Whenever I go out to a new cafe or restaurant, I always check the reviews on Yelp or Google to see if other people had positive experiences. If I see enough bad reviews, I don’t go — as most people probably do when they see any dining experience rated below four stars.
A creator called Mullet Review on TikTok is trending for doing the exact opposite with a mission in mind: to try every Chinese buffet until he gets food poisoning, no matter how few stars or how many poor reviews they have on Google.
Mullet Review, whose real name is Brandon Elliot, is a mail carrier turned unofficial food critic that grew recognizable on TikTok (@mulletreview) for his signature blonde mullet hairstyle, warranting the self-appointed nickname “Hot Blonde.”
While Elliot has been making food reviews for a while, his platform truly became popular with his series of videos trying Chinese buffets. His first video of the series, posted on May 20, features him and his mom going to a Ginza Buffet in Milford, Ohio, which they used to be regulars at when he was growing up. The video now has nearly 770K views and 64K likes, and these are small numbers compared to the later videos in his series.
In each video, Elliot faithfully documents every step of his experience, often resulting in videos that are several minutes long — viewers consider each new installment a new episode of the series. From the moment he stands in the parking lot to introduce the new restaurant and its ratings, to deciding which foods he wants to try (a crab rangoon usually finds itself in the mix), to actually tasting the food and giving the buffet his personal rating, every buffet review feels both humorous and somewhat cinematic.
Day 2 of his Chinese buffet videos was his first viral video of the series. The video, posted on May 26, shows Elliot visiting China Garden Buffet in Forest Park, Ohio, which had a whopping 2.8 stars out of five on Yelp at the time the video was filmed. Yes, he was the only customer there.
Some of the food served at the buffet from Day 2 included congealed egg drop soup — deemed as “egg drop Jell-O” by one commenter — along with suspiciously yellow chicken wings, two pieces of haphazardly placed sushi, a dysfunctional ice cream machine, and, to Elliot’s disappointment, no pizza.
“This is probably one of the worst buffets I’ve been into, like, in a while,” he said while inspecting the food offerings. “This is, this is very questionable, you know, and I’m not scared of a lot of things.”
“I got food poisoning from watching this video,” said one disgusted commenter.
“High risk low reward. Thank you for your service,” another user commented.
After posting consistently for months, on September 19, Elliot reached Day 99 of his Chinese buffet series — and after watching the video, fans were seriously concerned that he wouldn’t even make it to Day 100.
On Day 99, Elliot paid a visit to the Everything OK Chinese Buffet in Frankfort, Indiana, which had 2.9 stars. To say that everyone was okay would be an overstatement, though, after seeing the events that unfolded over the course of the seven and a half minute-long video, which now has 8.8 million views on TikTok.
After paying $33.50 for both himself and his girlfriend to eat, Elliot began to inspect the food at the buffet, which looked less than appetizing, to say the least. The assortment of food included McDonald’s-esque chicken nuggets, stuffed shrimp sitting in a mysterious light-yellow puddle, white fish marinating in a terrifying sea of mystery water, mussels with orange mayonnaise, and peanut butter chicken, among many other offerings.
During the taste test, Elliot first went for a bite of the peanut butter chicken, but his girlfriend, filming behind the camera, quickly noticed an issue: the chicken was raw. He spit out the chicken immediately, but the rest of the food review continued to prove itself to be terrible, with Elliot noticeably losing morale with each dish he tried.
“For the first time in my life, I think I’m afraid,” he said. “Does the Everything OK buffet deserve 2.9 stars? I’m gonna have to say no. Uh, I think they deserve zero stars.”
“I’ve never bitten into a straight raw piece of chicken. This might be it,” he ended his video.
“This has season finale energy for sure,” said one comment.
But somehow, Day 99 was not the final installment of the Chinese buffet reviews. Despite a serious scare, Elliot miraculously managed to not get food poisoning on Day 99, and went on to complete Day 100 of his challenge the day after.
Now, Mullet Reviews has just posted Day 102 of eating at every Chinese buffet until Elliot gets food poisoning. The question is: how bad can it get before the series is over?