During my resent visit in Eastbourne, I stumbled on this Pan-Asian buffet restaurant; COSMO. Cosmo is a chain of restaurants and it is really popular amongst buffet crawlers. The chain boasts about having dishes from 10 Asian countries, a whopping 120 dishes on their menu every single day! (I doubt it). Their publicity says that more than 20000 customers visit Cosmo overall every week, I am not surprised… food is good there if Eastbourne buffet is anything to go by. See promo video from the restaurant chain below.
Apparently, in some branches they cook the meals in front of customers as they order their choices. That sounds great as this serves also as entertainment to the dinners.
I had heard about the live cooking but this in Eastbourne branch did not offer any… For the branch located in Croydon which offers live cooking, I am told that, each group of customers can only stay and dine for 1 hour tops… because the branch has such a high turn over… I had never been interested in places like theses as, high turn around of customer’s means, careless cooking and possible indigestion for having eaten so quickly… it also means that you do not get enough time to taste their “120 dishes”.
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| Inside Eastboune COSMO |
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| My teams table |
On entering the restaurant, I was agreeably surprise to find that the branch in Eastbourne was much smaller and the atmosphere very mellow. Diners were quietly, milling around and making their choice on the dishes already on display on the buffet. There was no brouhaha from guests applauding the chefs at the “live cooking station”… There was no live cooking section. This branch in Eastbourne was so small there is no space to swing a cat. Having read the brochure I was excited to finally have the Cosmo’ experience just so I can be completely disappointed and very critical.
Despite not having a live cooking station, the buffet was quite good. I am not sure the food selection has 120 dishes from 10 countries… in fact I am sure there were not 50 dishes on display. I tasted most of the savoury dishes and particularly enjoyed the prawns and broccoli. The company was a great distraction from everything that was missing.
The deco was really quite modern compared to everything else in Eastbourne. The clientele, younger that expected and the staff at the restaurant were really pleasant.
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| My plate |
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| Buffet area |
We spent a total of 2 hours in the restaurant and all 5 of us had a great time with the boys trying to pack in as much as they could from the buffet.
At £12.99 per person this is really cheap for Eastbourne. I would have happily paid £16.99 as is the price in Croydon. I will definitely visit the restaurant again if I visit Eastbourne.
I will give 2 stars for this Branch of COSMO, just because I didn’t see the 120 dishes, the countries were not labelled on the dishes displayed and there was no live cooking station; 3 points on which the restaurant didn’t deliver in my opinion.
COSMO Eastbourne is situated 113-115 Seaside road, Eastbourne BN21 3PH. Don’t all go there at once alright?!
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