buffet, I decided to try it out.

There were two tables of salad options, three tables of entree options (including a pizza and roast beef station), a pasta station in the corner and 9-10 La Rocca and Baker Street Cakes to choose from (along with two fruit trays and other desserts like apple crumble).

Round 1:

 Clockwise from the Bottom: Salmon, potato salad, crab salad, quinoa salad, bocconcini cheese and olives, Greek pasta salad, steamed vegetables (in this case cauliflower and yellow zucchini), cheese cappelletti and meat lasagna
I cleared my plate - everything was pretty good. I love cheese cappelletti and it's not a popular item on most Italian restaurant menus, so I made sure to savour the cappelletti here. Other stand out items: potato salad was good (not as amazing as Schnitzel Queen, but still pretty good) and the lasagna was tasty. 

The pasta station offered 3 different types of pasta: penne, gnocchi and fettuccine and 4 different sauces: pesto, alfredo, gorgonzola and marinara. Then you get to pick your toppings which ranged from sundried tomatoes, fresh mushrooms, chicken, bacon and more.
Round 2:

Pesto penne with bacon, sundried tomatoes, roasted red peppers, mushrooms and parmesan cheese
My dish was too salty with the pesto sauce, cheese, bacon and extra salt (I really should have known better than to add extra salt). The pesto was nice though.

Fettuccine alfredo with fresh tomatoes, chicken, bacon and mushrooms

The fettuccine alfredo turned out better: the sauce was creamy and rich and the ingredients and noodles worked well together.

There were some interesting dishes including salmon penne (with olives), Thai noodles, pizza and quite a few pasta choices. However, I couldn't resist going back for more cheese cappelletti cause it was so good.
Round 3: 

Roast beef (very rare and bloody), cheese cappelletti, steak and mushroom pie, steamed cauliflower and mussels.
We saw people with plates of mussels and we couldn't really figure it out until we tried them for ourselves. The mussels were really good! The mussels were sweet and tasty with the sauce.
The steak and mushroom pie was delicious as well - the steak was tender and juicy and the mushroom sauce  perfectly balanced it out. The pie crust was a little flimsy and soggy, but it was still great.
The only thing I wasn't super impressed with was the roast beef which was supposed to be a medium rare cut but turned out very rare and bloody. 

Dessert Round
Round 4:

Clockwise from top left: Bailey's cheesecake, chocolate banana cake, white chocolate raspberry cake, hazelnut cake, brownie and red velvet cake
We were very ambitious...I have a huge sweet tooth and I really wanted to try all the cakes they had, so we ordered a tiny slice of 5 cakes (even though there were 9 - we knew we couldn't handle that many).
My favourite was probably the Bailey's cheesecake. The rest alternated between being too sweet (white chocolate raspberry), a little flavourless (red velvet - maybe because I had the white chocolate before eating it) and boring (hazelnut).

Final Round 5

Fresh fruit...not much else to say

Overall: It's been a while since I've had a full buffet dinner and after this experience, I remembered why I don't do buffets: quantity vs. quality. In the case of Hot House Cafe, they served some really good food; it was just overwhelming for me. I loved the options and everything tasted really good - A good deal for $18.95 (excluding tax and tip)

Website: http://www.hothousecafe.com/