A-One Delights Buffet is located at 109 King Street West in Bowmanville, the municipality about 50 km east of Toronto and just east of Oshawa. AYCD pop is $2 and it’s canned, which is both excellent and rare; note that it was served in glasses with ice without the can. We both loved the location with plenty of greenery around, and three of the four walls were windows. Mishy also loved the decor of paintings, including traditional, hung on walls between the windows. Soy at table was quite tasty and not salty, fresh, dark and rich.
Macaroni salad was alright although a little too much tang and less actual flavour. Potato salad was good, as it had plenty of bread-and-butter pickle flavour, if you're into that. Green salad was with romaine lettuce and its fresh dressings are commercial varieties from bottles. Cream cheese wontons did not have very much cheese in them, which Mishy also noted, although they were at least relatively fresh. Thankfully, the chicken balls made up for it as there was plenty of chicken, and both of us noted this, and they were very fresh and not dry. Mishy was not impressed by the General Tao chicken and said it was all candy breading, although I actually liked the flavour of it, as it seemed to use five spice and I ended up having a serving of my own. Wonton soup was quite good, perhaps even excellent, as was very well seasoned, and also fresh. There were torpedo fried shrimp but no ketchup+horseradish seafood sauce for it, but no matter.
Chicken wings were a bit dry, but at least they were tasty and there was mustard to moisten them in packets, although it was yellow rather than traditional brown mustard. Stir fried mushrooms were very good, although it is recommended to eat them right away because they go cold quickly. Honey-garlic ribs are also quite good, and better than I expected, and there were fewer bones than expected as well. Chow mein was very fresh, with understated seasoning, so adding a touch of soy sauce might help, but it had large pieces of chicken which were very good. Lo mein also is minimally seasoned, but again was quite fresh and tasty. Fried rice was enjoyable and savoury, although it did need a little soy sauce, just a few drops to bring out the flavour.
Spring rolls were fresh, not too oily and went quite well with the included plum sauce. Egg rolls were also very fresh and good. Chicken skewers were delicious and well-seasoned. Shrimp and vegetables were well-seasoned and very fresh and delicious. Sweet and sour pork was fresh enough and good. Black pepper steak was delicious, certainly with plenty of pepper, and as good and fresh as Mandarin’s if not more so. Mixed vegetables were quite good and also well-seasoned and fresh. Beef with broccoli was fresh enough and also well-seasoned. Everything here seem to be fresh.
For dessert, Mishy was ecstatic that there was Tiger Tail ice cream, as we have never seen this at AYCE before. There was a pie that looked like coconut cream but tasted more like tapioca, which Mishy did not like, but I didn't mind it. Cheesecake was Japanese-style and was quite good. Mocha cake was dry yet delicious. Chocolate fudge cake was a little less dry and quite good. Cream puffs were good and fresh. Strawberry ice cream, chocolate mint and the fantastic Tiger Tail was very good and fresh, with no freezer burn. Service was very good and they even brought up more chicken balls when Mishy pointed out that there weren't any, and they were always asking to refill pop. This appears to be a family-run business. It was $25.99 for weekend dinner which is quite a good price these days, and with the quite reasonable $2 canned AYCD pop even with the minor shortcomings that it was very enjoyable and Mishy even indicated she would be happy to return. I agree!
Rating: 8.5 – 9 / 10
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