[txdave35]

So I went to Browns on a Saturday night hungry for some good country cooking. This restaurant is noted as a tourist hightlight in Benton AR, rave reviews, and even a wall plastered with celebrity photos talking about how grrreat the food is.


The buffet line starts with your basic salad, and their offerings were as plain as it gets. Lettuce, carrots, black olives, bacon bits. If I'm paying for an expensive buffet, I like to have tons of options like mushrooms and boiled eggs. No biggie though.

The side dishes looked pretty good. Greens, mac and cheese, chicken and dumplings, potato salad. Then I got to the meats, and disappointed sank in. Cholesterol city! Almost all the meats were greasy fried foods. Now I love fried chicken, but Browns offers only a pan ful of bony dark meat chicken wings and backs. No breasts. ugh. Fried codfish, shimp, catfish. No thanks. I grabbed some bland meatloaf just to get away from the friedness.

Can someone explain why this place is so highly regarded? Ryans and Golden Corral have much better buffet choices than this!

[northbound74]

Wow. I almost forgot about that place.
I always thought it was decent, but not really a standout. It is a buffet, and buffets are usually spotty at best. It's a typical tourist place next to the freeway, and they tend to get more attention if they're locally owned and halfway edible.
For some strange reason, buffets also have a knack for going downhill as the years go by. Many start out great, but 5 years later...... not so much. Not all do that, but many I've seen have.

[nmnita]

Originally Posted by txdave35

So I went to Browns on a Saturday night hungry for some good country cooking. This restaurant is noted as a tourist hightlight in Benton AR, rave reviews, and even a wall plastered with celebrity photos talking about how grrreat the food is.


The buffet line starts with your basic salad, and their offerings were as plain as it gets. Lettuce, carrots, black olives, bacon bits. If I'm paying for an expensive buffet, I like to have tons of options like mushrooms and boiled eggs. No biggie though.

The side dishes looked pretty good. Greens, mac and cheese, chicken and dumplings, potato salad. Then I got to the meats, and disappointed sank in. Cholesterol city! Almost all the meats were greasy fried foods. Now I love fried chicken, but Browns offers only a pan ful of bony dark meat chicken wings and backs. No breasts. ugh. Fried codfish, shimp, catfish. No thanks. I grabbed some bland meatloaf just to get away from the friedness.

Can someone explain why this place is so highly regarded? Ryans and Golden Corral have much better buffet choices than this!

we all know, food is subjective, what one person will love, someone else will find totally unaccpetable. Many people I know hate Golden Corral, including most of my family, I happen to love it. Well, let's put it this way, I am not a buffet person period, but if I going to go to a buffet I will choose Golden Corral or some Western Sizzlins. As for fried, most buffets have lots of fried foods, that is one thing I do not like about them.

Add to that, surveys and ratings are also subjective. Our latest readers survey in NWA rated some restaurants tops that many of us wouldn't bother with.

Nita

[strumpeace]

Buffets are nasty. Period. I've seen kids putting their hands in the food. I've seen dead flies in the food. I've seen people sneeze, wipe their noses, cough, etc., all within a foot or two of the food. Disgusting. You're risking life and limb eating at those places.

With regard to Brown's buffet in Benton -- I've never head a good thing about it.

[RTTNFAM]

Originally Posted by txdave35

So I went to Browns on a Saturday night hungry for some good country cooking. This restaurant is noted as a tourist hightlight in Benton AR, rave reviews, and even a wall plastered with celebrity photos talking about how grrreat the food is.


The buffet line starts with your basic salad, and their offerings were as plain as it gets. Lettuce, carrots, black olives, bacon bits. If I'm paying for an expensive buffet, I like to have tons of options like mushrooms and boiled eggs. No biggie though.

The side dishes looked pretty good. Greens, mac and cheese, chicken and dumplings, potato salad. Then I got to the meats, and disappointed sank in. Cholesterol city! Almost all the meats were greasy fried foods. Now I love fried chicken, but Browns offers only a pan ful of bony dark meat chicken wings and backs. No breasts. ugh. Fried codfish, shimp, catfish. No thanks. I grabbed some bland meatloaf just to get away from the friedness.

Can someone explain why this place is so highly regarded? Ryans and Golden Corral have much better buffet choices than this!

Brown's is hyped up "southern" food, and fried foods are a big part of what southerners like to eat, however unhealthy it is. In my opinion Brown's is just like most southern buffets, except that they are maybe more expensive. That being said my grandparents absolutely loved it back in the day, and swore it was the best "eat out" food there was. They didn't eat out much.

We like Golden Corral every once in a while, but we usually don't eat buffets at all. They are fattening and as another poster has said, can be very unsanitary.

[Luvvarkansas]

Originally Posted by strumpeace

Buffets are nasty. Period. I've seen kids putting their hands in the food. I've seen dead flies in the food. I've seen people sneeze, wipe their noses, cough, etc., all within a foot or two of the food. Disgusting. You're risking life and limb eating at those places.

See! If you hang around someone long enough, you can find something you agree on!

[RogMar]

Originally Posted by txdave35

Cholesterol city! Almost all the meats were greasy fried foods.

Uhhhhhh, maybe because it's in the south?

People in the south love their greasy fried meats....and barbecue.

We had a place open locally that *proudly* proclaimed, "We serve no fried foods".

It lasted about as long as a <burp> in a tornado.

Y'all want vegan......move to California.

[nmnita]

Originally Posted by RogMar

Uhhhhhh, maybe because it's in the south?

People in the south love their greasy fried meats....and barbecue.

We had a place open locally that *proudly* proclaimed, "We serve no fried foods".

It lasted about as long as a <burp> in a tornado.

Y'all want vegan......move to California.

Very true and people from Texas know fried and southern go together.

Nita

[Dr. Foosball]

Originally Posted by strumpeace

Buffets are nasty. Period. I've seen kids putting their hands in the food. I've seen dead flies in the food. I've seen people sneeze, wipe their noses, cough, etc., all within a foot or two of the food. Disgusting. You're risking life and limb eating at those places.

QFT.

Buffets are disgusting. I can't imagine anyone wanting to eat food that everyone has been sneezing on. And don't get me started on the tongs. You touch the tongs, put them back in the food, and consider it sanitary? Ugh!

Especially in this flu-crazed time we live, you should run from the buffet line.

[AllenKarber]

I definitely put Brown's in the Overrated category,and I probably haven't eaten there in 15 or 20 years. It seems to have made it just fine without my business though!