ELEMENTS, Central Milton Keynes

Since this review was written Elements has closed down. The Masticator has no idea why but suspects some sort of plague outbreak. It has now been replaced by the Red Hot Buffet which apparently offers “the best and most varied food from China, India, Thailand, Mexico, Italy and Japan within beautiful yet contemporary settings, and all for one price.” The Masticator hasn’t eaten there yet but frankly that description fills him with dread. He will be going there soon to let you know if a restaurant specializing in several million different dishes from three continents is a good idea. For the record he asked a friend who had been for his opinion. They stated that “there was more choice than Elements but not as good quality”. Seeing as the choice at Elements was unmanageably vast and the quality slightly worse than the contents of a science fair Petrie dish, one suspects that Red Hot Buffet has simply discovered several new strains of botulism to foist on its unsuspecting customers…


Elements provides the only Chinese all-you-can-eat buffet in the Theatre District, so if you want to stuff yourself with sub-takeaway-standard monosodium glutamate slop then there really isn't any other alternative. Having said that, it's a wide world full of opportunity so why not try grating your face off with a rotary sander or performing your own dental work instead?

This really is a Chinese experience pared down to the bare minimum. The restaurant itself is cheap and grotty looking. Bare metal chairs, long plain wooden tables, every expense has been spared to ensure that you know you're eating out on a budget - which is interesting, because the actual buffet costs around £15 a head without drinks making it more expensive than a main meal at some of the decent restaurants around MK.

The bar where you get your food resembles nothing more than a prison cafeteria. Large metal vats of steaming gloop sit next to each other slowly congealing and imbibing their surrounding dishes with pungent odours and slowly cooking themselves to death so that everything ends up tasting of the same homogenised combination of garlic, salt and black bean sauce. The vats are large enough to ensure that not only can you truly have all you can eat but also that they never need changing which means most of them have probably sat there all day, maybe all week.

It comes as no surprise to me that this place was closed down for health and safety reasons a few years back. I have no idea how they managed to reopen because from what I can tell nothing’s changed. If something did get rid of the rats I can only assume it was the food.

You really are taking your life into your own hands with this place. I couldn't even look at the bright red seafood dish without my stomach booking a reservation at A&E for extensive bowel surgery. If you must eat anything I suggest going for the plain boiled rice and maybe a bit of fruit. Everything else will probably kill you.

There is also a Teppanyaki bar: basically a large hotplate where a chef will cook your selected ingredients right there in front of you along with a bunch of noodles. If you're hoping to avoid botulism this is a pretty good option, the ingredients have been suppurating in their own juices for several days but at least he cooks them for a good fifteen minutes so anything deadly has probably been destroyed by the time you get it. That said, he really does cook it for fifteen minutes, so if there's more than one person in front of you be prepared to wait an hour before you're actually served.

I got my plate about forty minutes after I started queuing. It was bland, tasteless and very greasy. The prawns I selected tasted strongly of boiled eggs. None of us could tell why.

I know some people like all-you-can-eat, but I really can’t recommend this place. Chinese food has a habit of filling you up quickly and making you feel hungry twenty minutes later so I can't see anyone getting their money’s worth unless they literally stay in there all day. And given the way the staff hustle your plate away if you so much as glance in another direction, that scenario seems unlikely and is obviously discouraged.

The fact that you can stuff yourself for a similar price at the infinitely superior Taipan across the street means that I can't really see any reason you might want to eat here unless you hate yourself and want to die.

My Editor assures me that he's had some quite nice meals here. My editor eats nice n’ spicy Nik-Naks and thinks Pot Noodles constitute one of his five a day. You do the math.

One Line Review:
All the fun of a Chinese motorway service station without the arcade machines.