Cowboys ate pizza, right?

During my time here at the University of Iowa, I've often wondered where I could find a good buffet that wasn't on the lower level of a dormitory. As a college student, an inexpensive place where you can stuff yourself silly is always nice.

Last year, I ventured out on my first quest to find such a place. My destination was the Peking Buffet, 93 2nd St. in Coralville. Everything was great about the place, that is, until I tried the food. The chicken on a stick was nice and bloody on the inside, and the vegetable egg roll almost made me vomit upon my first bite. This is quite a feat, considering that I like, or can at least tolerate, almost every food I've ever tried.

That experience deterred my buffet quest for about year. Last Saturday, I decided to suck it up and try another place. This time the Pizza Ranch, 1610 Sycamore St. at Sycamore Mall was my destination.

The hours for the restaurant are as follows:
Dine-In Hours
Sunday - Thursday - 11:00 am - 9:00 pm Friday & Saturday - 11:00 am - 10:00 pm
Buffet Hours
Sunday - Saturday - Lunch Buffet - 11:00 am - 1:30 pm Evening Buffet - 5:00 pm - 8:00 pm

We went for the evening buffet on Saturday. When we got there, we went to the register, paid our $9.00 per person, received our drink cups, and showed ourselves to the table of our choosing.

A word of advice for those "frugal" types: Since you choose your table and seat yourself, here's a way to save some cash. The only way they can tell that you paid for the buffet is by the drink cup. Just steal the cup, bring it when you come back in the future, and casually sit down at a table. Now I have not tried this, but I bet it would. Oh, and I guess I don't condone this or whatever.

Now back to the meal. The Sprite Zero appeared to be out of syrup. It was pure soda water, and that's gross. Luckily, the regular Sprite tasted just fine. Now it was time for the food.

It's not a huge buffet, but there are enough options. There were 8 kinds of pizza at the time, breadsticks, both fried and barbecued chicken, mashed potatoes and gravy, green beans, chips, and a salad bar with potato salad, pudding, etc.

At a place called the Pizza Ranch, the main draw is probably the pizza. They had the standard varieties of pizza, such as pepperoni, sausage, mushroom, etc. There are also some less traditional pizzas, such as buffalo wing, taco, and cheeseburger. For the most part, the pizza is a disappointment. It's basically a frozen pizza with some fresh(?) ingredients thrown on it before baking. I wasn't expecting gourmet, but was still a letdown. The buffalo chicken pizza was probably the best tasting one that I tried. This is partly due to my love for hot wings, as well as the fact that it was one of the only pizzas that didn't taste like it came from the Hy-Vee frozen foods section.

The other food was pretty good. The plain fried chicken was a little slimy but tolerable. The barbecue fried chicken was actually pretty tasty, as were the mashed potatoes and gravy. Both were reminiscent of KFC, but better. The salad bar was decent. It's nothing to rave about, like the salad bar at Sweet Tomatoes, but nothing to complain about either.

Once during the meal a waitress came by offering slices of the apple dessert pizza. It's free, of course, and it's pretty good. The regular dessert pizza is available at the buffet line. It tastes like a danish. While they're both good, I wasn't interested in them, at least not with the rest of the meal.

Overall, I think $9.00 is a little pricey for what you get. I mean, if you want some crappy pizza, go for it. If I was craving pizza, I would rather get something from Falbo Brothers or Pagliai's. If I really unlimited chicken with some pizza on the side, then I might go back to the Pizza Ranch. I think I'll just wait until Iowa City gets a Cici's pizza buffet.