AlMacs' Buffet (Western)

AlMac's is located at 5435 Ferry St. in downtown Niagara Falls. Mishy and I went there on New Years' Eve. We ended up going to AlMac's because every other AYCE in the vast tourist trap that is Niagara Falls jacks up their prices so that dinner is close to $30. AlMac's left theirs at a reasonable $16.99. The unreasonable part, and where they offset this low price, is the $3.99 no-refill pop and bottled water. Yes, no tap water will be given.

The interior was better than I imagined it would be. It's quite nice with large hanging lamps and pleasant decor. The actual buffet area is cramped, though, and leads to traffic jams of diners. It was also understandably packed given the cost differential with other ACYEs.

AlMac's has terrible reviews on Yelp, but we thought we would try it nonetheless. As expected there are some items that should definitely be given a miss. Some of them were quite good, however. Mishy and I both loved the roast turkey. It was tender and juicy, and the gravy was excellent. Roast chicken was also deliciously tender. Pork shish-kebab was tasty and savoury. Fish wasn't bad at all; I asked what it was and didn't quite understand the answer but I think it was basa. Tomato basil soup is like minestrone without the pasta and I loved it. Cannelloni was good and I enjoyed the seasoning. French fries were surprisingly good for such a basic offering and with the seasoning I didn't need to add anything.

Some items were almost there but needed improvement. Cabbage rolls were not bad but bland. I'm surprised that there was roast beef; it wasn't bad and very (almost too) tender, but this is because it's left in a tray with gravy which removes much of the flavour from it. One piece was all fat and gristle, but the other eight weren't. Salisbury steak had a thin layer of cheese, not much flavour and was a bit oily; added some gravy from the roast beef tray and it was much improved. Perogies were OK but also bland. Mashed potatoes had a nice buttery garlic flavour, but were runny enough that they couldn't have been anything but instant.

A couple of the items were terrible to the point of inedible. Calamari was completely dried out to the point of mummification, and loukoumades were horrid jaw-breakingly hard balls of flavourless fried dough... absolutely awful.

For dessert, the Nanaimo and date bars were good. There are no cakes and only two flavours of ice cream (chocolate and vanilla) and even with only these the vanilla had almost run out. What was left was still good.

All in all, as we do factor the price in, it mostly wasn't bad and I do commend AlMac's for not gouging on the holiday as all the other restaurants did. However, this is offset by the gouging for beverages. There also were quite a few "meh" items offset by a few good ones and the couple of terrible ones. Even with the very low cost, there is much room for improvement.

Rating: 5.5/10

Update 2018-Jan-28: AlMacs also has a breakfast buffet which we tried when we were in Niagara Falls a week ago. It's similarly very inexpensive at only $6.99 (however same $2.99 coffee and water, and juice is $3.99); as expected per the rest it was inconsistent. The sausages were actually excellent and memorably so and scrambled eggs and pancakes were good (although both clearly from instant/mixes,) but the French toast was poor: crunchy and had a flavour of excess baking powder (I ended up having to finish Mishy's as she gave up,) the fruit was clearly from cans, and the bacon was horrific. It was clearly burnt, and in addition appeared to have been going rancid before it was cooked (had a slightly fish-oil flavour.) So, no change to the rating...