Royal Sizzling & Hot Pot Buffet

they are officially out of business so dont come here no more … so sad when i was craving for some hot pot and lamb on the grill… waste of drive coming here

The idea, is genius. ALL you can EAT VIETNAMESE buffet, for ONLY 11.00??? I mean, heaven, right? Well… idea was good, however I can’t say it’s the best place I’ve been to.
Okay, let’s talk about the most annoying thing. I came here with a huge party on a weekend with 105 degree weather. The place was scorching hot and all there was available was a fan, in the front of the restaurant. The place is already sizzling before the hot pots even started, so, already, I was annoyed.
The concept is actually pretty amazing. They offer a «hot pot» section, where the broth is set at your table and you can go to the buffet area and pick all the fresh vegetables and meats they have to offer. They also have just as «buffet» area where there is your typical stir drys, chow meins, fried rice, and what they’re famous for is all you can eat phở, beef noodle soup (bun bo), and other types of soupy noodle bowls. They also have made fresh vietnamese crepes! It’s pretty cool that they offer such a vast selection, but the drawback is that it’s not the best tasting noodle soups. I tried the spicy beef noodle soup which was quite bland, and same with the phở. The buffet was okay.
Great concept, not so great reality. Can’t say I’d be back unless it was another family gathering I was invited to.

I’m only giving it 2 stars because of the service, other than that it would’ve been a solid 1. :(
I love eating at hot pot places, but I was surprised coming here with my brother. It was not what I had expected… it was totally different.
— We came during their grand opening week and the tables were mostly empty except for us and two other tables. We were seated quickly by a server, who seemed like the only available server around actually. He was quick to get our drinks, answered any questions we had, and explained how it all worked. He was informative and polite at least. Also, I think he was probably the only server ’cause he knew English well (I remember asking for chopsticks from an old man behind the counter and he didn’t seem to really know English so he couldn’t help me out, but he tried haha).
— Their hot pot grill is small and nothing like other hot pot grills. It looks pretty cheap with all that tin foil too.
— They don’t have a large selection of food, from what I remember. At first, my brother and I just wanted to eat their buffet, but saw that there were only about 10 hot foods available so we had to get the hot pot because there wasn’t even much to eat. I feel like you have to get the hot pot because if you settle for just the buffet, I don’t think you will be satisfied. I think I had stir fry noodles with some veggies and they weren’t very good. :/​The hot pot food was a little better, but eh…
My brother was paying for our lunch, so I felt like I should at least eat half of what we had in our hot pot. I don’t plan on coming back ever again; I tried it and it’s just one of those places you just can’t bear to return to!

I’ve only been here twice and I have to say I don’t think I’ll be back :(
The first time was with my bf, we wanted to try something different so we went here. The moment we stepped in a nice lady helped us, she explained how everything worked and what to do. Since it was our first time we decided not to do hotpot. This is the first time I’ve been to an only Vietnamese buffet, meaning they only have Vietnamese cuisine, and I was pleasantly surprised. Mainly because I’ve never been to a place like this and because they have unlimited phở! Like what?! They also had other food like banh xeo, spring rolls and curry. When it was time to pay the bill it took us about ten minutes to peg a worker down.
After that day I loved this place and took my whole family here so they could try it as well. This time though I picked hotpot instead and thank goodness I did. The reason why is because if I didn’t then we would have had barely anything to eat. The food that were already cooked were spare so we had to cook our own food mainly. I was shocked because the last time I came it was so great but this time there was barely any food and the customer service wasn’t good. My whole family was still hungry and we wanted to leave so we asked to get our bill. They included tip for themselves which was about 15 extra dollars! I always tipped big but since the service was below sub par I wasn’t going to tip that much but they already included it in the bill so I had no choice.
Disappointed with this place and the food I love the idea but they really need to be more professional and orderly.

This is my 4^th time at this place. All previous times, we had great experiences except for the last one.
We went there last weekend with some out of town relatives but we were all disappointed. Their ac was broken and instead of getting it fixed, they had these miniature sized fans to blow at certain areas. In addition, their raw food ready for hotpot smelled sour and was going bad (if it wasn’t bad already). It was definitely a health hazard issue. their cooked food was still decent but to take newbies there, it was disappointing. they should have closed the place until their ac was fixed because it made the experience horrible and made me contemplate on whether or not to go back.
after reading recent reviews, their ac has been down for a few weeks now. they shouldn’t be open if their ac isn’t fixed. it could cause food poisoning!!!

DISGUSTINGGGGG!!! DO NOT COME HERE and waste your money! Its 10.99 for all you can eat hot pot BUT it’s not worth it. You get what you paid for. Maybe I came a little right after they opened but that should not be an excuse of why nothing was available except for all the premade stuff (tofu mushrooms etc). The meats that were available came straight out from the meat package… no marinade at all it was super blend. The chicken soup base was really salty. Its sad that my boyfriend and i never got up to make a second round… we couldnt wait to get out of there!
This is a vietnamese based buffet. so its not the typical asian buffet where you can get a verify of everything.
My water had hard oil floaties in it. GROSS!!! If I can give it half a star I would… for the Dr. Pepper.

There is a reason why the buffet price might seem to good to be true. $ 10.99 gets you in, and gets you the hotpot/​tabletop grill with your choice of three broths, of which the Thai one was… interesting, to say the least. What you don’t get are highly desirable items for your grill/​hotpot such as shrimp, squid, mussels, or any other type of seafood. Ordering an extra plate of those things (no mix and match) is $ 3.50 extra.
So you could easily spend $ 40 on a mediocre buffet experience when you could have spent that amount of money at a better hotpot place with better broths and ingredients.
The redeeming factor is that their banh xeo is decent. $ 10.99 for all you can eat banh xeo seems like a more honest picture of this place.
Yeah, I walked away full. Full of disappointment. (Come on, you loved that.)
Tip: don’t.

Say it with me: «A/​C is your FRIEND»
We came here with a huge party for my aunt’s birthday and the place was a sauna. Super hot. Super humind. No A/​C. Not exactly the best conditions to be eating let alone eating HOT pot.
Two leaf-​blower type fans situated nowhere near the tables couldn’t even put a dent into the overwhelmingly suffoating heat.
My family opted out of the hot pot option and we just got the regular buffet. Most of the buffet area includes items for the hot pot. If you were turned off by the old, reheated chow mein and fried rice you could opt for spring rolls, egg rolls, or chicken wings. They also had phở, bun bo, and bun rieu but like I said it was just toooo dang hot to be eating any of that.
I tried a little bit of my mom’s bun bo broth and it was so salty to me. I personally ate the goi cuon, nem nuong (until I bit into a huge peppercorn) and banh beo. The food was okay… nothing special.
Service here is really slow and mismanaged. I will admit we had a really big party, but a 10 – 15 minute wait for drinks? When the drink counter is right around the corner? Not to mention that the water tasted like a dishrag so please opt out for a soda or tea.

$ 10.99 for an all you can eat vietnamese buffet?
That is pretty darn good yo.
Take a minute and let that soak in. 11 bucks for an all you can eat Vietnamese buffet.
Yes, they have Phở. But I didn’t even touch it because of the variety of foods they had.
Very, very authentic Vietnamese foods and it’s a great experience!
Each table can sit 4 around a grill/​hot pot.
It is buffet style, so you get up and get whatever you want, and how ever much you want too (ayeeeee!)
From Vietnamese crepes, to Vietnamese broth soups, to Vietnamese curries, there is everything Vietnamese made.
Sorry, I feel bad for not knowing the food names in Viet. But scroll through the pictures and you’ll get the picture (pun intended)
We made a reservation for friggin 30 people cause we came for a birthday. It’s possible, yes. The place can probably sit 100 people very comfortably.
It’s huge! Parking spots everywhere too because it’s in a mall area.
It may be a little difficult to find, just follow the GPS/​Google Map.
My ultimatum: the foods that were cooked fresh on the spot (crepes, hotpot, grilled foods) were really really good. The foods that have been out for a while (cons of buffets) aren’t that great to be honest.
I just love the place because there aren’t any other all you can eat vietnamese buffets and hotpot places around.
Again, 11 bucks.
What. a. steal.
They can split checks, you pay up front.

Went here for Mother’s Day and surprisingly, it wasn’t crowded. They lowered their buffet price to $ 10! That is dirt cheap! With that price per head, I wasn’t expecting anything spectacular. For a buffet, there wasn’t much of a selection of hot foods. They had the usual Vietnamese entrees such as Banh beo, Banh xeo, Banh cuon, etc. All which are time consuming to make and can be pricey at regular restaurants, so it was nice to be able to try them all in a buffet. They also had phở and bun bo hue. The phở was surprisingly tasty! I was expecting the broth to be bland but it was flavorful for being served at a buffet. The bun bo hue was actually very bland and not good at all.
They had a nice little dessert station and even had ingredients to make your own Che dessert but they didn’t refill it that often. The waiters rarely came by to refill our drinks or take empty trays but I wasn’t expecting much because they were short staffed.
All in all, the food wasn’t spectacular but it was pretty good for $ 10. Most of their food items take long to make and they’re not that busy, so I can understand why they didn’t refill them as often. The workers were kind and they even asked us how the food was and how they could better them when we left. At least they’re trying. I would give them 3.5 stars if I could, but I’ll round up.

Being the poor, starving college student that I am, I was fortunate to have my parents treat me out to dinner after my second round of midterms have ended. Needless to say, I don’t think I have ever had so much Vietnamese food nor have I had different types of Vietnamese food all in one night (and I’m Vietnamese too!)
To my amazement, they had all sorts of different dishes to try from. Five different types of noodle soup; there’s different types of phở, bun bo hue, and bun rieu, which were made per your request. There’s also banh xeo (Vietnamese crêpe) that were fried immediately upon request (though it would have been better if they used less oil). I was stoke to see that they had banh hoi and Vietnamese desserts too!

My dad wanted to go to an all you can eat buffet, so my sister and I decided to check this place out.
The service was ok, but we did not receive our drinks until we had to say something. Our waitress was a little on the older side, so we understood. The food was TERRIBLE. I was not a happy camper! The soup based hot pots was gross, until my dad added a few veggies, which made the flavor a little better.
I would not go back again. I am NOT picky with my food, but this place was just not a place I would want to ever go to. I would have been happy with Number 1 buffet just down the street!

My family, my boyfriend and I came here for dinner. It was my boyfriend and my birthday. When we got there, it wasn’t busy at all, but they would not seat us until our full party came (maybe they thought the ones who sat first will eat all the hot food? I don’t know.) Anywho, my family finally got there and we were seated by 7:45/8pm. Apparently they stop cooking at 9pm so they kept rushing us to eat.
They didn’t have a big selection either. Customer service was horrible and food was not fresh. Everything was old. The only fresh food was the phở that you’d have to order.
Unfortunately, this place is not as good as I’d hope. I wanted more food (considering that Unilocal was full of pictures of good food).
Would I go back? Probably not. Would I recommend this to someone else? NO! Don’t waste your time here.

I am amazed by this place just because it’s a Vietnamese buffet. I think it’s brilliant! I love the variety there is. They have almost everything from phở to che to hot pot. My favorite items were the thit kho and thit quay. I didn’t have any room left to try the bo kho though. Despite the variety, not all the items tasted equally as good but that’s a given whenever you go to a buffet. The staff were nice and let us split the bill. I plan on coming back to see if there are any changes or improvements. Will let you how that goes.
Tl;dr: huge variety, low cost, average in taste with some exceptions

Went during lunch time and had the chicken broth hot pot. They only serve Thai or chicken soup base, wish there could have been more variety. They had the basic fish/​beef/​intestines/​etc for hot pot, it wasn’t anything that we couldn’t have at home.
But, for 9.99 it was a good deal for all you can eat hot pot and it saves you the hassle of prepping the food at home.
The spring rolls and other Vietnamese dishes were not tasty at all.
Otherwise, the service was good. We were the only one at the restaurant, so the waiter came by almost every 10 minutes to check up on us and told us to take our time and eat a lot. He was just really nice.
In the end, I would recommend this place for people who are on a budget crunch that are looking to fill themselves up.

It was so-​so.
To be fair, my only experience with hot pot is from Chinese restaurants, so perhaps hot pot in Vietnamese culture is a little different.
For starters, the Thai broth was very flavorful. It wasn’t authentic tom yum, but it blended with the food very well.
The appetizers were mixed: the spring rolls were delicious, but the crêpe was too bland I had to force it down. There were also grilled pork and chicken in the appetizers section, but both were too oily, though well-​seasoned.
The unlimited phở idea got me really hyped. As much phở as I wanted? Sounds like heaven… almost. While the phở wasn’t bad, it wasn’t great either, nothing compared to Viet Ha across the street. For Davis students, I’d say their phở is comparable to Phở King IV in Davis, which is nothing to die for but enough to satisfy a craving.
There is also a hot foods section, where there were some rather typical Asian dishes (fried rice, fried noodles, veggies, etc.)
Now onto the hot pot foods. The selection was disappointing. There was the standard beef, pork, chicken, and fish, along with other parts of those animals (intestines, tripe, gizzards, etc.). However, in my book, shrimp (and maybe calamari) are also standard, and I was disappointed to not find any. The vegetables are also lacking. There was broccoli, cauliflower, mustard greens, lettuce, spinach leaves, bean sprouts, [canned?] shiitake mushrooms, and black wood-​ear fungus. I was so sad to not have any enoki mushrooms or my usual Chinese veggies in my hot pot! But with what there was, the Thai broth made the most of it.
There was also the option of grilling the meats. The only problem was that the grilling surface quickly got burnt and was not changed by the servers, so after two short rounds of grilling, we gave up on that.
Service was a bit lacking and the place seemed understaffed. At the beginning when we got there, the service was decent. But towards the end, there was no one to refill our drinks or the water in the hot pot.
Overall, for $ 10, it’s worth the money. After all, it is an all you can eat experience. But if you’re used to Chinese hot pot, this might not meet your expectations (though I still managed to stuff myself before waddling out of the restaurant!)

Yay, a Vietnamese food buffet! A nice change from typical Chinese food buffets. Went here with my family, and honestly, it was dead when we came in. However, according to my mom, it does get pretty busy… so I guess we came at an off time.
The space itself is pretty big. It’s pretty cheap to eat here too. I think about $ 10 a person during lunch, $ 1 extra each person if you want the hot pot option, which I think is worth it. They have a good variety of food, which seemed fresh and tasted good. They have stuff like curry, banh xeo, a variety of spring rolls… a variety of raw meats and seafood that you can cook at your table.
Service was good and our table was always clean and water was always filled. I would definitely come here again to eat. The food is much more healthy and less greasy than typical Asian Chinese buffets.
Also, as far as options in Sacramento goes… this place had good prices for good food. I hope that doesn’t change the next time I come into town to visit my family and eat here.

This place has so much potential.
The idea of a Vietnamese buffet – genius.
Hot pot and grill in one – so amazing you don’t know why this isn’t the standard.
Unlimited phở, bun bo hue, banh xeo, etc. made to order – how is that even possible?!
$ 10/​person any time of day, any day of the week – are they insane?!
Why isn’t there a mad rush to this restaurant with lines wrapping around the block? Herein lies the problem. The lifeblood of a restaurant is its customers, but at a buffet, this is doubly true. Buffets need to reach a critical mass of customers to ensure regular turnover and fresh food. Royal, sadly, is in deep need of customers.
I can see the measures they took to mitigate this problem. They lowered the price to an unbelievable $ 10. The volume of the raw ingredients is minimized to facilitate faster turnover.
Some of the winners at this restaurant:
–The banh xeo (Vietnamese style crêpe). I’ve tried to make banh xeo this crispy before, and have failed. How do this they do this so well? The batter and consistency rivals the best Vietnamese restaurants in Sacramento. Make sure you break it into pieces and immerse them generously in fish sauce. Traditional Vietnamese style would be to use pieces in a lettuce wrap (also available at the buffet).
–The sizzling hot pot. Be adventurous! Try to throw some chicken hearts on the grill with a generous helping of butter. They crisp up and the texture is fantastic. If you’re more conservative, they have thinly sliced chicken breast and even steak here. The grills they use here are very high BTU (compared to Korean BBQ places I’ve tried in LA) and things cook very quickly. Utilize the sauce station and combine ingredients to make your perfect sauce. My go to sauce here is the XO, which is based on dried scallops. It’s amazing.
–The bo kho (stewed beef). Get some bread and dip it in there for some wholesome goodness. The bo kho is seasoned very well and rivals my mom’s.

It’s really not that expensive people.
(M-​F) $ 14.95 for lunch /​$ 15.95 for dinner
*Friday dinner is $ 18.95
$ 18.95 all day on the weekends.
So, obviously come here on the weekdays. I paid with cash. And they even give you a 10% off coupon for your next visit when you pay :)
Also, if you’re going to complain about having to cook your own food at a HOT POT restaurant, you’re obviously in the wrong place. It’s cheaper because you have to cook your own food. That’s half the fun of it.
ALSO, I found this random YouTube video of the grand opening.
It’s completely in Vietnamese and it’s 13 minutes long. So… yeah.

Yummies, returned for my second visit with my fambam and, boy, with my mom there, everything tasted slightly bit better than when I was doing the cooking.
My second return brought back the memory of our burning plates! The table is fairly small so, although there are labels, I often found my plates too close to the grill. However, any bigger and you’d be too far from the person across from you so a friend was suggesting they get glass cutlery instead, which is a great idea that Royal should definitely consider. Perhaps I’ll let them know on my next visit…
I still think Royal is doing a terrific job! Their service, at times, was a bit slow. they should hire a couple fluent English speaking workers for sure. However, going through a few of these 1 star reviews has gotten me a bit defensive (and keep in mind, I am not a family member!).
I agree with P.T. First of all, you don’t go to a buffet and complain about having to get up to retrieve your supplies. (DUH?) Second, you don’t go to a hot pot establishment and expect not to cook your own food! That’s the whole point of hot pot! And finally, the meats here are not marinated because that’s the Vietnamese way of eating what we call «Bo Chien Bo», which literally translates as «Butter Grilled Beef». You add butter to your grill, slap that meat on there and when it’s done cooking, you dip it in your sauce. The butter provides the richness and the sauce provides the flavor.
People don’t always write defensive reviews to offend Unilocalers. Agreed, everyone has their own opinions and reviews like mine here are only here to serve as another opinion for the Unilocal community to share. No point in getting butt hurt. it’s a bit embarrassing. I think my 300+ reviews shows that I do know what I’m talking about.
Anyway, back to Royal. They are a bit pricey, which is why I’d probably go only for special occasions. They’ll be doomed if they raise their prices any further so hopefully this won’t be the case!