All-You-Can-Eat Salad Bar in Zhongshan
Good salad can be hard to come by in Taipei, but this AYCE buffet near Songjiang Nanjing station does it right. 52 Salad Bar has a large spread of fresh vegetables, nuts, and dressings, plus hot items like soup, meat, and carbs that rotate daily. They also offer dessert and coffee to top it all off.
Prices are reasonable: NT$295 for lunch (11:30am – 3pm) and NT$365 for dinner (5:30 – 9pm). That’s an especially good deal for lunch, considering all of the different food options available! Check it out:
The salad bar section is on the second floor above the cafe. It looks like a high end cafeteria.
We visited on a Monday for the lunch buffet. We didn’t arrive until around 2pm, which was after the rush so there were only a few stragglers still filling their plates. The downside was that some of the ingredients were beginning to run out and weren’t being replenished, and the vegetables begin to dry out slightly.
The actual salad portion of the buffet includes a variety of greens and vegetables, as well as some specialty ingredients like eggs, sweet potatoes, and beets. The spread is nearly perfect (if only they had avocado!).
We love the nut bar that includes seeds, croutons, raisins, parmesan cheese, and bacon.
There are plenty of different dressings, oils, and vinegars to choose from.
The soup and other hot times change on a daily basis. This time they had French onion and cream of vegetable soups with rice, pasta, pork in sauce, and bean sprout salad. On a different day they had chicken nuggets!
The buffet serves a variety of cold salads that also rotate on a daily basis. Our favourite here was the macaroni salad. We’ve seen from photos online that they sometimes offer even better items like sushi and a cheese board.
You can grab a fresh juice in a bottle (this time it was pear).
There are small sandwiches (that we don’t recommend), bowls of fruit, and a variety of bite-sized desserts like mixed tarts and cakes (which tasted alright but weren’t anything special).
We weren’t huge fans of this alien-looking sweet fungus dessert.
Coffee is the perfect way to end the meal, soothing your bloated stomach.
You have a 1.5 hour time limit to eat to your heart’s content during peak hours — but if there aren’t many customers you can take as long as you want. We made full use of this time and packed as much food as we could into our stomachs. We were so stuffed we could barely move after. There was no need to eat dinner!
What’s the vibe?
Serve yourself from a salad bar buffet in what feels like an upscale cafeteria.
Worth it?
Yes, especially for lunch — NT$295 is very reasonable considering it’s all-you-can-eat and there are a variety of fresh options. While we wish they had certain items like avocado and more pre-made cold salads, the buffet spread was more than satisfying.
Would you go back?
Yes, whenever we want to pig out but keep it healthy!
Visited: June 2018
| 52 Salad Bar |
| Hours: 10am – 9:30pm, Closed Sundays |
| Phone: 02 2523 5252 |
| English Address: No. 75, Section 2, Nanjing East Road, Zhongshan District, Taipei City, 10491 |
| Chinese Address: 台北市中山區南京東路二段75號 |
