Earlier today, my parents, relatives from California, and I went to the Golden Corral buffet in Algonquin, Illinois.

Apparently some other relatives from New Jersey had gone here while they were visiting Illinois, and rec­om­mended the restaurant to us.

We sat over in this corner, away from most of the other people. It wasn’t actually as dark as it seems in the photo; my phone’s camera just happened to have a bit of trouble adjusting to the bright outdoors, and compensated the lighting in the wrong direction.

The first thing to mention is that they have a senior discount and an “after 1 PM” discount. We didn’t actually realize this time-based discount until we were leaving the restaurant, and I was a little upset because we had arrived at about 12:56 PM.

But, when we checked the receipt, we noticed that the cashier had given us the post-1:00 price without us having to request it, even though the payment was made before the eligible discount time. It’s always nice to see businesses be flexible and value the happiness of their customers, rather than stick hard to the rules in order to make more money.

As for the buffet itself, it wasn’t really my preferred style of restaurant, but from a neutral perspective, it’s a pretty decent restaurant. It has a lot of different American food, so if you’re a fan of American, this might be the place for you.

I personally prefer to get American food from fast food restaurants where you just get a large serving of one item, rather than tiny bits of a variety of foods. This is important to keep in mind when I say I wasn’t that thrilled at this restaurant – it’s more of a conflicting preference thing, rather than the restaurant doing anything wrong.

While I was getting food, I didn’t notice any strange odors, but when I went back to my table to sit down, there was a strange smell in our corner. It’s difficult to describe, but the best I can do is the smell of undried clothing mixed with the sweat of someone who eats a lot of fatty foods. So, if you plan on going to this particular restaurant at this particular location, you might want to avoid that corner.

My favorite part of the trip was the dessert. They have a massive variety of desserts, including cakes, chocolate fountains for strawberries, cotton candy, and an ice cream dispenser. This was actually the first time I had ever had cotton candy on a stick since I was a tiny child.

We had an older male as our server, and he seemed a little bit too nice. He made sure that we had every­thing we needed, and came (almost excessively) often to refill drinks. One peculiar thing I tend to do at buffets is to reuse my old plate for my second serving in order to help them cut down on dishwashing costs. At the Golden Corral, I didn’t even have a chance to do that because my old plates were taken away so quickly.

Overall, from my own personal perspective (which means taking my own preferences into consideration), I would rate this restaurant 5/10. From a non-biased perspective, I would rate this restaurant 7/10. I would say it’s a solid restaurant, but there was nothing that made me say “wow,” which is generally needed for me to give anything a 9-10/10 rating.