Restaurant Review of Gina's Lakeside Grille

OK, I just came back to the office from Gina’s Lakeside Grille in Altamonte. This place is in that new area with the lake and concerts and all that stuff. James and I went there for their American lunch buffet. I called ahead to ask what they were serving today on the buffet and I was told salad, soup, beef stew, penne siciliano, rice and veg and pizza. I was skeptical because of the incredible lack of offerings, but we decided to go anyway. An actual exchange between James and I prior to going to Gina’s:

Richard: It all depends on the quality of food, which I am assuming will be good.
James: We will find out soon enough.

And find out we did.

Arrival and Presentation:
This place looks real nice and clean with a great location, etc. I knew the buffet was $8.99 which is not necessarily cheap for a lunch buffet, but I figured once I tasted the food, I would know where that extra money went. I was wrong. This place is in the $hit. We sat down and the guy told us to go ahead….no drink order taken. So, James and I go up to the buffet and the first station was a salad station. We both decided to skip this and move to the hot food. I open the first dome of food to find rice in one section and mixed veg in the other section. I skip the veg and go for some rice. I take a large spoonful and as I dump it on my plate, I hear and see the rice literally bouncing when they hit the plate. I put the scoop of rice on my plate and put the spoon back down. I grabbed a pinch of rice right there and tasted it. The texture was as if they cooked the rice for half the suggested cooking time. I made a face and inverted my plate dumping the rice onto the little plate that held the spoon at the buffet line. I opened the next dome and saw fried chicken. I noticed that all the pieces of chicken looked exactly the same-the same size and same shape and everything. Not a good sign. They were all pieces of breast with rib attached. But they were all the same size and shape!!! I became more disgusted and closed that dome. Only two domes remaining. I almost begun to tear up. I opened the third dome and found the penne siciliano. It was in a thick red sauce and I saw what looked like sausage in it. I figured “ok” and grabbed a spoonful of that. Closed that dome. Opened the fourth and final dome and saw beef stew. It looked perfectly normal and so I took a few pieces of beef and a piece of potato. I finally made my way over to the soup and pizza area and took a small bowl of New England chowder and looked towards the pizza. There were two small 10” pizzas under the reddest heat lamp ever. James said that the pizza looked a hundred years old and when I saw it, I agreed. It was hard to see under the reddest light bulbs ever though. I saw the there were 3 slices of pepperoni left and almost a whole pie of plain cheese. I took one small slice of the pepperoni and grunted as I did. I head back to the table.

Tasting:
I started with the beef stew. I forked a piece of the meat and jammed it in my face. The meat was tender enough and I thought, ala Ramsay, “It’s quite nice, actually” The potato was also cooked through and I started getting high hopes for the meal. Wrong! I finished the small portion of beef stew and started on the penne. It was……….ok. The penne was overcooked and had very little texture. The sauce was ok and the sausage pieces were exactly that; sausage. However, they were such thin slices that they were 90% flavorless. Think of putting a sausage link on a deli meat slicer and slicing it about one millimeter thick. That is what the sausage looked like. Then, I taste the fried chicken. The skin tastes average as far as the required spices go, but the chicken is all the same shape!!! I couldn’t get over it. The breading was also very much corn meal and very thin. I took a look at the pizza up close in natural light and it honestly looked like it had been made yesterday and reheated solely under the heat lamp for today’s service. It was greasy and the crust was rubbery. I could’ve used the crust to affix my bathroom toilet to the floor. No wax ring. Just pizza. James and I had, of course, been discussing the meal throughout and we couldn’t believe how bad it was. Look at this awesome place and where we were located and then look at the friggin’ food. The soup was pretty good. James gave it a 7.5 out of 10. I thought it was pretty good also. Finally, I go up to get dessert…..little bite sized pieces of chocolate cake. I see one of the waiters and tell him that there is no pepperoni pizza left and that the rice is about gone too. He says ok and goes into the kitchen. I had previously taken the last two slices of pepperoni with no plan on eating them, simply so the chef would put out a fresh pie so I could fill up on that. James goes up to get a salad (what he thinks is the only thing that cant suck) He was wrong too. The cake was very average…..tasted like a thawed Sara Lee cake. I couldn’t believe it when James put his fork down on his salad and made a face. He said that the blue cheese dressing tasted like cole slaw. He later amended this opinion by stating that it “tasted like watered down mayonnaise.” The waitress brought our checks while we were still eating and I opened mine to find my bill……$12.16. I had a sweet tea and that brought the check to $12.16. I paid with Discover, left a $2.00 tip and we left. On the way out, I noticed that there still was no replacement pepperoni pizza. It had been about 20 minutes from when I told the waiter. I still got no pepperoni pizza. I really almost found the manager just to tell him how bad everything was. I didn’t. We just left.

Decision – I gave it two stars out of a possible ten. James pretended to throw up a few times which made us both laugh. I sure hope they make money at dinner time or events, because with that kind of food, no one will return. I know I won’t. Not when there’s Indian Buffet down the street for $6.99.

Yeeckkkkk.