Our placemats at Golden Jaguar's buffet greeted us with the advice: "For the sake of your health, please do not binge eat and drink." Pardon me? We were looking for the gut-busting, health-risking, all-you-can-eat buffet for RMB 180 with option of eating yourself to death.

Originally invented to feed a large number of people in a short period of time, how can the buffet possibly be taken seriously when the aim is simply to fill you up? Well, try not to think of the buffet as a shopping spree, but rather, like a big jumble sale where you have to sift through the junk to find those few dishes that would be expensive to order a la carte. Fortunately for us, the Golden Jaguar offered more hits than misses.

"Diverse" does not begin to describe the multitudinous types of food on offer. Ten different cuisines are represented, ranging from Argentinean to Japanese, with all the stereotypical national classics. Although the limp, soggy sashimi was disappointing, we found the sushi quite palatable. Authentic Japanese rice is substituted with a very similar chewy grain, mixed with a good proportion of vinegar. Though miniature in size, the slice of fish was just thick enough that you wouldn't get the impression of stinginess. We suspected this was the restaurant's strategy, making quality sushi to get you to fill up on rice. We didn't fall for it, and instead, cunningly focused on the sukiyaki cooked in single-serving pans, with tender choice-cut beef and a variety of woodsy mushrooms including matsutake and enoki.

Oysters were on offer at several of the serving stations, dressed-up in different guises. The most popular version was raw, with a lemon wedge; the fiery ones, in a skirt of red Mexican salsa, were less popular and less fresh. Little baby ones wrapped up in a Japanese-style omelet needed ketchup or Tabasco sauce or both. However, other molluscs were more interesting, like the Malay-style mussels that were piquant and just-cooked, or the Cantonese-style scallops which were fresh and tender, with pungent savory garlic. In fact, the Cantonese seafood bar is one of the best deals at this buffet. A whole fish can be steamed or stir-fried to order. A couple of these alone will get you your money's worth.

Other obvious bargains included a tub of goose liver pate, with some patrons scooping mounds out like kids in an ice-cream store. It wasn't the expensive French stuff, but there was a wickedly wonderful sense of decadence and abundance to it, as with the free flow of beer, wine, and cocktails. The mildly alcoholic cocktails were neon-colored saccharine concoctions and after a few rounds we mistook a sugar high for inebriation. Alternatively, load up on caffeine at the coffee machine, which made flavorful coffee that was strong enough to drag us out of our lethargy from over-eating.

Sweet teeth ached at the sight of the dessert spread. Cakes were well made, like the creamy, lemony cheese cake and the tangy mango mousse. There was certainly no highbrow French pastry chef behind all the heavy cream and castor sugar, but these sweets managed to hit the spot.

Golden Jaguar's Sunday brunch is offered from 11am-2.30pm. This means that if you arrive at 11am on the dot, which many people did, you can travel ten countries within three and a half hours. This whirlwind tour predictably left us bloated and confused, but like the binge drinker who swears off alcohol every time they face a hangover, we¡¯ll probably be back for more. A comfortable, spacious environment means plenty of room for friends and family to gather for a raucous day out, arguing about which dishes are worth making a trip back to the buffet table for.

GoldenJaguar
Location 1: 2/F, Wangfu Shiji Mansion, No.55 Donganmen Dajie
Tel: 010-65598888

Location 2: No.214 Huizhong Beili Community, Asian Games Village, Chaoyang District
Tel: 010-51281888