Javier's Rotisserie & Salad Bar

Its gonna be a short one for "J", as there is really nothing much to say about this place. A "brother" branch by the same owner behind Astons, its dining concept is similar to Kenny Rogers, where you choose a main dish first, then choose your side dishes, just that for Javier's, your side dishes are laid out buffet-style for you to pile on your plate.

Offering the usual fares like roast chicken (either 1/4 or 1/2), honey ribs (1/2 or a rack) or roast beef (5 or 10 oz), all (or most) of the mains come with a standard set consisting of a serving of all-you-can-eat sides (both hot & cold) and a serving of soup. Basically what they do is give you a big plate with your main dish on it, and leave it to you to fill up your plate with as much side dishes as you can, before scooping your own soup (as much as u can fit into their soup bowl) at the end before you pay up. Good for big eaters, as you can load up your plate with carbos to fill yourself up, because the portion of their mains isnt that big.

glimpse of the sides area

Their cold sides consist of the usual salad fare like lettuces, brocolli, mushroom (raw ones, mind you), potato salad, pasta salad, coleslaw, corn kennels, baby carrots, tomatoes, cucumbers and various types of dressings.The hot sides consist of potato wedges, mashed potato, sauteed corn, sauteed brocolli, sauteed mushroom, etc.

There will be 2 choices for the soups, and i think they change it occasionally. The ones i had were either cream of chicken or vegetable consomme.

Vegetable consomme - flavourful, but a little too peppery, ingredients not worth eating.

I had the 5 oz roast beef ($18.90), and as you can see, its just 1 slice of beef which looks nice and pink. In actual fact, yes it is medium done (although i would prefer medium rare, but you don't really get to choose your doneness because it is kinda precooked), but the cut i got was terrible. The portion covered by the black pepper sauce in the picture, is actually just fat and tendons, NO meat! So all i get to eat out of the beef, is just the pink area you see in the picture. Lucky i m not a big eater. And to add, the black pepper sauce is really too spicy, maybe the mushroom sauce might be a better choice.

I took a few sides from both the hot and cold section to make up for my miserable beef, clockwise from top left, potato salad, pasta salad, corn kennels & baby carrots with caesar (or is it ranch) dressing, mashed potato with brown sauce, sauteed mushrooms, sauteed brocolli and potato wedges. Generally, the sides are pretty average in standard, good enough to put into your stomach, but not good enough to remember and come back for more.

All in all, i will not make a special trip here, and i probably will not recommend friends here (unless you just wanna eat salad, which they sell at $8.90/serving), unless we need a quick meal before/after movies. Aston's is definitely better.

Javier's Rotisserie & Salad Bar

B1, Cathay Cineleisure