It has been one year since I wrote my previous post on this site. It has been almost two years since I ate last at a buffet. This all changed earlier tonight. We went to the Flaming Grill Buffet in Baldwin, New York, the last buffet we ate at when Covid was just starting and cautions had to increase.
We are both fully vaccinated but we have been very cautious. We have slowly started to do things out of the house that we have not done for a very long time. We have been a couple of times to a fast food restaurant for lunch. We are planning a summer trip to Pennsylvania and we do plan to eat at the buffets there that we had always enjoyed before. I decided that before we do that we need to try eating at a buffet locally.
Flaming Grill in Baldwin, NY during the height of Covid had reopened as a take out or delivery Cajun seafood menu restaurant. A new location that had opened recently then in Brooklyn, NY also became a Cajun seafood menu restaurant. The Facebook page for the Baldwin Flaming Grill still to this day describes the restaurant as Cajun seafood, but their website talks about it as the buffet it had always been in the past. I had tried contacting them through the Facebook page to ask about whether they were a buffet again or still a Cajun seafood restaurant but never got any response. Finally it was time to call and yes, we learned that they are once again the Asian buffet that they had been pre-Covid.
We were not certain what protective measures they would be taking and were a little hesitant even though many restrictions have been removed in this state - and other states, but it is no uncommon here to still find many people wearing masks but inside and outdoors, and many are still approaching the "new normal" with caution, as we are. When we got there we were very pleasantly surprised! The sign on the entrance door says that "masks must be worn at all times when in the restaurant" (only exception being when eating at your table). To us that was excellent. There were many people in the restaurant especially for a Thursday night but it was not jammed and you were not nose to now (or mask to mask) going around the buffet.
The prices have gone up by one dollar each adult meal. Where Friday dinner in the past was priced the same as Monday to Thursday, now Friday is in the price group with Saturday and Sunday - so Friday dinner has gone up two dollars. The website has a coupon for dinner maximum two to get $1.00 off on dinner.
During the past two years without going to any buffet there were several dishes from specific buffets that I was missing A LOT. Two of those dishes were from Flaming Grill. One was their seafood soup. This is a thick broth soup with shrimp, fish, and egg whites. The other was Flaming Grills barbecue spare ribs. I was looking forward to those and hoping I would find them on the buffet.
After we paid - you pay here in advance of being seated - we went up to the person who seats you and he handed us four clear gloves - two for each of us and then he brought us to our table - a table, by chance that we had sat at multiple times in the past. The gloves are to be worn any time one goes up to serve themself at the buffet tables. In this way the serving utensils are only touched by gloved hands. (Another EXCELLENT!). This was something that had concerned us before going. This is something that was being done at the Lancaster, PA buffets when they reopened when they were allowed to - and something that from what I have been reading about those buffets, may not be being done still (we shall see when we finally get there). The difference, however, was that at the Lancaster buffets you received a new pair of gloves every time you went up to the buffet. Here you get one pair each and use the same ones each time you go up to get food. We were glad to see that all in the restaurant were complying with putting their masks back on and putting their gloves on each time they left their table to go up to get food. The buffet tables were no different in their protection than they had been in the past. Each has the usual cough glass in angled down over the serving trays. Each serving tray has a pair of tongs.
SO - the meal!!! Donning out masks and gloves, we went up for soup. The seafood soup was not there. There was wontons in broth, egg drop soup, and hot and sour soup. I took two wontons and broth. We have been taking in Chinese take out from a local take out store front over the past several months - I have had wonton soup almost weekly since we started doing that. The soup here was as good as always. After the soup I was off to see what sushi there would be out.
Half the sushi counter was empty. The other half had salmon and avocado rolls with shrimp, tuna and avocado rolls, shrimp and cream cheese rolls, and some vegetable sushi rolls. That was it. This is much less than they had in the past BUT I have not had sushi of any kind for two years so I took half a plate of salmon roll pieces and tuna roll pieces. I took a small condiment cup and filled it from the dispenser with soy sauce that was on the counter where it has always been. Before I headed back to the table I took a piece of cold tofu with a sauce on top from the end counter that has had Asian salads. My wife looked there for seaweed salad which she has liked here - sweet and not spicy - but there was none. That was brought out later. I enjoyed that sushi! Was it the best sushi I have ever had? I don't care! It was a delightful texture in my mouth and a taste I have missed for too long! Walking back to the table I looked for the spare ribs. OH YES! They were there!
There was no question about what I was going for next. The tray was completely full - just having been refilled. I chose three ribs that looked to have the most meat on them. All I added to that plate to go with the ribs was hibachi rice. I looked at those ribs on my plate all the way back to the table. Off came my glove, off came my mask, and I started on those ribs. I could feel the smile that my mouth was forming as I chewed that first bite. They were just as I had been thinking about for so long a time. There had been nights that I could not fall asleep and I cleared my head by thinking about these ribs - and a few other favorites from other buffets. I was not disappointed! They were what I was hoping for and have been waiting for. I, suppose, that I could have just gone back up and gotten more, but I wanted to get more of the things I liked at this buffet.
Something that I have not had in two years has been steak. Regular readers will know that I really like steak. There is steak here on the hibachi grill. You can combine it with shrimp or meats, and vegetables and noodles from the raw foods selection leading up to the grill to give to the chef behind the grill to mix together into a dish of your design. I just wanted the steak. I knew that the steak here has always been very tough and so thin that it cooks to well done in a few minutes. What was there were steaks cut to over a 1/4" thick that were semi-frozen and I was encouraged to the idea that if timed correctly it might come off the grill with some semblance of rare. I took two pieces. They filled a little more than half the plate. The grill was very busy and I waited with others for a time for what was on the grill to be cooked and come off to those waiting, and for my steak, and the others around me food selections, to go on the griddle top. There is no flame grill here despite the name of the restaurant. The chef (cook) behind the grill took each plate and briefly listened for any instructions from the person handing it to him. I said, "RARE!" - he acknowledged that and before I could say "Nothing on it!", he was taking the next plate. I stood close by watching my steaks cooking. He had five plates of food on the grill at the same time and kept going back and forth. After he turned my steaks over I knew that if they were to be actually rare they would have to come off the grill very soon. As he came back toward the end of the grill where my steaks were cooking I got his eye and indicated for him to give me the steaks then. He went over to my steaks and picked up a squeeze bottle of teriyaki sauce and started to squeeze some on my plate. Through my mask, and shaking my head, I said "NO! No sauce - plain. I will take them now." He understood and scooped them up with a spatula and put them on a plate and handed it to me. Through the glass and my mask, as I took them I thanked him clear enough so that he could hear me. With a mask on, you can smile all you want and know one knows. This has been a time to speak up and extend one's pleasure verbally. I took the plate with the steak to the buffet table and took some mushrooms in a brown sauce and put that next to the steak. I added some more hibachi rice - which is very good here.
The steak was tough - as I expected it would be - but the taste of it in my mouth was STEAK! That really satisfied what I was looking for. If one has been in the desert and finally drinks water the water tastes like nectar. The steak was medium done, but that too was OK. It was steak!
After the steak - I went around for some of the dishes I would get in the past. I did not take much. I was eating a lot more, already, than I have eaten in awhile. At some points during Covid at its height - and we are in an area that was hit very hard - leading some areas within this state and other states in case totals and deaths - we were conserving the food we had and we could get. We ate half portions. While some gained weight during Covid we both lost weight to the point of needing to take in some waistbands. But I took some broiled talapia (fish), an egg roll, a large deep fried and breaded slice of zucchini, and, one pan fried dumpling, some fried rice. While we could have gotten egg rolls while we were taking in meals in the past several month, we hadn't. The egg roll I took was just fine! It was small, but it was filled with a nice mixture of vegetables and pork and it hit the spot (that I have been thinking of egg rolls lately helped at that moment of enjoying this one). There was a lot more that I could have gone back for. I did not take the cold cocktail shrimp or the crab in the shell, or any of the chicken dishes that they did have, or other things that I might have gone for in the past. This was enough for our long awaited return to buffet dining. As this site has in its name, "All you can eat is NOT a challenge!"
There were some dishes that we expected to see from the past that were not there. There is a chicken dish with strips of chicken fried in a light breading with a peanut sauce that were missing. There was no seafood soup as I have already mentioned. My picky eater wife was looking for a few things and not seeing them - one of which was that chicken dish. We wondered if what was not there is what makes the difference now between the Monday to Thursday dinner buffet and the Friday/Weekend buffet for a dollar more. We know that when Friday was the same price as the weekdays before it in the past these dishes were there - and there were other dishes that we knew were only on the weekend buffet back then. We don't really know.
There was not much in the way of cakes for dessert. The large layer cakes they had in the past were not there. The lemon meringue pie was not there. What I call the "Little Debbie" squared of cakes that are cut from a sheet cake - which are not "Little Debbie" at all - were out. There were full trays of both fresh and canned fruits. puddings, a small cheesecake, and a freezer full of ice cream bars, ice cream sandwiches, and ice cream cups. My wife decided not to have dessert. I was thinking about mandarin oranges when my wife pointed out to me that two new pizza's were just put out. That I could not resist and I took some pizza and that was the pie I ate for dessert. Some might question Chinese restaurant pizza - but the pizza here, especailly when it first comes out is soft and full of cheese that just pulls away in long strands - and tasty.
When we were done, I pushed the plate away from me and just opened my eyes wide and smiled! My wife said to me, "Happy? !". "OH YES!" was my answer. I just sat there like that for awhile. I realized that I have not used or carried much cash with me in almost two years and, of course, we had to leave a tip. Between us we had the right amount. We had a larger bill that we could have asked the cashier to break for us, but we had a good tip to leave on the table. I put the tip down on the table. We put on our masks and left.
Will we go back! Yes we will. Eventually we will try a Friday or Sunday night. Our concern is only that the restaurant generally on the weekend and Fridays was always much more crowded.
Now, I know that some of our readers go to buffets that I write about their dinner buffets for lunch. I cannot say how the lunch buffet will differ. It is lower in price and there is also a one dollar coupon for lunch on the website. We rarely have eaten at a buffet for lunch - unless the circumstances required that we leave an area that we wanted to try a buffet before it was time for dinner, but those occurrences are few and far between.
Some people and news reporters said that Covid killed buffets. Many are coming back! Many are already back. They found ways to make buffets safe and reopened and people are going again! There is one local buffet that we thought was closed forever and it just reopened.
And we are back! Keep an eye on this site and have patience. There will be more articles coming over the summer about the "new normal" at other buffets - some that we and many readers have loved for a long time! And all the time we were in the house, I spent a lot of time watching great looking things to eat being enjoyed by hosts of shows on The Food Channel! It was great to be back in a restaurant again!
ADDENDUM
Two weeks later we went back to Flaming Grill Buffet, Baldwin on a Friday night. When we were her two weeks ago, Friday nights were included on the weekend price of 14.99. Prior to Covid, the Friday night price was the same as the weekday dinner price. When we got there we were surprised to see that once again, Friday nights are priced at the weekday price of $13.99.
There was nothing different or added to the buffet from what was there on the Thursday weeknight dinner buffet two weeks before. This time we were each handed two gloves each with the requirement to wear a glove on each hand when going up to serve yourself at the buffet. The majority did, some wore one glove, a very few wore no gloves at all. All did still wear masks when leaving their table to go to the buffet tables.
There were more dessert choices out. Not all of the large cakes that were out in the past but the chocolate layer cake topped with whipped cream and the tiramisu cake were there. There was also more sushi choices including more rolls and also salmon on a bed of rice. Whether these were not out the last time because it was a weekend dinner priced night then OR that when we came in on the Thursday these had been taken and they had not yet replaced them or had not planned to replace them from earlier, I don't know. Pre-Covid there were different foods out on weekends. There was a steamed ginger fish. This was a very tasty though full of bones fish that would replace the baked talapia. The seafood soup that I was hoping to find was not there again.
I will admit that I either ate more than I should have or my stomach has shrunk in the past year and a half when we stopped eating out at any restaurants. When we left the restaurant I was over stuffed and I had that overfull feeling over two hours later. Yes, all you care to eat is an offer - and not a challenge. I certainly was not taking it as a challenge but it has been so long, that I again had trouble resisting taking what appealed to me as I walked by it on the buffet. I did skip desert. My good wife did take a piece of the chocolate layer cake with whipped cream which was a favorite for her in the pre-Covid dinners we would have here almost weekly.
I did not mention serving staff in the first article above. The service was as good as it always was. On this night the young man who was our server had been our server for pre-Covid dinners here. He was prompt to clear dishes off the table and came over when my soda glass was empty and offered to bring more - which he did promptly. The service on our first visit was just as good. The gentleman who seated us, we knew from pre-Covid dinners here. I don't know if he recognized us with our masks on - but he greeted us as in the past and brought us to the area that we always liked to sit in without our asking. The service at this restaurant has always been good.
I am glad we went back to compare how the restaurant is on a Friday night even though it was not priced with weekend prices which we had wanted to see to find out if weekend priced nights had different choices. I was not very crowded but during this day, there was a severe storm that had passed hours before dinner and that might have kept people away. There were more people with take out containers than there had been two weeks ago. They accepted the $1 off per adult dinner coupon (maximum two per coupon) from their website. The local community coupons that are mailed in the area have not had a coupon for Flaming Grill since Covid started. They may start to be sent out again. Use of the coupon does require the purchase of a soft drink each. Whether the weekend buffet has the different dishes that it had in the past is still unknown. At this point we are unlikely to go there on a Saturday as we figure that Saturday night dinner will be much more crowded - as it always was in the past. It is possible that we may go back and try it on a Sunday night just to see if there is any difference. At this point, weekday dinner is fine - and Friday night in the past had been our regular night to come.
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