I recently had a chance to visit a new restaurant to Norwich called Cosmo which I believe is a chain restaurant. Having walked past multiple times and seen the massive queue, I couldn’t wait to try it out. We had a voucher for 2 meals for £14 which was ideal and luckily we were able to book a table just before the vouchers ran out despite the restaurant being fully booked the week we wanted to go.
I went in with no expectations, I had dreams of Cosmo being like Golden Corrall in America. If you’ve been to a Corrall then you’ll know what I mean, cheap and cheerful with every dish you can think of and a damn tasty range of foods to suit all appetites.
I had by this point seen some pretty bad photos of how they store their fresh food in with the rotting leftovers, and their vegetables on top of corrosive products. This came from a reliable source but I didn't let it put me off. This sort of thing probably happens a lot more often than we like to let ourselves think and having a pretty hardened stomach to this sort of thing I put those thoughts aside.
We were booked in for 7pm. I was suitably hungry by this point. We walked in the front entrance and we were greeted with a luxurious lobby area with escalators to take you up to the restaurant. It was packed! There was nearly a 2 hour wait and people were actually waiting! We were slightly early and the girl behind the desk told us to 'go away' for a bit. She seemed a bit flustered with the amount of people around. We came back 10 minutes later and she told us she had crossed our name off the list. I could see my mum's blood starting to boil. We then realised she was looking at the wrong page, found our booking and had given our table away. Fuming was an understatement. Eventually we got seated after some staff upstairs shuffled some tables about but it was all a complete mess.
The staff seemed rushed off their feet. I'll put this down to teething problems and the fact it was so busy but no one really knew what they were doing.
The range of food was varied, but mostly Asian inspired but there was also a carvery and plenty of dishes for fussy eaters such as chicken nuggets and chips. You could also have different meats and fish cooked fresh for you. My boyfriend went and had some squid cooked which he said was lovely. I lost track of what I tried as I was in a food induced haze. I went up 4 times in total with no order to what I stacked on my plate. Some of my favourite foods were the chicken korma, the sweet and sour chicken and the chips which is pretty standard and you can't really go wrong.
We ordered bottomless drinks, they brought us over empty glasses and we just refilled them whenever we wanted at the drinks machines.
The dessert selection was small, but you didn’t need a lot by that point! The chocolate fountain was the highlight for me, I just wish there was more things to dip in it other than marshmallows. The food was all kept well stocked up, I didn’t see any empty trays.
We only had two vouchers between 6 of us and our waiter very kindly let us have a 3rd one so we got discount on everyone which made up for all the stress at the beginning of the evening.
Overall, nothing beats the Corrall, it's just not possible, but I enjoyed my food. I'd love to go back and try the lunch time menu. Have you been to a Cosmo?
I went in with no expectations, I had dreams of Cosmo being like Golden Corrall in America. If you’ve been to a Corrall then you’ll know what I mean, cheap and cheerful with every dish you can think of and a damn tasty range of foods to suit all appetites.
I had by this point seen some pretty bad photos of how they store their fresh food in with the rotting leftovers, and their vegetables on top of corrosive products. This came from a reliable source but I didn't let it put me off. This sort of thing probably happens a lot more often than we like to let ourselves think and having a pretty hardened stomach to this sort of thing I put those thoughts aside.
We were booked in for 7pm. I was suitably hungry by this point. We walked in the front entrance and we were greeted with a luxurious lobby area with escalators to take you up to the restaurant. It was packed! There was nearly a 2 hour wait and people were actually waiting! We were slightly early and the girl behind the desk told us to 'go away' for a bit. She seemed a bit flustered with the amount of people around. We came back 10 minutes later and she told us she had crossed our name off the list. I could see my mum's blood starting to boil. We then realised she was looking at the wrong page, found our booking and had given our table away. Fuming was an understatement. Eventually we got seated after some staff upstairs shuffled some tables about but it was all a complete mess.
The staff seemed rushed off their feet. I'll put this down to teething problems and the fact it was so busy but no one really knew what they were doing.
The range of food was varied, but mostly Asian inspired but there was also a carvery and plenty of dishes for fussy eaters such as chicken nuggets and chips. You could also have different meats and fish cooked fresh for you. My boyfriend went and had some squid cooked which he said was lovely. I lost track of what I tried as I was in a food induced haze. I went up 4 times in total with no order to what I stacked on my plate. Some of my favourite foods were the chicken korma, the sweet and sour chicken and the chips which is pretty standard and you can't really go wrong.
We ordered bottomless drinks, they brought us over empty glasses and we just refilled them whenever we wanted at the drinks machines.
The dessert selection was small, but you didn’t need a lot by that point! The chocolate fountain was the highlight for me, I just wish there was more things to dip in it other than marshmallows. The food was all kept well stocked up, I didn’t see any empty trays.
We only had two vouchers between 6 of us and our waiter very kindly let us have a 3rd one so we got discount on everyone which made up for all the stress at the beginning of the evening.
Overall, nothing beats the Corrall, it's just not possible, but I enjoyed my food. I'd love to go back and try the lunch time menu. Have you been to a Cosmo?
