RESTAURANT REVIEW : A Lavish Challenge : You need an attack strategy at the elaborate, impressive brunch at Cafe Sierra in the Universal City Hilton.

A long-lost cousin blew into town last week, intending to hit several of the touristy hot spots. He wanted a good, light Sunday brunch in the Universal City area. Our brunch was very good; light, however, it was not. The lavish buffet served at Cafe Sierra in the Universal City Hilton is a gastronomic “Trip to Bountiful.”

There are several hotels around town that put on Sunday all-you-can-eat extravaganzas at a set price. The Universal City Hilton’s spread is certainly impressive enough: It isn’t what anyone would call inexpensive, but it is without doubt the most elaborate buffet I’ve ever seen in the Valley.

The buffet is the creation of executive chef Geoffrey Cousineau, with the assistance of Barry Chan. Chan, formerly with the famous Monterey Park restaurant Harbor Village, is responsible for the Chinese items in the buffet.

It’s quite an overwhelming sight, really. Cafe Sierra is located in the middle of a soaring chrome and glass lobby, crowned by a ceiling of vaulted glass.

You serve yourself, though uniformed waiters occasionally make the rounds with pitchers of fresh juices and bottles of Paul Masson champagne.

The main problem at an open-ended event like this is devising an attack strategy.

My cousin almost didn’t make it past the salad bar, where you can easily get sidetracked on cold dishes such as Chinese chicken salad, crudites and roasted eggplant.

Myself, I got bogged down at the dim sum station, where a variety of tempting Chinese dumplings are served up from a bamboo steamer.

Lots of people can be seen flocking to the Japanese station, an art director’s dream. A rainbow coalition of colorful tsukemono (Japanese pickled vegetables) sits on a gorgeous lacquer tray, flanked by an array of sushi, mostly California roll (crab and avocado) and tekkamaki , bite-sized rice rolls with a bit of tuna in the center.

Chef Chan puts together at least six Chinese steam-table entrees for the buffet, including both the exotic and the mundane: kung pao shrimp, stir-fried beef with broccoli and yellowtail with mango chutney, to name three.

Dim sum, those ever-popular bite-sized snacks, stay pretty true to form. Ha gow (minced shrimp dumplings) come in diaphanous rice noodle skins. The siu mai --fatty pork dumplings in wrinkled, won ton-like wrappers--are fine, and the egg rolls are light and crackly.

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In fact, it’s possible to make brunch an entirely Chinese affair, though doing that means walking right past a table piled high with smoked salmon, iced crab claws, shrimp in the shell and a variety of accompanying sauces, condiments and spreads. I don’t have that kind of self-control.

The forgotten part of this brunch is breakfast.

The table closest to the entrance contains traditional morning items such as eggs Benedict, plump breakfast sausages and waffles (which have a mass-produced look), but they are immediately upstaged by the next two tables, a carving board and a pasta station. There, white-toqued chefs stand ready to cleave slices off a leg of lamb or a clove-studded ham. Choose a pasta and tell the chefs what you want them to add to it: Alfredo sauce, pine nuts, minced garlic, pancetta or any of several other choices. If you don’t feel like pasta, they can put the same range of ingredients in an omelet.

I thought my cousin would need to be wheeled out after a long stop at the dessert table.

“I’m going to inaugurate the pear cobbler,” he said, taking the trouble to load up with a few petits fours and a large square of bread pudding in the process. Only minor complaints were registered when the streusel-topped cobbler turned out to be strawberry and rhubarb instead of pear.

Most of these desserts are delicious. This is one hotel with an adept pastry chef. You have been warned.

How someone could follow this buffet by hitting Universal CityWalk, taking the Universal Studios Tour and then having dinner at Country Star restaurant is beyond me, but I’d wager itineraries like that go on every Sunday.

It’s no problem filling your plate in this neighborhood.

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WHERE AND WHEN

Location: Cafe Sierra, Universal City Hilton, 555 Universal Terrace Parkway, Universal City.

Hours: Brunch 11 a.m. to 3 p.m. Sunday. Regular meal hours: breakfast 6:30 to 11 a.m. daily; lunch 11:30 a.m. to 5:30 p.m. daily; luncheon buffet 11:30 a.m. to 3 p.m. Monday to Friday; dinner 5:30 to 11 p.m. daily.

Price: Sunday brunch, $26.50 per person. Validated parking $3, free with Sunday brunch only. Full bar. All major cards.

Call: (818) 509-2030.