TOM ANGLEBERGER Special to The Roanoke Times

CiCi's Pizza Buffet has splashy promotions, but the pizza may not taste as good as it looks on this poster.

Tom Angleberger knows what he likes. So we've asked him to eat at NRV restaurants and write about them. If you have a restaurant to recommend, e-mail him.

Tom Angleberger

Recent columns

• The best from a year of eats
• Hot food, cool atmosphere at Bangkok
• Alejandro's a welcome addition to NRV

• Column archive

The best way to enjoy CiCi's Pizza Buffet is to ignore the pizza.

Seriously, if you think of it as a salad bar, then the $5 price is pretty good.

CiCi's salad bar isn't sensational, but it has everything you need. Iceberg and romaine lettuce, the usual toppings and a selection of dressings that includes two lighter options. Throw in a few breadsticks and you've got a nice lunch. When you consider the lack of quick, affordable salad options in this area, it's one of the best things going.

But if you scoot down the buffet line a little bit and get mixed up in the pizza -- well, don't say I didn't warn you.

I sampled a number of varieties and couldn't find anything that came anywhere close to some of the great local pizzerias I've reviewed recently. In fact, some of it was downright bad.

I'm not suggesting that the staff of the restaurant did a bad job preparing it. I can well imagine that this is what it was supposed to taste like: econo-pizza.

One variety was ballyhooed as being "rustic." This one wasn't bad, it just tasted like a refrigerator pizza.

Another type had buffalo hot wing sauce and teeny, tiny cubes of chicken. The piece I got had maybe two or three of these little morsels. Believe it or not, this was one of the better pizzas I tried.

One particular piece of pizza intrigued me. It was so odd looking that I decided I'd have to try it just to figure out what it was. Turned out to be topped with bacon bits.

I also tried pasta with alfredo sauce: not so great. And a brownie for dessert: not good.

If I'm going to eat something that's bad for me, I think it should be delicious. Much of what I found at this restaurant ranged from bland to awful. Simply not worth putting into your system.

I can, however, imagine that children would like CiCi's. A kid who prefers grape soda over grape juice, for instance, might just be in heaven here. And at $3 for a kids buffet, I can see why parents might be willing to indulge the child. Meanwhile, they can enjoy a nice salad.

Bottom line: Play it safe and stick to the salad bar at CiCi's Pizza Buffet.