There are few things in life as tantalizing as an all-you-can-eat buffet.
An endless buffet of any kind is a real treat, but the breakfast variety might just be the unofficial most popular thing in the world (at least in our world).
As fortune would have it, the Red Blazer just so happens to offer a breakfast buffet every Sunday, so we stopped by last weekend to check it out for ourselves.
We had long heard mythical tales about the breakfast buffet at the Red Blazer – a member of the advertising department has been a regular there for years and is always raving about it. Having never been ourselves, we decided the wait was long enough and took the plunge for the sake of this issue.
We got there some time shortly after 10 a.m., and though it was pretty busy we were still able to get a nice, big table to ourselves.
Once we had put our stuff down, it was on to the buffet, which we didn’t even have to wait in line for (not true for the throng that showed up toward the end of the buffet hours).
There are basically three different stations that make up the entire breakfast buffet experience. The primary station is the long, traditional buffet, offering things like scrambled eggs, bacon, sausage, hash, eggs benedict, French toast and baked beans, just to name a few.
Right next to the main spread is the dessert/sweet station, with all kinds of pastries and cookies and muffins and cannolis.
Then there’s a custom omelet and crepe station, with cooks standing at the ready to take and make your order right in front of you.
We started with the regular buffet section to get things going. While virtually everything looked enticing, we wanted to try to keep everything to one plate, both for ease of carrying and to cut down on potential waste, which is a big concern at the Red Blazer – they hate throwing away food.
We loaded up on corned beef hash, home fries, bacon and the Red Blazer’s famous egg lasagna, opting for that instead of a traditional style of egg.
Once back at the table, we ordered a glass of orange juice to wash the meal down. It should be noted that juice, coffee or any other beverage must be ordered separately – they are not included in the price of the buffet, and there are no free refills.
Our first bite was a big scoop of the hash. We personally prefer a crispier, more well-done serving of hash, but even though this kind was softer than we prefer, it made up for it with the addition of small pieces of onion and green pepper. They added some textural variety to the mix as well as flavor.
Next we dove into the home fries, which also had some of the onions and peppers mixed in there. The potatoes were a little softer than we expected, but like with the hash, the small veggie pieces in there made a nice flavor combo.
We then made our way to the bacon, which was cooked to perfection – a bit crispy but not burnt, and not overly greasy at all. We would have liked to have savored the bacon, but, come on – it’s bacon. It was gone in a matter of seconds.
Finally we tried the egg lasagna, made with eggs, bacon, cheese and lasagna noodles. We got this instead of a regular style of eggs because we’d never heard of egg lasagna before, but it wasn’t really our cup of tea, surprisingly. There was something about the texture and the relatively heavy weight that didn’t appeal to us, especially at the end of the meal.
We finished with a strawberry and banana crepe, which was light, sweet and refreshing, a perfect way to end the meal.
The Red Blazer’s breakfast buffet is open Sundays from 8 a.m. to noon. The cost is $13.99 for adults, $9.99 for kids ages 6 to 12 and $4.99 for kids 3 to 5. Go to TheRedBlazer.com for more information.
