{Review} Tasty eats at Dragon Legend Chinese buffet in Markham

Website:  http://www.dragonlegend.ca/
Address:  25 Lanark Rd, Markham ON
When I visited: May 2014, 8 adults, dinner
Rating: $$, 4

I went to the buffet for a family celebration and left happy and ridiculously full. Dragon Legend is on the high end of Asian buffets at $29.99 for an adult on weekends. Good thing is that you get what you pay for. We went on a Friday evening and it was the “it” place to be. The parking lot was rammed!

At the parking lot, I quickly recalled that I had attended a wedding when the space used to be a banquet hall. The space was transformed completely and the decor was over-the-top!  It had a retro feel with dark walls, thick wooden tables and decorative accents all around the restaurant. There was even a large screen TV in the dining room.

I made reservations a week in advance and got a huge table fit for the thrown and right by the buffet. That means I can place a mound of food on my plate and not have to walk past other tables in guilt.

The buffet is traditional buffet style where customers serve themselves at the buffet tables rather than order off a menu. I would have preferred that the sushi and sashimi items were ordered off the menu, as their rolls were a bit sloppy in presentation. Also, the sushi area was a bit rammed since there was a lot of budding.

However to make up for that, they offer huge and fresh pieces of scallop, tuna and salmon sashimi. There was a limit of 2 pieces of each sashimi at one time, but there was so much variety at the buffet to try out that this was not an issue.

They had speciality items that I haven’t seen at many Chinese buffets including house-made noodles in fish soup, Peking duck, frog legs and dim sum. Unlike Mandarin buffet which offers crab legs as a seasonal speciality, this is a regular buffet item. I also really enjoyed the hot and sour soup, which tasted like a bowl I would order at a reputable Chinese restaurant.

The must-have dessert items are the warm waffles, flan, crème brulee and black sesame ice cream. Many restaurants charge a lot for black sesame ice cream, so go crazy if you’re there!

If you get a VIP card, aside from receiving discounts for the monthly promotions, you are entitled to some pimpin’ VIP rooms. Check out the Dragon Legend website or even better, check out the food and décor in person. Remember to make reservations far in advanced at 905-940-1811.