Better buffet than average. I don't usually eat at restaurants attached to Holiday Inns, but my ward was having a retirement lunch for one of the veteran Filipina nurses. It was on a Friday -- Stages' seafood day at the buffet -- and the price was only $13.95, so I decided to give it a go.

It wasn't too shabby (unlike the brown carpet under foot.) I've learned from my Chinese co-workers to go for the high-protein, high-priced items FIRST, before my stomach is filled. The prawns, cooked in a sauce that might have been trying to be scampi, but it was skimpy, were decent. They were medium-size, not shrimpy, shells still on (indicates higher quality to me than peeled) and had not turned to rubber despite getting the steam table treatment. Ditto for the cold shrimp, which were slightly smaller, unseasoned, but not overcooked. I gnawed on some prawns, let me tell you. Cod and salmon in sauce (separate dishes of the fishes, mind you) were offered, and my co-workers said they were good. I was full of shrimp.

There were other meats on offer at the hot table, but what impressed me most was the variety of cold salads. They had the usual potato salad, cole slaw, etc., but there were a half-dozen "exotics." I'm talking things like a cold couscous concoction with a sweet flavour from dried cranberries in it, bocconcini with a red-pepper-based coating, an Asian slaw with pickled vegetables and sesame oil, another salad that my retiring Pinay friend said was seaweed... Not your average AYCE fare. Desserts were beaucoup, including brown rounds of dulce de leche.

I'm a nut for nuts, so what sealed my affection was how Stages had containers of so many at the salad bar. Ant not cheap stuff, either. Peanuts in both salted and seasoned varieties, pumpkin seeds, pecans, California walnuts, and amazingly enough, a smaller dish of black walnut bits. When's the last time you saw black walnuts ANYWHERE, much less on a salad bar. If I had known, I would have brought an empty medication bottle and smuggled some home to bake brownies with. Maybe next time. We have a few other older staff who are going to be leaving, eh?