Cafe Sierra

We got married in this hotel and would come here to eat a lot. It used to be around $ 40 for a great variety of food. This is possibly one of the best buffet I ever had with their great selection. They have every possibly kind is seafood (yes, fresh and raw), sashimi, prime rib, etc. Their dessert selection is incredible too. They have a chocolate fountain and cotton candy. You are allowed to take home the cotton candy too. I recently brought my daughter for her birthday and was disappointed to find out that it costs about $ 70 a person now. It got super pricey! I don’t know if I’ll be able to afford that again.

My husband and I drove to LA after seeing this restaurant on yahoo’s top buffets in CA. We celebrated his birthday and decided to give this place a try and although it has pros and cons, we enjoyed it.
Pros:
— Great service. Waiters and waitresses were super helpful, prompt to pick up our place, replace used and dirty silverware, and just kind.
— Great selection. From 3 types of crab, a carving station, taco station, crêpe station, cotton candy (really? but awesome to be able to take that home), dim sum, soups, large selection of desserts, and much more, we definitely were excited to be able to taste everything.
–Food quality. I’m torn here because overall the food was okay but there were some things that stood out and worth the money, especially for me the Alaskan king crab legs.
— Vibe. Pretty chill and comfortable. They have live music (a pianist) which was very nice.
Cons:
–Located in the hotel lobby which is weird but we got over that fast.
–Food quality. Yeah, I said I’m torn. Just a few things to mention specifically. The Dungeness and ofilia crab were super salty, almost inedible. Plus all crab were a pain in the ass to break open. Secondly, oysters were terrible when we were there. They were like dead and not fresh. And, some protein was a bit dried out.
It was fun and reasonably priced for the options you have. I won’t say I would return because we’re far, but if any one of our LA Friends want to go there, I wouldn’t say no. BTW, you can park at the Hilton, get it validated and you pay only $ 3 for up to 3 hours.

We had the pleasure of staying at this exquisite conveniently located hotel. The Sunday Brunch is one of the best in California and should not be missed. Live Jazz music, fresh seafood, sushi, paella, prime rib, and desserts to die for. Don’t forget the bottomless mimosas and great service. An amazing experience for the indulgent. Hotel is walking distance to Citywalk and Universal Studios.

The food was OK, we were so excited and looking forward of coming here for the lobster buffet.
but the lobster was not hot and it was chewy. after eating 2 lobster you get tired from chewing! the clam chowder has no taste and very creamy. but the crab legs are fresh and sweet. Lots of variety on desserts. but none taste good.
service was excellent, the food is not as good as before.
also the table setup is too closed to next table. every time people walk by they will hit your chair. because there is no space to walk by. don’t think will be coming back anytime soon. Husband had to go to the restroom 3 times after we got home.

Great brunch… $ 50 for seafood: crab legs, lobster, prime rib, Asian station, waffles, bacon, and the list goes on and on and on… unlimited Mimosas on deck!!! All Good!

The Sunday Brunch is a nice eclectic spread which caters to all palettes. Buffet desserts and champagne are usually disappointing, but they rocked it here. Although the dim sum was not the best, I would come back again, especially to try the dinner buffet.

This buffet is to die for! Awesome selections and everything you can think of they have here. I love their food presentations here and not just your typical buffet straight line window style. They have stations here according to food themes. Chinese food such as chow mein fried rice sweet and sour pork etc American food like steak, ribs, burgers, pizza, etc. seafood galore like lobster, crabs, fish, clams, shrimps and dont forget the dessert bar and sushi station. Food heaven! Price will burn your pockets $ 54 per plate but that was dinner when i went not sure about breakfast and lunch

2 stars because i am comparing this to previous experience. I believe price increase should be justified by increased quality and service.
Things they had in the past that they didn’t have this time:
–Pasta station
–Good variety of soups (at least 4 different soups)
–Ice cream freezer (haagen daz and drumstick)
–Better selection of drinks (hot chocolate was unlimited)
Things that were new to me:
–Slurpee machine
–Taco station
–Cotton candy machine (they had Cotton candy before, but this time they made it in front of you)
–A different kind if Alaskan crab (awhile ago it was just the really spiny crab and they sliced it down the middle So it’s easy to take out)
–Better dim sum but… It’s dim sum… not very costly.
This buffet has a very good selection of seafood. The sushi bar is awesome. The meat station is also awesome. Everything else is meh. It’s very Asian oriented with Chinese food and dim sum. Soup this time was chicken Soup (Chinese style) and clam chowder.
Just looking at the way they make crêpe is sad. Just ask for a pancake with toppings. Don’t bother folding it. Soggy. Tell them to cook it longer After the flip. Probably trying to rush it.
The desserts were ok. The cakes could be better. The flan was delicious. Pineapple was not sweet but freshly cut. Rather have the canned ones if they’re going to serve pineapples. Soft serve ice cream machine was watery, not sure what happened there.
Past price: 50 (38 on Sunday)
Current price: 65
Enjoyed it much more in my first experience a long time ago. The New stuff seemed like cheap fillers. Why would i want street tacos at a high end buffet? Much Rather have the pasta station.

Best seafood buffet in LA. Went here during New Year’s Eve, because supposedly they have the best selection of seafood during this holiday. It’s $ 100 per person. They give out free New Year’s Eve hats for everyone. They had unlimited grilled and baked (small) lobsters, clams, mussels, octopus, oysters, Alaskan and Snow Crab legs, shark stomach soup, escargot, sushi, sashimi, etc. They also have a small bar and a crêpe station at the side of the buffet. My group and I were stuffed senseless and were completely satisfied.

TOO EXPENSIVE for what they have to offer. I was here tonight for a celebration. Coming up the self parking elevators we popped right in on the buffet floor. One would expect to be greeted by the host, but there was no host to be found. We saw buffet stations right off the elevator! We ended up walking to the bar and realized the host was a little further down. I felt as if I was in a hotel lobby and they put chairs/​tables all around and called it a restaurant.
The food was okay, but definitely not worth the amount of money we paid ($ 82/​person including tax, corkage fees, and tip – WOW!). Nothing on the menu is worth coming back for… especially at those prices! I was really turned off by the crêpe station. I went to the station when it was completely empty and asked for a crêpe extra crispy. I was in awe when I was handed an, obviously, undercooked crêpe! No browning on the batter whatsoever. I asked the crêpe cook to put it back on and he did. However, since he folded the crêpe like an egg roll he only slightly browned the unfolded sides so my crêpe was still undercooked inside. I didn’t even want to deal with it anymore so I took it, ate some of the banana inside and tossed the rest. Lobster w/​cream and mushroom was decent, but I was shorted lobster in each tail. Lol. Ginger crab was good… too much sauce and it got quite salty. Prime rib was cold when sliced and given to me! Korean short ribs has a nice flavor, but contains more fat then meat.
To be fair, the wait staff were really friendly and attentive. Knives at the table need to be sharper; it was hard to cut the meat! They also valet for the first 3 hours. For those prices, I definitely would NOT go back!

Hands down of the best buffets I’ve been to. I went here with a couple of friends for a bday and boy was it amazing. It’s up there in prices in terms of buffets but the selection was on point. The highlight of the evening was definitely the amount of lobster tails they have available. Good selection of sushi and other seafood such as crab legs. But who needs all that when there’s lobster tails !

No bread pudding?!? A $ 62.00 per person, December 2015 Christmas buffet and no, figgy pudding *tsk, tsk, tsk!” Also, I would hope that they would have a huge, pretty gingerbread display among the desserts, but hope… just one small gingerbread house near the pianist… as for the food…
Ever since they discontinued shark fin soup, the food quality has really gone down. They still serve soup, but it’s chicken soup. They should have at least served abalone, especially since this is the Holidays. A reduction in food selection, and an increase in price. Also, they shifted some of food areas around.
The room where the pianist is, they use to have the desserts in the very back, and now it’s front and center to where the salad and appetizers used to be. Also, the dim sum stuff is in the very back where the desserts used to be along with the cooked Chinese food. They also used to have assorted bread rolls, and now they don’t.
Sadly, even the desserts weren’t great this year. They were either too dry or no flavor to them. A lot of it tasted like boring fluff to me. The only dessert I really liked was this lemon chiffon cupcake that was really moist and delicious.
However, they still have the lobsters, prime rib and lamb as the main center and attraction. They tasted saltier this time, which is smart, which forces you to drink more, and fills you up faster. They still also have the sushi station, taco station, King Crab/​Alaskan Crab station along with the other raw seafoods, and crepes station. At least those stations are the main staples.
I also like that they opened the ballroom that’s in front of the lobster station for parties off 11+, which is better seating organization. Also, there’s more staffers attentive each area so that drinks are refilled and replenished and dirty plates get taken away much faster.
Overall, the quality of the food was okay. If anything, you get your money’s worth from the Lobster, Prime Rib, and King Crabs. Otherwise, everything else is filler food.
Parking validates for the first 3 hours, and you end up paying $ 3. Anything over three hours, you pay the remaining leftover balance.

My wife and I came here for a work holiday party. I am not sure how much it was. But I heard that the buffet is around $ 65 a plate.
They serve everything buffet style. All the food was spread among the banquet rooms on the bottom story of the Hilton hotel. They had a few banquet rooms that had round tables with about 8 seats around each table for the guests. The servers direct you to which table you will be eating at. Then you can go get a plate and pick out whatever you want to eat.
They have foods from all over the world. Lots of seafood. They had a sushi bar with all kinds of sushi. They had an area that had Chinese BBQ and other type of meats. They had a dessert area with all kinds of pastries and cakes. Even Escargo (Snails). I didn’t have these!
My wife is allergic to some of the seafood (shellfish). She asked one of the severs if she could have a salad. They accommodated her with a fresh salad and did not add this to the bill. The servers were always right there to help us.
They even had a photographer that was going around to the tables and taking pictures. For an extra cost, she would take pictures of a group and in a few minutes have the pictures ready to give to everyone in the group. She did this for us, and gave us very nice pictures of our group.
We had a very good time and would come again.

Staying across the street from Universal Studios is a great advantage for the Hilton. Adding a «fancy» buffet in the hotel is a nice touch. When using the word «fancy» with buffet it must often be a quite relative term. Café Sierra makes an honest attempt to offer solid entrée’s and corporate executive syle dining. Any buffet type meal is going to have the usual limitations on quality. The Hilton Universal is not immune to this limitaion.
Offerings such as lobster thermidor and giant king crab legs with prime rib in an all you can eat setting seems like a winning ticket. There are obvious dishes ment to appease the Asian executive guest also. Things like pressed duck and dim sum of all kinds and Chinese style warm lobster claws. They were sub par tasting though. I will note that during my experience they had 3 different cold crab offerings and 2 separate lobster claw varieties too. Wow! What a feast this may sound like. Well if you want to get a true rating vs. a buffet rating I would be hard split.
Most of these dishes while having the big name ingredients are lacking heavily on quality and flavor. So if I were to make an honest accessment on the food, I would give them quite a low rating. Lets take into account that the price for dinner is quite similar to outstanding Vegas buffets as Ceasars Bachannal and Rio’s Seafood buffet. On the idea that these dishes are being offered at a buffet. They would recieve high honors. So to meet in the middle lets give Café sierra 3 stars.
The buffet is quite akwardly set up. Space is tight so many of the higher end foods are located in the hotel hallway, lol. Lobster thermidore is tough and doesn’t impress anyone to ever order it at a true restaurant. The prime rib was good. That one is hard skew up any way. All of the side entrée’s were decent. Yet you are reminded that these dishes were very much prepared far in advanced. The great redeeming factor is that the seafood was about as good as it could be. Serving after serving of crab with melted butter and lemon made the night. The oysters were shucked on the day but they mostly had the liqueur dumped out during transit.
We saw the food delivery truck arrive about an hour before 5 to bring in all the dishes for the night from our room. The waiter was very cheery and talkative. We aren’t really that type of customer. Our 2 little monsters made a disaster around the table. They didn’t scoff at us about it. I would say that the service was great. Aside from the waiter trying to compare Café Sierra as superior to all our hometown Vegas buffets. We aren’t partial, just honest. To sum it up. No. Café Sierra doesn’t surpass the in house prepared quality of many Buffets on the strip. Yet if you want to dress up and pretend that you are eating an unlimited fancy in Universal City, Ca. Café Sierra is the only destination, I suppose.

I’m a fan of Café Sierra!
Getting there was kind of difficult because there was construction. Finding parking was difficult as well. That’s what my family and I get for eating out on a weekend night.
We waited for about 5 minutes until they called our party — quick!
My favorite food here would definitely be the lobster. I got four and definitely got my money’s worth. I had a total round of 7 plates and oh my gosh, I was definitely full.
I wish the king crab legs were steamed and not cold. It just didn’t taste right.
Anyway, would recommend this place and would love to come back again!

I recommend taking a Lyft, Über, or a cab up here. Parking is $ 24! Remember, it’s bottomless mimosas so drink till your heart’s content.
The king crab and caviar alone are worth the price you’re paying.
I love this place. I could live here… Yeah… I definitely could live here… Forever… Or until I get tired of caviar… Who could ever get tired of caviar… Maybe me, I don’t know and I don’t want to know… Food coma now… zzzzzzzzzzz

This review relates to the lunch menu.
I cam here to film a promo for a screenwriting class designed
to connect writer and industry professionals. At lunch time,
the group went to Café Sierra to pick up their orders.
The lunch menu was far from impressive, but I settled
for a Buffalo Chicken Sandwich.
Prison Food!
I opened the contain and I didn’t see food but something that
looked more like a blob of mud. My brain couldn’t register… Is
this my food? I recognize what could be fries, and one sad
pickle and a lot of fatty bacon… but I couldn’t make out where
my sandwich started and ended.
Finally, after digging through the mass of nothingness, like a
puzzle, I finally managed to put the two buns together. I took a terrified bite and had to put it down. The chicken still had
a lot of its skin before it was deep fried…
Ok, I’m going to stop this review. Remembering the experience
is just too painful.
Moments later, I asked a few others what they had ordered
and they both said the Buffalo Chicken Sandwich. And both
couldn’t continue after the first bite.
Terrible presentation. Terrible taste. Waste of money.
Universal Studios has Halloween Horror Nights, but their
scariest attraction year-​long is the Buffalo Chicken at the Sierra Café!

This is my take on buffets — as well as places that send mailers out with deceptively beautiful looking steaks and stuff (I’m looking at you, Carrows): it’s all about keeping your expectations in check.
If what you think you’re gonna get is some wonderland of fresh lobster, prime rib and chocolate fountains (as my companion adorably did), you should check yourself before you wreck yourself.
To be fair, there is fresh lobster, prime rib and chocolate fountains. There is also a bomb taco station, a sushi station with both pre-​made rolls and a woman who makes whatever kind of handroll you want, king crab legs, shrimp, soups and an almost mind-​boggling variety of desserts.
However, there are also: hordes of tourist families that you have to fight through starting from the parking lot and all the way through your meal, since half of the buffet is out in the main hallway, explosions of people yelling and screaming from the weddings in adjacent ballrooms and pretty extraordinary prices for the quality of food.
Which brings me to the last expectation you should keep in check: like Carrows, the food at this buffet looks a lot better than it tastes. Which is understandable; I mean, how can you keep all that stuff tasting good all those hours, just coming out of the kitchen wave after wave. It’s impossible.
On the bright side, service is good, there’s a live pianist and any place with a chocolate fountain is a lot of fun.
So if you keep all that in mind, and don’t mind paying $ 50 a person for it, you might just have a blast here.

Still one of the greatest buffets EVER! Better then most Vegas buffets.
Make a reservation if you want to be seated immediately. They seat you in multiple areas but the best seating area is where the desserts are.
Parking is $ 3 with validation. Used to be free with validation.
Service is very good here. Always refill drinks and pick up dishes.
$ 50 is the cost of the buffet for Fridays and Saturdays, $ 48 Sundays. They randomly have 10% coupons. They price has steadily increased since I first came. I think it was $ 39 when I first came.
Seafood — AYCE lobster, sushi, crab, and probably every other sea creature. They added a ton more lobster selections now which is awesome. The baked lobster does not have all that cream and mushrooms on it anymore which is so much better. The offer tails and claws now, cold and hot. They have a sushi person who makes hand rolls to order. The raw salmon was nom. Crab legs are whole and slightly cracked so you have to do some cracking at the table, but totally worth the effort! There is a ton of hot and cold seafood choices.
Meat — Prime rib bones and lamb shank! I love prime rib bones, so fatty and the meat melts. The lamb shank was new for me but it was so good! They only had one when I took it and I did not see anymore after that. The prime rib it self is typical buffet stuff, just ok.
Most of the other food choices are Asian food. They used to have a pasta station. The had a taco station but that was just an August promotion.
Dessert — Nothing special. I used to love the tiramisu cake with the lady fingers and the refrigerator that had ice cream sandwiches and drumsticks but both were gone now! BOO!
Best buffet in Cali!

The best buffet in LA!!! Forget driving 4 hrs to have Vegas buffet! Drive 30 mins and you are there. I haven’t been back to this buffet for over 10 years and from what I recall, the food is much better now. The quality and the selections are much better than before. I focused mainly on the seafood and Japanese. The quality of food is very impressive considering this is buffet.
They offer lobster claws, oysters, huge king crab legs, shrimps, mussels, crawfish, prime ribs, lamb chops, prime ribs, short ribs, chicken wings, burgers, hot dogs from the surf and turf selections.
Japanese: hand rolls, salmon, tuna, octopus, albacore, yellowtail, sashimi, sushi rolls.
Chinese: dumplings, fish soup, walnut shrimp, dim sum, sveggies, Chinese buns, Peking duck, jelly fish, fried oysters.
Dessert: freshly made crepes, churros, cookies, cakes, cheesecake, flan, chocolate fondue, ice cream, sweet slush.
The staff there are very friendly and accommodating. They come pick up your plates quickly and will refill your drinks right away. They even had a lady playing live piano at dinner. There is also a photographer that will come by and takes picture of your group for free on a postcard. This place handles big parties. So perfect for any big celebrations and there will be food that will fit everyone’s pleasures. We are left quite happy and ready to burst from all the yummy food we ate! I will remember to come back and being more friends back for more good eats and good times!!!