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| - I would hate to christen this place with a terrible first review, especially since I added it, but sometimes fair warnings are needed. This upstairs restaurant space is in its third incarnation since I've been in Calgary, nowadays masquerading as yet another Peking style buffet (its previous name was Empress, and was the same style), luring unsuspecting southern Calgarians into its greasy maw. Perhaps New Year's Eve is not the best day to test out a new place, but food quality should be the same regardless of traffic: we were there at 5:30, half an hour before the place exploded with a surge of patrons (possibly looking to end their mortal lives on the last day of the year), and the food was likely the first batch of the dinner hours.
The only winner I could surmise (to my great surprise) was the salt n' pepper squid - everything else was drenched in grease, and was either too salty, or utterly flavorless. The Shanghai noodles were the dubious winners of that combo, a flavorless slime that wriggled down my throat like worms. It made me look forward to Master Ken M.'s homemade Mexican feast even more.
As I've said, New Year's Eve is probably one of the worst days to try a new place, and it could be that they were on autopilot, slamming out dishes any which way. They might even turn out to be a decent buffet option for the south - but I am in no rush to return and find out.
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