GLOBAL BUFFET X3, Levittown, NY

What happened?!?

I had not intended to write an article but just make a comment on the last article about our third visit to Global Buffet but it just seemed that it needed to be set apart. We had not intended to dine at Global Buffet on this night but we were heading to another restaurant (we don't just eat at buffets) and realized as we got there that they were closed to host a special event, so we decided to go over to Global Buffet.

My experience, in particular, at this dinner shows that Global Buffet at this point is inconsistent. Because we had not planned to dine at an Asian buffet, I decided that I was going to eat primarily American - which has not been a problem on our past two trips. I had planned on sliced turkey with a few other American dishes.

The turkey as unlike it has been on either of our first two dinners here. It was hard to distinguish this turkey from ham. It is in a serving tray next to the ham - each labeled - and the ham had pineapple slices on it - and the turkey did not - though on the outside and the meat both resembled each other closely. If this was turkey it was a cheap, processed turkey breast - a ball that was roasted - evenly brown/black on the outside - the meat was less white than turkey and more the pink of ham. The flavor was slightly salty - like ham. I would just say that this was another ham put out in the turkey tray - but as I say it was not covered in pineapple slices as the ham was. It was not good at all. There was nothing wrong with it but it was not good.  Even OCB Turkey which was never a great turkey breast was better than this. After the first slice I decided that I had to find something else to complete the meal.

As I was going around the buffet to see what I would eat, I saw that the pork spare ribs looked different - more like I expect Chinese Spare Ribs to look - and still not in thick red sauce - but definitely covered in some type of thin sweet sauce. I took one of those. I also took a small beef rib. The beef ribs were now sitting in a tray with a thin reddish gravy on them - that was not there the last time. I wondered as I saw the spare ribs if they are reading this site and tried to create the ribs I described in our last article that I find better than the ones I had here on the last visit. These, on this night, were not better - and maybe not as good as they had been. The beef rib was better without any sauce on them.

So onward, to the next trip up to the buffet and I went to a tried and true choice from visit one and visit two - beef stew. Oh boy! It looked right. One bite of beef and it was spicy. At best that I can identify the spice I would say the stew sauce was full of curry. In the past few years my stomach has become sensitive to anything that is spicy and I knew if I continued to eat this I was going to have a problem. I tried a piece of potato from the stew - same taste of curry. What did they do? Did they change the recipe? If so, why? One possibility - the beef stew and the chicken curry sit in trays next to each other. Did someone mix the sauce from the curry into the beef stew? There was too strong a taste of spice for it to have been just the curry serving spoon finding its way from one to the other. I went back to look at the beef stew tray. The sauce on the beef stew looked exactly the same as the sauce on the chicken curry. I hope that this was a one time mistake and not an intentional change in recipe because the beef stew had been the best dish here.

Lastly, and minor, I took a slice of pizza which looked good and looked pretty much as the pizza at another Asian buffet that we go to regularly. The cheese was nicely melted on the top, but under that layer of melted cheese was another layer of the same cheese that was not melted at all.

My wife was not as disappointed as I was but she had intended to have the beef stew also and when she found out that it was spicy, she was not going to take it. She eats more general Asian buffet and does not mind the usual pepper steak and chicken with broccoli. She was the one of us who described this meal as inconsistent. 

To the positive, there were stone crab halves that I did not try. They were large and they had nutcrackers next to the serving tray. Global buffet has  started putting discount coupons in the local major newspaper, Newsday and also in one of the mailer discount coupon books. The coupon is for $2 off adult dinner prices up to 10 at the table.

And for the OCB nostalgic about this location, the men's and ladies rooms are in the same location as they were when this was OCB but you will not believe the transformation. They are fancy with fancy plumbing fixtures. There are paper towels and hand dryers. And they are clean. Seems that everyone who walks into these has the same reaction - wow, are these so much better than they were!

I really want this restaurant to succeed. I want to go and have a nice "international" meal at a good price. They maybe still have to break themselves in more, but right now it is inconsistent. Inconsistent is not good.  We will go back - but things will have to go back to where it was a week ago and what should not be spicy must not be spicy, if we will go back after the next try.


ADDENDUM: 

We went back a week later. The turkey was a little better - at least it was white and looked more like turkey. It is cheap turkey roll/turkey breast. At least it was edible. The beef stew was moved away from the the curry chicken - that is behind the beef stew and two trays over now. The beef stew was now edible and no longer was spicy or tasted like curry. 

I tried the hibachi bar. I added what looked like a steak to my plate of vegetables. When I took the steak I had second thoughts. it was grey, lacking in any marbling, and was frozen solid - the frozen part did not bother me any. It was good and I brought it back to the table. I cut a piece of "steak" off and tried to eat it. I could not chew it. It actually was like rubber. I tried cutting pieces off in various parts of the meat. None would chew. Each came back out of my mouth and on to the plate. I ate the vegetables which were fine.

My wife has been eating the pepper steak here - from the buffet table - since we started coming here. She took a bite at this meal and said it was so spicy that it was burning her mouth. She said it has never been like that before - and I, too,  have had it here before and no, it was never spicy. I asked her what tray was it next to. We went to look. It was right next to Hot Pepper Chicken - a very hot and spicy dish. So just like the beef stew the last time, either the serving spoon or something from the Hot Pepper Chicken went into the Pepper Steak! This is very serious. If one were allergic to something in that other tray  - and ate the pepper steak they could be in serious trouble!

Inconsistent is still the best way to describe this buffet! Each visit there have been surprises and only on our second visit were the surprises not unpleasant. I cannot recommend this buffet to anyone at this point until they get their act together!