SHADY MAPLE SMORGASBORD, EAST EARL, LANCASTER, PA IN A NOT QUITE POST COVID TIME

What I thought of most in terms of restaurants and buffets during the past over a year and a half remaining at home during Covid-19 were the buffets in Lancaster, PA.  A number of the Lancaster buffets had reopened in a modified basis mid-2020 and I published an article on this site at the time about what they were doing to keep their customers and employees safe.  At the current time the only Lancaster buffet that has resumed full operation with their regular hours and buffet menu is Shady Maple Smorgasbord.  They are open until 8:00 pm Monday to Saturday. As always they are closed on Sunday.  The others close early at 7 or earlier. We have been looking to return to Lancaster and see for ourselves what is happening and we chose Shady Maple as the one we would go to first. 

At the end of June, Pennsylvania's Governor ended all requirements in the state to wear a mask. How wide this was in terms of the active numbers remaining and increasing in Pennsylvania remains for someone else to judge, but I will say that it made us very cautious about going to Pennsylvania and into a buffet. From what I was able to research before we went, we were not certain that there were any precautions being taken at Shady Maple - while just a month ago, masks were required when walking around the restaurant - they could be removed, of course, at your table, and gloves were required to be worn - provided by the restaurant when going up to the buffet to handle plates, cups, glasses, and serving utensils.  It appeared that none of this was still being required.  We were apprehensive but we went making the three hour one way trip plus return, for the day to Lancaster and dinner at Shady Maple. We went on a Friday night.  We arrived at the restaurant at about 6:15 pm and the parking lot was crowded. In addition there were buses of people coming to the buffet for dinner.

 The entrances and exits at the lobby are marked in large letters. One set of doors are Entrance Only and the other set of doors are Exit Only.  Walking to the restaurant from the parking lot we saw very few wearing masks.  Entering the lobby, we saw two cashiers open and two moderately long lines of people waiting to pay and have dinner.  Few wore masks. There was a standing sign at the back of each line - "This is a TOUCHLESS buffet" and it went on to say that gloves were provided but optional to use when going up to the buffet to serve yourself. It also said that everyone must take a clean plate, clean drinking glass, and clean cup each time they went up to the buffet.  We were very pleased to see this and it made us much more comfortable going in. Social distancing is something that some did and some did not while waiting to go in.

We waited on the line and the process was the same as it always has been. There was a plexiglass screen between the cashier and the customers. Once you pay, you can go to a line that seats you in the front, booths only dining room, or you can go around to the middle of the restaurant following the aisle - as there always have been.  We went to the middle of the restaurant - as is always our preference and waited on the line there that moved fairly quickly. The prices are about or just slightly higher than what they have been in the past. The tip - as it always has been - is included in the price. Soft drinks and coffee/tea are included in the price. We were escorted to a table near the buffet and were asked if we had ever dined at Shady Maple before. I never like to seem to be a tourist -and we have dined there hundreds of times, but I my reply was "Not since Covid - but many times before." We were told that everything is the same. She pointed to a small table at the entrance of the buffet and showed us where the gloves were if we wanted them and that they were optional.  On that same table was a pump bottle of disinfectant and behind the table was a tall square trash can for the disposal of the gloves. A new set of gloves should be taken each time you go up - if you are using gloves. It surprised me that more were taking and using gloves than not using them. But those wearing a face mask were in the minority (as was true in places we had visited during the day). We do and we were going to use the gloves. The tables in the dining room were widely spread apart. You were not sitting right next to the tables around you.

We went up to the buffet. The gloves are extra large and thin clear plastic. There is a tub of gloves and you reach in and take them yourself. We got glove, managed to get them on as they were hard to peel open at the bottom, and went up to the buffet. The buffet was fairly crowded. Social distancing was just about non-existent.  We started with soup, brought our handled bowls of soup to the table and then went back in to get our soft drinks. The chicken corn noodle soup was as good as always. There were fewer soups than are usually out - but part of the soup serving area was take up with hot wings which have not been there in the past.  This might be part of the Friday dinner features.  While some of  the night to night features are the same they also do vary night to night. There is also a large variety of meats, side dishes, etc. on the buffet in addition to the features - that you are not seeing listed when you look at the menus on their website. Both sides of of the very long buffet tables were full - every section tray was filled with food to take.  All of the grills were also working with featured items on them. A feature each night is New York Strip Steak and it is served at one of the grill stations to order while other grill stations have a wide assortment of other fish and meats. 

I had to have the steak. After we finished the soup we went right to the entrees. We skipped the extensive salad bar, which is the past we would have gone to. It has been so long since we have been here, we wanted to go right to the good stuff! There were a few people waiting on line for steaks. When I got up to the grill I asked for a steak - rare!  The gentleman behind the grill looked over what he had cooking on the grill - paused to add more raw steaks on the grill and then said to me -  I have this steak that is rare and he cut it open to show me. It was perfect inside and outside. It also was about an inch and a half thick. I am not sure if my eyes popped out of my head or not, as this was the thickest steak that I have ever seen at Shady Maple - and he was giving me the whole thing. He asked if I wanted it and I said yes! The other steaks were a little less than half this thickness. I knew taking that large steak that I would probably not being coming back for a second steak as this was a lot of steak - but this was what I have been waiting a year and a half for. It is as if it was there just for me! (They do not know me there - or at any buffet I write about and I want it that way!) I added to the plate a deep fried crab cake and a couple of serving spoonfuls of dried corn (an Amish dish of sweetened, stewed dried corn). I headed back to the table. 

Each time we came back to the table we put the used gloves in the trash basket intended for them. At the table I started on the steak. It was red and juicy inside - but no raw. It was nicely brown on the outside.  The edges around the steak were seasoned and a bit tough. I just cut that off and ate the meat inside of it - and even with that there was plenty of meat there. The meat itself was not tough. It was very tasty - and just what I wanted. The dried corn was as good as always. The deep fried crab cake was very tasty. 

My wife had chosen ham balls, an Amish dish of ham meat balls that are sweetened with a pineapple glaze. She was happy with what she was eating. As you know, if you are a steady reader of this site, ths is a picky eater.

The problem with not having been here in so long with so many dishes to choose from and so much that is tempting and looks good, is that one can easily get carried away and take too much. While I was aware of this, on my second entree visit to the buffet tables, I was picking things that I had been missing and this second dish was a sampling of some of those - but more than it should have been. I have not had fried chicken on the bone for a long time and I took a piece of fried chicken. I saw that there were also crab cakes that were being cooked on the grill and I got one of those. I took some fall apart beef. I also took a perogie and I took some Amish potato filling.  I also spotted large fried shrimp and took two of those. After the big steak this was overdoing it. This plate was good but was not satisfying me as the first. The chicken part I took was dense. I should have take a leg that was in the tray opposite. The shrimp were the best thing on the plate. The shrimp inside the light breading were very large and very moist. The taste was great and very fresh. It was, in my memory, the best shrimp that I have ever had.  The perogie was deep fried and the center and filling was good and tasty. The crab cake was differently seasoned than the deep fried one I had with the steak and I did not like the grilled crab cake as much. The potato filling was good as always. The beef was tasty.  I suddenly found myself - for no reason related to the food on my plate - leaving some of it over.  I am not used to eating like this after such of long time of eating all meals at home.

I should have stopped with that last plate but my head got the better of me and I went up for a third plate and I went right back to the steak grill. This time I was given a nicely rare steak - not as thick as the first - but thicker than usual. I also went for a second deep fried crab cake and some more dried corn - duplicating my first plate. It was all good but my stomach was letting me know that with a more than three hour drive home - maybe in Friday night traffic - I better not over do it. I ate about half the steak, half of the crab cake and a few forkfuls of the dried corn. Thinking back, I should have skipped the steak and went back for a few more shrimp. I looked down at the plate and pushed it away from me.  This was not a challenge and we can come back again for more - with a lot less time in between from the last time we dined at this buffet. My wife who has more logic in how much she takes and what she takes enjoyed sliced turkey, sliced ham and some nice side dishes. 

While I could not eat much more, I did want to have some desert. I chose a small slice of pie. It was a raspberry pie and it was very good. My wife put together an ice cram and apple cobbler desert for herself.The last seating for the buffet is 8:00 pm and the buffet is shut down at 8:45 pm. We had been there for over an hour and a half eating dinner.

When we left I was stuffed.  The gift shop that fills the lower level is open until 9:00 pm and we walked around in there to walk off some of the too much I had eaten. I broke one of my own rules - a buffet is not a challenge. It should not be - and I have to regain the control I had two years ago. 

We will definitely go back again. I hope very much that they continue the Covid precautions they currently have in having the gloves available.  We are not out of it yet and we don't want to return to where we were a year and a half ago. It was not long ago that it was said by many media sources that buffets were dead and will never return after Covid-19. They are not dead - and if they proceed with caution they will be fully back and thriving again. 

Shady Maple Smorgasbord is located at 129 Toddy Drive in East Earl, PA. Take Route 23 East or Route 322 South to get to the restaurant. There is lots of parking (free, of course). The phone numbers are 1-800-238-7363 and 717-354-8222. There is a website and it is listed at the side of this page. Like most other local buffets and restaurants in Lancaster County, Shady Maple is closed on Sundays - and some holidays, but not all. Dinner ends at 8:00 pm.

FLAMING GRILL BUFFET IN BALDWIN, NY IN THE NOT QUITE POST COVID NEW NORMAL

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.

LANCASTER, PA BUFFETS REOPENING

In Pennsylvania the Covid-19 reopening is coded by color and Lancaster County went Green at the end of June.  The buffet restaurants that have been written about on this site started to reopen for inside dining - but not all of them as buffets (for the time being).  I have not been to any of these for their reopening (yet) but I will share what I have learned about each one. I am not including prices as prices can change. (The masks and six feet distancing are a PA State mandate during Covid-19 and this applies to all restaurants and all businesses so I will not mention this for each restaurant unless there is something in particular to note for a specific restaurant.  Please understand - no mask and you don't get in - don't wear it as required and you will be told to leave. I am not saying this - the State of Pennsylvania is.)

I will start with the very popular Shady Maple Smorgasbord. Shady Maple closed and when take out dining was allowed they reopened for takeout dining with a limited per serving menu. With indoor dining now permitted they have once again opened as a smorgasbord buffet with a modification of its usual offerings. There are rules that must be followed if you are going to dine there during this period of time.  Your temperature will be taken as you enter. You must where a mask to enter the building and you must keep that mask on your face covering your nose and mouth - down to your chin fully. The mask may only be removed when you are sitting at your table eating. When you get up from the table for any reason the mask must be put back on. Disposable gloves will be given to your as you approach the buffet area.  You must put the gloves on before you enter the area with the buffet tables and grills and wear the gloves to take food from the buffet tables, grills, or soda and drink dispensers. As you leave this area to return to your table, there are bins to discard the gloves into. Each time you go up you will be given new gloves to wear. Before you are seated at a table the table will be fully sanitized by staff.  The buffet areas are being intensively cleaned every thirty minutes and serving utensils at the buffet are being regularly changed. Employees are being checked for temperature and health when they come to work. I had hoped that Shady Maple when it reopened like this would have followed the approach that Golden Corral has incorporated now at their restaurants that have have reopened for buffet dining and had employees serving from the buffet tables to your plate (cafeteria style) instead of allowing diners to serve themselves - even with gloved hands. But they have chosen to do it their way instead - which to me imposes more of a risk.  Occupancy of the restaurant is limited to 25% of its dining capacity. With Shady Maple there is normally a very high dining capacity with the many dining rooms it has. At 25% of that there should not be that much of a problem getting in - at least during the week. Though it could mean some long waits even so. Because of reduced capacity they ask that all diners limit their time in the buffet to two hours only - and that is fair.

The buffet menu is the same Mondays to Thursday and is the same at lunch every day. At dinner on Monday to Thursday they add additional items at the drill stations including Carved Smoked Beef Brisket, Carved Honey Ham, Kielbasa, BBQ Ribs, Grilled Chicken, Potato Cakes, Corn Fritters, Pizza, Hamburgers, Hot Dogs, Delmonico Steak & Baked Potato. On the buffet tables will be 32 Salad Bar items, 5 homemade breads & rolls, 4 soups, 3 cheeses, 9 meats, 14 vegetables, 9 cold desserts, 3 hot desserts, 5 pies, 6 cakes, sundae bar & many beverages. 

On Friday and Saturday what is on the buffet tables is the same but at the grill on Friday are added Salmon, Cajun Catfish, Pizza, Hamburgers, and Prime Rib and on Saturday are added
Salmon, Cajun Catfish, Fried Shrimp, Crab Cakes & NY Strip. Prices are higher on Friday and Saturday.  Over all the menu is not bad - and with what is included on the buffet tables there is certainly enough to eat, The Meals To Go menu is still available for pick up.  The smorgasbord hours are the same as always and they close at 8:00 pm.

Another restaurant that has opened its buffet tables is Dienner's. This is a small restaurant and has always had the earliest closing hours of any of the buffet/menu restaurants in Lancaster. Monday to Thursday and Saturday they still close at 6:00 PM and on Friday instead of being open until 8:00 pm as was the usual Friday closing.  Dienner's is serving the buffer cafeteria-style with diners coming up to the buffet and being served there by an employee.  They are keeping people six feet apart. Masks are required in the restaurant except at your table.  In addition to the buffet there is also menu dining. They are also still doing take out.  After 5 pm on Saturdays there is only the buffet - but the restaurant closes at 6 pm on Saturdays.  As I say, this is a small restaurant. The state mandate is no more than 25% capacity and that would mean a lot with the size of this restaurant in very much limiting how many can be inside at one time. There are always waits to get into Dienner's in the best of times - and with 75% capacity lost - this may be a difficult restaurant to get into. 

Miller's Smorgasbord has also reopened with its buffet in addition to menu dining and a meal that is served to your table. I do not often write about this restaurant as I feel that it exists for the tourists and it has very high prices. This was one of, if not the first Lancaster County PA Dutch buffet restaurants but it has changed greatly over the years. I have been checking on them through their website throughout the Covid-19 closures and there has not been a mention of the virus until recently - and this is what they say are their modifications - "

• We have established a one-way buffet route. Directional arrows and other spacing is shown on the floor.
• Enter the buffet line at the “ENTER HERE” signs and practice social distancing, maintaining six feet between you and the next guest.
• Use of the gloves or parchment paper is strongly encouraged when using utensils to take your food.
• Take food ONLY from one side of the buffet. Do not reach across the buffet."

OK, so from this we only assume that they are providing gloves -  and some type or parchment paper to take items from the buffet. But are they asking you to change gloves every time you go up - it does not indicate that - and will these gloves just be out on the counter and you HOPE everyone puts them on - or takes a clean piece of parchment paper. They are limiting each table to no more than four - so if you have more than four in your family you will need two tables. Nothing here is clear.  I would not feel comfortable here at all - but that is up to you to decide.

Bird-in-Hand Family Restaurant and Smorgasbord was one of the first to open with outdoor dining - but no smorgasbord. They opened at the end of June for indoor dining with menu only. The restaurant is open Tuesdays to Saturday - CLOSED MONDAY and Sunday - and only open until 7:00 pm. On July 24, 2020, the Smorgasbord will reopen. They state the following which is very clear -  "To support distancing, we have established single-direction lanes at our buffets, and we change serving utensils regularly. We are requiring that guests wear masks and gloves when they visit the buffets, and we are providing gloves and glove-disposal containers for that purpose.". Again it would have been better if they went to cafeteria-style serving at the buffet - they are certainly set up for it with an open area behind the buffet tables for employees to serve you - but they have not. They had a survey about a month ago asking many questions about coming to dine at their restaurant and buffet if they were to reopen and I must have suggested a cafeteria style buffet served by staff - at least five times in my responses. Too bad they did not go with that idea. At least they are taking the same precautions as Shady Maple and they are giving gloves each time one goes up to the buffet.  They are open to 50% of their capacity - and they do have two large dining rooms - one very large - and this will make getting in easier with less wait.  This has always been a favorite - and one of the buffets I have thought about a lot while sitting home for the past several months. There does not seem to be any changes in the buffet menu.

Yoders Country Market Restaurant and Buffet has been open with menu dining only for over a month. I had to go searching a lot to find out that the buffet is now open also.  I only found out by looking at the supermarket's newspaper insert which came up on the website. They have decided to have cafeteria style serving at the buffet by employees. That is great! The buffet does not seem to have changed at all - but it appears that each day's buffet will be the same as it says "no featured buffets will be served at this time".  This is a favorite for both of us! They do not say how limited the capacity is - but the state guidelines are 50% so we can assume that is what it is.

Dutch-Way Family Restaurant and Buffet in Gap, PA has only recently opened again for indoor dining. Before that the only thing that was open was the food stand in the supermarket lobby and they had added some platters to their menu - and there were special events such as a chicken BBQ and a rib platter special.  With their reopening the restaurant it is menu only at this time - no buffet. And since this has happened the website says "Menu Coming Soon" - but there still is no menu. I  have been able to get to see their lunch and dinner menu that is current for this time - and it seems limited. There are several entrees that had been in on the buffet including meat loaf, fried chicken, and ham balls.  There has been always a lot here - on the buffet - and since my last visit there in January that I have missed. I am looking forward to when they are able to open the buffet again safely. I might go for the menu - as the food is always good here.

Oregon Dairy has opened its restaurant for indoor dining but it is menu only. The buffet is "temporarily" closed. This is the restaurant with the dairy on the premises made ice cream that is included on the buffet deserts. They have a pretty extensive menu with PA Dutch and other items included. The ice cream is at the ice cream stand outside.  The restaurant is only open until 7:00pm.

Lititz Family Cupboard is open but here also the buffet is temporarily closed and they are serving menu only.  They are open from Monday to Thursday to 7:00 pm and Friday and Saturday until 8:00 pm.  Their menu also is rather extensive.

I have not written about Good and Plenty Restaurant which is a family style PA Dutch all you care to eat restaurant. In normal times your family sits at a long table with other people and pass the serving platters around the table - everyone taking what they want and filling their plates. This restaurant reopened in July for both menu dining and family style dining - BUT you do not sit with strangers. Each table will be your family only - and you will be served the same way. The food was always good at Good and Plenty and you did get a lot. It has been years since I have been there as I much prefer not sitting with people I don't know and eating at the pace of the group at the table. I much rather go up and get what I want and eat at my leisure. With you and yours only being served family style that is much different and to me better. Enough for me to consider going back while this is going on.

The Hershey Farm Restaurant in Ronks, PA has also opened for indoor dining and has recently reopened its buffet. I do not write much about this restaurant as the last time we were there we experienced many problems including an infestation of flies around the buffet foods - and we decided we we would not go back. They are not having anyone go up to the buffet at all on their own - but will ask you at your table what to bring you from the buffet. This is certainly a safe way to do it - but without seeing what there is and knowing if you want it can be a problem plus you are depending on that server being available to go and get what you want - and how much of it you want when you are ready for it.

The Golden Corral in Lancaster, PA has just reopened and they are serving the buffet indoors. They are serving you cafeteria-style at the buffet counters. A server will put what you want on your plate.  With all of the really good buffets in Lancaster we tend to only go to the Golden Corral there if it is a Sunday night and all other buffets are closed or we are too late to get to one of the other buffets and Golden Corral is open later.

These are just about all of the all you care to eat restaurants in Lancaster, PA.  As you see some are not serving buffet now and some are.  Whether it is safe to go to a buffet now is up to you - and my feeling is that the ones that are serving you or are making sure that everyone has gloves on that will be changed each trip up are the safer choices. One thing that gives me hope about all of this is I saw a news story that said buffets are dead because of Covid-19 and will never be again. Well that is certainly not true!

Will I go? I am, right now, undecided. One thing I keep watching are the Covid-19 updates for Pennsylvania - which very recently have not been good and Lancaster County has the highest daily counts of the counties in the Susquehanna Valley. I would love to go to a buffet again - as soon as possible - but it is not worth dying for.  I will keep a close watch on all of this and if I do go, you will hear about it - right here on this site!

IKEA Summer Smorgasbord - All IKEA stores

We regularly go to the four time a year IKEA Smorgasbord special dinners. These take place four times a year. There is a pre-Christmas dinner, a pre-Easter dinner, a Mid-Summer dinner (in June) and a dinner in September that features Crayfish. These are all all you care to eat dinners laid out on Smorgasbord tables and they have seatings twice on a Friday - one 4:00 pm to 6:00 pm and one 7:00 pm to 9:00 pm and they take place in the restaurant in IKEA stores. We go to all but the crayfish dinner. We have written about these dinners before.

I am writing this right after attending and enjoying the Mid-Summer Smorgasbord. Usually the menu is pretty much the same from one dinner to the next with some seasonal changes. This year the Mid-Summer dinner had different entrees than any of the dinners have had in the past. The menu from IKEA store to store is generally the same at all locations for these dinners - so the changes here should have been the same at the dinners at the other IKEAs as the advertising for these dinners goes out from all IKEA stores.

The many of the usual were included - and consider the price of these items if you were to go to a restaurant and order them - and for some - if you went to a store to buy them and bring them home to eat. There was three kinds of pickled hearing, Gravlax (in the US - Lox, outside the US - smoked salmon), poached salmon, and hot smoked salmon. There was shrimp salad - small shrimp in a mayonnaise based dressing. There were shrimp stuffed hard boiled eggs.  There was the usual Swedish Meatballs. There was tossed salad. There was redskin potato salad. Other than the potato salad this all has been at IKEA smorgasbord dinners before. The usual meat entree at these dinners is ham, but at this dinner there was no ham. There were St Louis Ribs and Bratwurst. Never before has there been St. Louis Ribs and Bratwurst! Both absolutely seasonal - not very much Swedish - but a nice change!

The ribs were fall off the bone. We were told during the dinner that the Food Service Manager cooked the ribs - and he was very proud of it. There were sections of three and sections of four ribs - take as much as you want, of course. They were dry seasoned - no barbecue sauce. I would have preferred  barbecue sauce on them but they were meaty and good even without the sauce. Several years past IKEA would serve in their restaurant half racks of baby back ribs in a thick barbecue sauce that were pretty good - but they no longer offer that. These ribs were different - much more meat but no sauce. I enjoyed them!

The bratwurst was also a new entree and these were cooked with onions and cut in half to serve. Large serving platters of brats were put on the two serving tables. The brats has a slight beer taste underlying and they were either cooked in beer - as brats often are - or these were beer brats as sold in some meat markets. They were good! Even my picky eater wife tried them and liked them - I did not tell her there was most likely beer in them or they were cooked in beer until we were leaving. She knew there was a different taste than she expected.

The deserts included fruit salad, fresh strawberries, fresh blueberries, red velvet cake, and a strawberry filled cream cake. There were two types of IKEAs excellent sandwich cookies - one jelly filled and the other chocolate filled. The deserts do change from Smorgasbord to Smorgasbord and are usually seasonal.

Of course, there is unlimited soft drinks, a non-alcoholic seasonal cider drink and now this IKEA has a computerized coffee dispenser that makes lattes, cappuccino, espresso, and Americano coffee. Put your cup under the spout and push on the screen for your choice and it is made in the machine and dispensed into the cup complete with a head of milk foam.

As I have reported in the past this IKEA store goes all out to make these dinners a party and here there is music from a live band that plays both Swedish Music and Country/Cajun music - interesting combination and they are excellent. During the dinner they stream live on Facebook. We were speaking to the manager during dinner and he said that there are very few IKEA stores that have live music at the Smorgasbord dinners and he has booked this specific band for several years into the future to be sure they are available. The band was talking about jobs they play all over the country - not for IKEA.

There is always a seasonal presentation at the dinners. These dinners coincide with traditional smorgasbord celebrations in Sweden. Mid-Summer does take place in Sweden and the people eat all night on the Summer Solstice celebrating the midnight sun. At this dinner tonight at IKEA there was a circle dance done around a tree as done in Sweden for this holiday - and they get children and adults to come up and join in the dance - which is always a simple dance and easy to do. All night they also had a craft table going on for children - and adults - to make a traditional Swedish head wreath with flowers - which is worn at these celebrations in Sweden - no real flowers but some nice paper flowers adorned many heads on this night.

And then there is the price - and I save the best for last. This dinner - with an IKEA Family Club Card is $12.99 each for adults and $2.99 each for children!  What you don't have an IKEA Family Club Card? They are free and you get one immediately at kiosks all over the store. Get the card. Buy your tickets in ADVANCE at the cashier in the IKEA restaurant (not the snack bar). These dinners often sell out - this one was sold out. People came to see if they could get in, not having bought tickets in advance, and were turned away.  Tickets go on sale during the dinner before the next dinner - and if the next dinner was not the Crayfish dinner we could have bought tickets for that to be held in the Fall tonight. Signs for the dinners go up in the store and in the restaurant about two months or so before the dinner. Depending on the dinner they can sell out quickly. 

I had said above about what you are getting here for the money you are paying compared to getting the same off a menu at non-buffet restaurants. Well, around here two slices of lox (smoked salmon) on a bagel with a little cream cheese in a dinner can cost you upwards of $15.99 and more. I had at least six slices of lox tonight along with everything else.

We very much look forward to each of these dinners. We have a lot of fun. We get there to be on line to be one of the first in - you pick your own table - and then we stay to the very end and the music plays all night!  One thing we always take note of is how friendly and nice the IKEA employees are in the restaurant and at these dinners. They actually seem to enjoy their work.

Foxwoods Casino Festival Buffet - Connecticut

I had not realized that we had not been to Foxwoods Casino Festival Buffet since 2013. That last visit was a disappointment and the year before that it has been as well. This had been a regular birthday dinner trip until then. I guess following that I took my own advice and we headed for Lancaster for my birthday buffet dinner. We have been trying to plan trips around rather poor weather reports and I saw that Thursday was going to be cool but nice and I wanted to go somewhere for a buffet. I started poking around to where to go. I decided that for another single day trip to Lancaster it really was too expensive and hopefully we will get there for several days at some point soon. I looked northward to Connecticut and started looking up the current pricing at Mohegan Sun and Foxwoods for their buffets. Mohegan Sun is $30. Foxwoods is usually $24 but on Thursdays if you are 55 years of age or older - during a special they are having - the buffet at dinner from 6 pm to 9 pm when it closes is $9.99! I looked at my past articles. I felt things must have changed - maybe in the past five years. I looked around at reviews and they are mixed - some good and some terrible. For $10 each for dinner, a nice day out with a stop at a favorite spot in Connecticut before getting to the casino, and only one bridge toll - despite the recent jump in gas prices - we would go!

I could talk a lot about getting there. I will just say that the Waze app let me down and sent us out of the way and onto some rather dangerous roads that were single lane and twisted around high hills with one spot having a big sign reading "Dangerous Curve!"  That these roads brought us back to the same large main road it sent us off of - with no reported problems on that road convinced me that this is not an app to rely upon at all.

So we got to Foxwoods, later than we had planned and went straight to the buffet to have dinner. There was a line as I anticipated there would be but we only waited about fifteen minutes to get in. Needless to say, there were a lot of seniors also there for the regular $24 buffet for only $9.99 - but that is fine. 

Every night there is an option to a pay $10 extra for either a sirloin steak of snow crab legs. The week end buffet includes steak and snow crab legs at no additional cost - though I am not sure if you would be getting the same steak as the one you pay extra for. It is not right that they are charging the same every night (except Thursday nights for Seniors) and not including steak and crab legs as they do on weekends. It would be understandable if the price was higher on the weekends - but it is not. So that annoyance aside - onto our dinner.

Overall the selections and food stations are the same as they had been. There is a Seafood Station, a Carving Station, an "International" Station, an Italian Station, an Asian Station, and a Barbecue Station. There is a area in the middle of the dining room with soups and a salad bar with make your salad and prepared salads. The price includes unlimited soft drinks.

As usual, we started with soup. When we were seated my wife told me to go up for soup while she waited for the server to give our drink order. We had been sitting for about five minutes and no one had come over. As I was on my way back to the table with my soup, my wife was walking up to the soup area and she told me the woman server was very nice and took the drink order without any confusion. Plus one right there.

There are four soups - as there have been in the past. There were two thick soups and two thin soups. There was New England Clam Chowder, a red bean soup, a thin vegetable chowder, and chicken rice soup. In the past there were often all thick soups - this variety is much better. I chose the vegetable chowder. I was going to pick the New England Clam but decided on trying something different and I was not sure I wanted a thick heavy soup. The vegetable chowder was very good. It was a vegetable stock with a bit of a tang to it - either vinegar or a seasoning, There was a visible seasoning that looked like what is found in red clam chowder or minestrone. The soup was full of vegetables. As I got down to the bottom of the bowl I wondered if I should go and get more - but no, I decided that I would get on with the meal.  My wife took the chicken rice and felt it could have had more in it - but it tasted fine.

The salad bar was next - and we did not take much. Not that there was not a lot to take. We were not going to make big salads. We took a little of this and a little of that and not much at all, There was a really nice looking Caesar Salad but with the recent problems with Romaine lettuce and a national Ecoli scare I decided against that. Despite articles that say it has past, there was a report of four more cases including one in NY just the past week of when I am writing this. What we took from the salad bar was tasty. I tried some Tortellini salad with black olives. It was good. 

On to the main event! I walked around all of the stations deciding. I knew that at least once and more likely twice I was going to get the Prime Rib that was being carved. The other carving was pork roast with pancetta. What caught my attention were barbecue ribs in the Barbecue area, the sausage and peppers in tomato sauce, tortellini bruschetta (not sure why bruschetta as it just seemed to be thick tomato sauce), a macaroni in white cream sauce, and the Prime Rib kept calling me. And I took a little of each of this all - except the Prime Rib. When I was about to get  up to the carver from the line, he was left with a full half of a Prime Rib and a slice of Prime Rib from what he was carving from that was about an inch and a half thick. He was not carving thick slices. He cut that thick slice in half and he gave the woman in front of me that and gave me the other half. My first thought was that this was too much to start off with but I took it back to the table. It was supposed to be rare. It was pink and it was more medium rare, but as I have been writing, when I have been writing lately, I have a craving for beef, steak in particular but Prime Rib is a good second. The Prime Rib was mostly tender. Around the cooked edges there were some spots that had to be cut out as they were more grizzle than meat.  It was a little less than flavorful and I wound up adding salt which I rarely do. It was fine. The sausage was good. The tortellini was nice. The macaroni in white cream sauce, most would say was just right - but I am not a fan of  al dente macaroni. To me it is under cooked and hard to chew. I much prefer pasta/macaroni that has cooked to not quite soft but not at all hard. It tasted good but it was not as I like. I don't really get this passion for almost raw macaroni. The rib was tasty but I only took a small piece and there was no bone which I saw when I took it. It was covered in a pleasant barbecue sauce that was not too sweet and I liked what I ate. I put this on my get some more of list for the next trip up.

The Seafood Station has fried shrimp, fried calamari, a fried batter dipped snapper that looked dark and over fried, a cod fillet in a green curry sauce, and peel and eat shrimp. I passed all of it up. There were no fried clams on this night as they had been at least five years ago. I was not going to try anything in curry - I had an almost two hundred mile drive home after this dinner. I would have taken the snapper if it was not overdone.

I took two more full ribs. There were two focaccia to choose from- one with vegetables and cheese and the other with pepperoni and cheese, both with tomato sauce. I took the vegetable focaccia. There were crab clusters - but these were stone crab clusters - a half crab that were broiled or just put in a fryer. I took a half to try it. I took a meatball. I went over to the Barbecue Station and took some red skin potato salad. I went back to the table. My wife was up at the carving station. She is not a fan of beef and she was looking for turkey which has been here - again, at least in the long past. There was no turkey but the pork roast and she was not certain she would like the pancetta that was on it. Remember, my wife is a picky eater. When she came back without any carvings we had a discussion about this and she said the turkey was what she had always liked the most to take here. She does make do finding things.  These two ribs were good. They were almost fall off the bone ribs and they were very tasty. The focaccia was very tasty. The crab - well... When I got back to the table I was smelling the ocean which for raw fish is a good thing but it was the crab. OK. Stone crab is very hard to open, This seemed to be a bit brittle and it broke in half. I tried to pull out some of the white crab meat inside the cluster with a fork and came out with a little shreds of meat and a lot of a hard shell like substance that was over the open end of the cluster. It was then an effort to get these sharp little bits out of my mouth. I went back into the shell to try to get some actual crab meat and a little did come out - which I could taste - but again there was this shell. I stopped at that point and pushed the crab to the side of my plate. The potato salad was good.

What was to be my final trip up and you know it was going to be Primer Rib! There was no line and I could see the carver cutting up the rest of what he had out into small slices of well done beef. I said to myself - and my good wife - that I would wait. I wanted a new Prime Rib and it was still an hour and a half to closing so they would certainly bring another out. Rather than go back to the table with an empty plate - as my wife had already taken what she was going to have, I took some sliced beef in onion sauce. This was in a tray at the carving area. There was also a chicken dish there. I took just a little and some more vegetable focaccia and went back to the table to wait for Prime Rib. I finished what was on my plate and I saw people gathering at the Carving Station. My wife was not going to go up for more until dessert. The Prime Rib was red, rare and juicy! He cut one slice and I asked for two and he cut a second. He was cutting thin slices - more like one slices roast beef but at this point in the meal that was OK. I put some red skinned boiled potatoes on my plate and went back to the table and really enjoyed this beef.

There were other things to choose from and there were several vegetable dishes. I did not take any fried chicken but it did look good! 

During the course of the meal the server cleared the plates off the table each time we went up for more and she came and asked if we would like refills on our drinks which she brought promptly. She was an excellent server. In 2012 and 2013 my articles about Foxwoods talk about the poor service we had.

It was time for dessert and I went to look at what there was. The dessert area is a long counter with glass shelves going up full of baked goods. There were several things that looked good. Some labeling could have been better. There was a cheese cake that was topped with something - maybe caramel but there was no sign. There was a Boston Cream cake. There was a chocolate chip cookie cake that tempted me. I have to note this about the desserts - the Sugar Free desserts were the nicest looking desserts that were out - nice looking iced and cream layer cakes. I don't eat sugar free because one never knows what they have been sweetened with and some common sweeteners are sugar alcohols which are laxatives - fast working laxatives. There was a soft serve sundae bar - the soft serve ice cream looked icy. I went down to the very end and found bread pudding! I took that - thought about also taking the chocolate chip cookie cake - but didn't and headed back. The bread pudding was a little on the sweet side but fine. (Not as good as the bread pudding at Golden Corral which is my favorite.)

This was a good meal for $9.99! Was it a good meal for $24? Hmm. Nothing was bad. Nothing was wrong with anything I took. I enjoyed everything that I ate - but I can compare this to other $24 buffet meals that I have had and this was just OK - in comparison. I am looking strictly at value. Again nothing wrong. I would certainly go back on a Thursday night for $9.99 each and I am driving a distance for this!  We are not gamblers. I love casinos - the atmosphere, the money risked. But I can't afford to be a gambler. We go strictly to eat and walk around.  If it was not Thursday - that may be a dilemma in deciding.  There are two buffet choices - one is Mohegan Sun which we were at a year ago but I never got around to writing about. It was OK - but now it is $30. There is also now a Golden Corral in Connecticut which I have not yet been to. It opened with some difficulties and a reader wrote and told me to avoid it for awhile - and I have still not yet gone. When I do go, you all will know about it. But $12.99 or whatever this Golden Corral is charging (another article will talk about recent price increases) is a lot better than $24 and $30 each - and just about every Golden Corral I have been to has had good steak.  Ah yes - children are allowed in the building and in the buffet. They cannot go onto the casino floor where there is gambling.

I can say confidently that the negative reviews that I saw on Yelp and Trip Advisor was not the experience I had. It was pretty much all positive!  I wish I was close by - without the trip we have to get there - as I would be there most Thursday nights! The special is not on holidays - so Thanksgiving is out! 😄

Where Have We Been?!?

We have gotten some kind emails from some of our readers asking where have we been. There has not been an article for some time now. Well, the problem is not where we have been - it is that we have not been anywhere.

This past winter was a tough one and this Spring is not much better. The weather has kept us local and we were only able to get to a buffet out of this area four times from December to now. We made it down to Lancaster, PA three times, each for just part of a day - and all three times ate at the buffet at Dutch Way Restaurant in Gap, PA. Once we got to New Jersey and went to the Golden Corral in Freehold. All nice meals - but nothing really new to write about. It has been "Same old, same old" when it comes to buffets. I had a an article or two in mind from some of those meals but thinking about writing them, I felt that if writing them would bore me, they certainly would bore our readers. So this site has been quiet. The weather has gone from snow every week to rain just about every week. We plan trips to buffets and it has been just not worth dealing with the weather to get out of state to get to them.

Locally there have been a number of meals at Asian buffets - there only Asian buffets here now. There has been nothing special about them and they have been primarily in the same two restaurants - Flaming Grill and Global Buffet. We did have one dinner at International Buffet for an occasion. We did go to two IKEA Seasonal Smorgasbords - one before Christmas that was nearly snowed out.  The other was before Easter. Both - as always - were very good. I have a regular reader who writes to me about the IKEA Smorgasbords he goes to at the IKEA store in Brooklyn, NY and they are run very differently from the dinners at the IKEA near us.

The other problem is buffets close rather than new buffets open.  Old Country Buffet is gone from here - the closest still open is in New Jersey - and as much as it would be nice to go to an Old Country Buffet again, if going to New Jersey I will go to Golden Corral where I know I am going to have a nice steak - and likely more than one. (Steak deprivation seems to be at the center of most that I have written about in the recent past. 😃 ) 

I just wanted to let all of our readers know that we are not giving up! I may be writing about the same places but if there is something interesting or good to write about, I will write about it. With the Summer just about starting, we will get out and away more and I will write about what I find.

And why when we were in Lancaster, with several great buffets to go to, did I pick Dutch Way, Gap? Each of those trips were on a Friday night and Dutch Way was where I was going to find Prime Rib on the buffet - and while steak is best, Prime Rib is a close second.

So stick around and we will be here when there is something to be here for. And I am thinking that I really need to run the Rules of the Buffet again sometime soon! In the buffets that are still around  - particularly around here - they are sorely needed!

Island Buffet, Baldwin, New York

In 2014 we went to an Asian buffet in Baldwin, NY and walked out before we were seated. I wrote about that then in an article.  Last week looking through an advertising mailer we saw an ad and coupon for a "Grand Opening" and it turned out to be the Island Buffet in Baldwin. We wondered if it was that same buffet and saw right away from the little map  in the ad that it was. But "Grand Opening"?  I did some searching and from everything that I saw it was the same as it was in 2014 and that it had remained in business from then to now.

The prices in the ad were interesting - $11.99 on Friday and Saturday nights. There was a coupon for $3.00 off.  The ad said lobster or crab legs every night. They claimed to be the largest buffet in Baldwin and had great quality and quantity in what they offered on the buffet. It intrigued us enough to decide to go and find out for ourselves. Last time we never made it past the lobby. I wondered if that was going to be different on this visit.

We went. We walked right in. We were seated at a booth - I did not ask for anything specific in terms of seating. We were taken into the dining room and seated in front of the window. My wife commented that this was why we walked out the last time. We sat down. The window is large and on a cold night as this one was, it was not very comfortable - and being on display to anyone who walked past on the sidewalk was not great. There were other tables and booths away from the window - but it seems like they want to fill those window booths. We put up with it.

The buffet includes an hibachi grill, four double sided, double length hot and cold buffet tables and a counter of hard scooped ice cream and dessert cakes.  On an L of the hibachi grill is a sushi bar. The restaurant is 1/4 filled with the buffet area. 1/4 filled with a dining room and 1/2 filled with large party rooms and a lobby. The party room seemed to have two parties going on - one with a rock band and another with small children. As we had walked into the restaurant we could hear the band as clearly as if we were next to them. As we were going up to the buffet several times the children had moved out of the party room for their party and were running through the restaurant. Later we could hear their party entertainment - across the restaurant - as clearly as if we were in the room with them. I had to wonder through this dinner why this restaurant does not just become a party catering venue and forget the restaurant which always seems to be an afterthought here.

The dishes to use at the buffet are located UNDER the buffet tables on near the ground shelf. If you have problems bending over you are going to have a hard time getting the dished to eat off of. Maybe this is minor but I know people who would have had a problem - and not that they are "fat" which might be the assumption.

So how was the meal. I was fairly happy at the start. The food here is tasty. I tried a number of things on the buffet. They have what they call barbecue beef. This is a slice of beef about a quarter inch thick with enough marbling to give it some taste. My first selections of this beef seemed to have been sitting out on the buffet for awhile and perhaps I should have skipped it at that point - but I took a couple of slices. I looked around the buffet for knives - this was not going to be easy to eat without cutting it. There were no knives. I tried spearing it and eating it that way. It was tough but it had a nice taste. So much so that I wanted to eat it but some of it came out into a napkin because after chewing and chewing it was not small enough to get down. I tried other things. There are crab cakes that are rather different - more cake than crab but again they were tasty. There was lobster - the usual buffet lobster in ginger sauce broken into chunks and pieces. There was not a lot out and about one tray and a half of the tray was put out during the time we were there. And the lobster was tasty.

I then had something happen about half way through the meal that I have had perhaps only once in all of the years that I have been writing about buffets and Asian buffets. I suddenly had a headache - and I knew right away from how it felt and how this type of headache has felt before - this was an MSG headache. MSG is a powdered substance (mono-sodium glutamate). used in some Oriental cooking that is a preservative and brings out the flavors of foods. It is not unusual to find this at Chinese restaurants and I am sensitive to it and get the common reaction to it - a headache. I eat at Asian buffets at least once a week and as I say, I can recall once many years ago that I got an MSG headache at an Asian buffet. This reaction to MSG is common - at take out Asian restaurants and at menu Asian restaurants one can request that it is left out. I know that the take out Asian restaurant that I go to uses this - and they do leave it out on request. You can't do that at a buffet - but Asian buffets that I have been at don't put it in the food. Here they must put it in quantity as I can usually get through a meal before I feel it. Quality foods and good cooking does not need MSG added.

There was nothing that I could do at that point and continued with dinner. Several of the things I tried - like the bbq beef that did not chew (I have to say that I took more later that looked less dried out and that was better) - I had a few things in addition that went into my mouth and came out in a napkin. There was fish with bones that were not obvious. There was fried zucchini that  - again - was tasty bu that had a overdone coating on it that almost broke a tooth.

There were things I would not take. The some of the sushi was off-color and dried out. There were raw clams that had an odd color and were dried out. Some of the food on the buffet needed to be hotter. When items first come out to the buffet table they are hot, but they cool off shortly after and that should not happen.

I did not go up to the hibachi grill but only because when I decided I would try it, there was no one there cooking. There had been earlier.

For dessert they have a variety of hard ice creams in a freezer case that you scoop yourself. There are the sheet cakes that you see at many of the Asian buffets. There were some fresh fruits and canned fruits. There was also hot apple wrapped pastry.

The service was fine. We did overhear a discussion between customers at a nearby table with the waitress about the coupon that offered three dollars off. We had seen the coupon but had forgot to bring it. The coupon said $3.00 - limit 2. The discussion at that table was that the two dining gave the coupon and only received $3.00 off and not $3.00 for each of the two. The waitress was telling them that the coupon was only for one $3.00 discount and there had to be two people to get it. This is clearly not what the coupon we saw said - and if this restaurant meant this then the coupon should have read $3.00 off - minimum 2 people for discount. This was not good. Other Asian buffets in this area offer coupons that include all adults who are dining - some specify no more than ten. Some reviews of this buffet that I read after our visit talk of a language problem here - maybe so and that extends to their coupons.

Will I go back? With the MSG issue here I don't think so. Yes, the food is tasty. I was able to find things that I liked but the headache was not worth it - especailly when less than a half mile away is Flaming Grill with a a larger buffet, better quality food, and almost the same price (especailly with a coupon which are put out in local papers and mailings often - and no headache.  If you don't react to MSG then maybe you might like this buffet. There are things here though to be careful about - especially any raw seafood.

Island Buffet is located at 1874 Grand Ave., Baldwin, NY 11510 and their phone number is 516-868-2888. There is a website and that is listed in the right column of this page.

Back again to Global Buffet, Levittown, NY

This is a follow up to the several other articles that I have written about this buffet and since it is local, it is only fair to keep this up to date, especailly when things are positive. We went back to Global. We have been back a couple of times since the last article and this last visit was the most positive.

This was a Sunday night. The meal was pleasant.  I focused on this as an Asian buffet rather than try to get it to be more than that - even though there is the American meat carvings and a few non-Asian dishes and a taco bar. On two Sunday visits including this one there was lobster in ginger sauce. This was whole lobsters in the shell cut up into small chunks - and on this visit they even cut up the claws which made them much easier to get good pieces of lobster meat out of. What surprised me most - give that this is Long Island and is notorious for huge crowds descending on lobster trays as they are put out at Asian buffets leaving the tray empty almost as soon as it enters the steam table - was that there was none of that. I went up twice to a near full lobster tray and helped myself to several nice chunks of lobster. There is no price increase on Sundays or the weekend and there has not always been lobster here - so if you go, don't automatically expect lobster. Things seem to change a lot here as to what is put out.

There is a section next to the sushi bar of oriental salads and there were some interesting salads there to try. There was a beansprout salad and another salad that might have been artificial crab shredded in a cold white sauce that was more than just mayonnaise and it was tasty.

MeiFun noddles with shrimp was good. The fried rice is decent. The lo mein is OK.  Italian sausages sliced in half length wise and grilled with peppers and Onions was OK. I tried the turkey again, and it was much more like turkey should taste - the turkey gravy is thin and could be thicker. It is a turkey breast. I tried a short rib but there was not much meat on it and whatever the sauce they have on it is, takes away from the short rib. So I went back to the Asian dishes. There was a whole crab shell stuffed with a breadcrumb mixture and crab. That was OK.

There are still inconsistencies here. The stuffed baked clams that they used to have are now changed - and that is too bad because the Italian style baked clams that they had were good. I did not try the new ones - it looked as if there was cheese on top of them. There had been pulled pork on the taco bar which made for a good dish just on its own, has been gone for the last visits. Taco meat is now just chopped beef that looks dry. I took Pepper Steak which is a basic Chinese restaurant and buffet dish and it is never spicy - here it is hot and spicy. Maybe you like hot and spicy, but I don't expect Pepper Steak to be that way.  Labeling could be better also - what had a sign over it as Beef Stew was Curry Beef. The actual Beef Stew had a sign over it that it was clams. Definitely not clams.

They seem better at putting things out as the trays empty. They need to pay attention to what the signs say above where they are putting them out.

The soft serve ice cream here is very good - much better than many buffets - regardless of the type of buffet. The ice cream is cream and not icy at all. We top apple strudel with the soft serve ice cream and that makes a good desert - though they have a number of other desserts here.

The women who wait on the tables have always been excellent. They make an effort to keep coming over and cleaning away plates and offering refills on drinks. They are all very polite and welcoming.

Will we go back now? More likely that we would have before. As long as it remains as it is right now - and they don't slip back - and/or they don't raise the prices. I have wondered how set their $14.99 price is going to be, especially if they are throwing in lobster every so often. The $14.99 price is just right for this buffet. A higher price would keep people away. And they are not coming in droves now. Don't expect the crowds that once were here for Old Country Buffet. We were commenting on that to each other as we were leaving the buffet. Those coming here are very different from those who came here when this was OCB. There are more older people coming here and some families. Another Asian buffet that we go to on some Sunday nights is generally jammed with a wait for a table - and that is a large buffet. Not here, but that buffet is priced a dollar lower on weekends and two dollars lower on Monday to Friday. Here the price is the same every day for dinner, less for lunch.  There are coupons here in local newspapers and coupon mailers for two dollars off each person up to 10 at a table. Of course, the other buffet also has coupons with $1.50 off their lower prices.

At this point everyone is going to have to decide for themselves. I don't know if there are still off nights. So far we have been happy twice in the recent past. I can't say that about before that.

Three Times Prime Rib

We were in Lancaster, PA for a Fall trip and, of course, every night was a buffet - actually every night was at one of the top buffets for the past year. It just so happened that the nights we went to Yoder's, Shady Maple, and Dutch-Way/Gap Prime Rib was the feature for that night. Prime Rib can vary a lot at buffet restaurants and at these three there were differences. There are times that I prefer Prime Rib to steak - if the Prime Rib is good.  Given a choice between a bone in slice and a slice with no rib bone, I prefer the bone in slice but I have never come across a buffet restaurant that serves a bone in Prime Rib.

We first went to Yoder's Restaurant - Tuesday is Prime Rib night there. Yoder's Prime Rib is carved at the grill and they will try to accommodate your request for rare, medium, well done. While I was up at the grill someone before me had wanted theirs very well done and they had that piece on the grill top for extra cooking. I wanted mine rare - no surprise to our regular readers - and the carver cut into the Prime Rib at a spot where the meat was rare - red rare - and sliced me off a nice slice. The outside of the Prime Rib was a herb rub without any type of sauce added. The meat was very tender. It did need a little salt to bring out the flavor but that was fine. There was very little fat in the meat and even less grizzle. Later in the meal I went back for a second slice and this time the carver was different and she carved a very thick piece - thicker than I really wanted given the point in the meal I was at - but she cut a generous slice. This time the meat was not as rare as the first but again the meat was very tender. Both slices were very tasty - even though the first needed a little salt added.

Wednesday night is Prime Rib night at Shady Maple Smorgasbord. It surprised me how crowded Shady Maple was for mid-week Fall. Prime Rib is carved to order at two of the grill stations at Shady Maple. Here they have different Prime Ribs to carve each done to a different wellness. I saw one carver at a very rare looking Prime Rib and I went over to him for a slice. The slice was generous and this slice of Prime Rib was the most like in appearance to a slice of Prime Rib that one would get in a menu restaurant. At the side of the grill counter was Au Jus gravy to ladle on your meat yourself. There was also ground horseradish to spoon on. There was a large circle of fat at a corner of the slice. The outside of the Prime Rib was black and semi-crispy and the meat was coated with a sauce that tasted like a combination of Worcestershire Sauce and A1 Steak Sauce. This was cooked onto the outside of the Prime Rib. The outside had a distinct flavor because of this. I was given a slice per my request that was red rare. The meat of this Prime Rib was interlaced with grizzle and while eating there was a lot that had to be cut off around what was cut to eat. It was tasty but chewy. It was good enough but because of two nights of Prime Rib for dinner, I did not take a second slice and continued the meal with several of the many other good things that Shady Maple has to offer.

Friday night (and Saturday night - but this was a Friday night) is Prime Rib night at Dutch-Way restaurant in Gap, PA. The Prime Rib here is also carved at the grill. One Prime Rib is out for the carver to serve from, but from past visits I know that if you ask for a piece cooked differently from what is out, they usually have it. I asked for rare, as did the man after me. The carver told me that he had to go and get another Prime Rib that he could cut off rare slices from and he went off. When he came back he had a tray with a Prime Rib in it. He opened a hot draw inside the carving station and picked up the remaining Prime Rib on the cutting board and added that to what was in the tray in the drawer. He pulled out the tray and put it aside - to be brought back into the kitchen when he was done carving my slice and the slice for the other gentleman there. He cut into the middle of this Prime Rib and it was pinkish-red inside. Not as rare as I had hoped for but still rare. Perhaps one might say it was medium-rare, but that is better than well done and dry. This slice had some fat marbled through and just a little grizzle mixed in. The outside of the Prime Rib at Dutch-Way is crispy and also may have been a steak sauce cooked onto the outside. It was tasty, there was little to have to cut around and perhaps if this night was not a night we had to drive back for a three plus hour trip I might have eaten more of the fat than I did. The slice was a good sized slice. Did I go back for another? Well, no but only because on the buffet was Dutch-Way's meatloaf and since I have been good meatloaf craving for awhile, I forgo another slice of Prime Rib for some really good meatloaf.

Of the three buffet restaurants, I found the Prime Rib at Yoders to be the best. It was the most tender by far. It had little waste on the slice and it was tasty. There was no sauced crust on the outside to detract from the taste of the meat. It was also the most satisfying. Yoder's on a Tuesday night is the place to go for all you care to eat Prime Rib along with their other good things on the buffet.

All three buffets are linked at the side of this page.

Golden Corral, Middletown, NY

We are rarely in Upstate New York - this for those who are not familiar with New York is considered anything north or west of Manhattan by those who live in the Metro NY area. We were going to spend the day up along the Hudson for an event we wanted to attend and I started looking for where we might find a buffet - and I was in particular looking for a Golden Corral.  With the conversion to Golden Corrals of some Old Country Buffets, etc. that had closed I knew that there was at least one up in this area. The one that I searched for first was the Golden Corral that opened in a former OCB in Newburgh, New York. I had heard about this in early summer along with the opening of a similar take over location in Connecticut. When I had looked up the reviews for this new Golden Corral in Newburgh, the reviews were not good - in fact they were terrible. When I went back to look now I discovered that this Golden Corral had closed! It was not open a half a year. There was some problem between management at the buffet and the NYS Department of Labor - I don't know the details - and Golden Corral pulled their affiliation and closed the restaurant. So, what else might be near enough to make a detour on the way home worth the drive. What I discovered was that there is a new Golden Corral in Middletown, New York. I did not read any reviews - I wanted to see for myself.

We drove about an hour plus out of our way and in the wrong direction to get there on a Saturday night. It is the most unusual Golden Corral I have ever seen. It is not a free standing building but part of a strip mall in one of the store spaces. At first I thought that it must be another OCB conversion - as it just seemed that way from the outside. As we went through the door there was also an open entrance - no doors to a large and noisy game arcade. Odd! I have since found out that this was not an OCB or any other restaurant before but was built as an add on by the arcade.

As we were parking two very large travel buses were parking in the parking lot near the restaurant. On the outside they had the name of a school in Georgia and they also had the name of a sports team. Oh boy!, I thought. and I commented that I hoped that they were on their way out and ont on their way in. It was about 7:00 pm and they were on their way in.

The area with the cashiers and where a line forms to go into the restaurant were very small. A big crowd here would be out the door. As we were on line one of the coaches from the bus was arranging for the team to come in. Looking at the crowded dining room we wondered where two bus loads of hungry athletes were going to be seated. It turns out there is a private dining room that they came into after we were seated.

The interior of the buffet is the smallest Golden Corral I have seen - which even more led us to thing that this had to have been an OCB. The buffet sections were smaller than usual and abbreviated in what they could hold. There was one section I have not seen before in a Golden Corral and that was an Italian foods section.

Now, this is still during the Smokehouse BBQ feature and it is a weekend night so the price is a dollar more - and for this you are supposed to get the Smoked Turkey (which they had for a while), Smoked Brisket (which they did not have), Pulled Pork BBQ (which they did not have) and several other specials for the feature. None of which they had. OK. So this was a weekend extra cost meal with nothing out that makes it special cost - except the small remains of a smoked turkey - that were pretty much totally gone during the time we were dining.

Because my rare opportunities to get to a Golden Corral now has to make up for no longer having regular buffet dinners weekly at the now gone two OCB locations that were near us, I am looking for particular things. One is steak - and they did have steak. After soup and a small salad, I went right for the steak grill - and did manage to get a piece - not a large piece as I expect to get at a Golden Corral of just about rare steak. The steak was not seasoned and pretty bland. It was also rather tough around the sides. My picky eater wife likes Golden Corral's meatloaf - as do I. She went to where the sign said Meatloaf and found a hot tray of some odd looking meat with some vegetables in a brown gravy or sauce - it was not pot roast - the pot roast was on the other side of the buffet section. This was not meatloaf - and we both were disappointed. This was not late. Something like meatloaf should not have run out - and this was before the sports team had come up to the buffet.  Some of the basics at Golden Corral were also missing which made my wife's choices very limited. She also likes the pulled chicken in gravy - there was no sign of that.

When we got up for the second plate, the fried chicken was gone. I waited awhile for it to come out - it did not come out. No fried chicken. As we were leaving several pieces of fried chicken were finally put out. I went looking for the pulled pork BBQ - a featured dish - and in the place with the sign for Pulled Pork BBQ was another tray of that same odd looking meat with vegetables and gravy. While I was there a man came over also looking for pulled pork and looked at that meat in the tray and asked me what it was - I said, "I have no idea, but it is not pulled pork!" He shrugged and put some on his plate. It did not look much better plated. Trays would empty and never get refilled. I went over to the Italian section and there were fried raviolis. I was interested and took a couple. I almost broke a tooth biting into one of them. It was not fried hard but fried too tough to chew and the edges were hard. So much for that. There was a baked ziti with cheese and that was fair, but nothing I go to Golden Corral for. I went back for another piece of steak and despite a "look" for rare, I was given what would more be described as medium - and this piece was tough and full of grizzle. I like the steak at Golden Corral - this was not it. This was not the thick cuts of steak that Golden Corral usually serves.

There is not much to go on further about in regard to the food. This is not up to Golden Corral standards - if Golden Corral cares about their locations following consistent standards - which seem to vary from location to location.

Service started out being good - and then went downhill and the server did not have a large section to cover. When it was time to refill our soft drinks I had to wait by the table until I saw him and go over to tell him to please bring us refills. When I got back to the table my wife was there and on the table next to our empty cups were two of the large take it with you plastic cups - that cost more than the regular soft drinks. My wife told me that the server brought these and said that they are "out of glasses" and he brought the refills in these. OK - a way around being out of glasses - but "out of glasses?!".   Our two glasses were on the table - no wonder they were out of glasses! In other Golden Corrals the server takes the glasses we have and refills them - either bringing a pitcher of soda to fill them with or taking the glasses to the soda dispenser and bringing them back. Not here. But OK. We had refills - and large ones at that - and the server had a chance to disappear again. So now a short while later we are going back up to find something more to put on our plates - not something that should be a problem at Golden Corral - but it was a problem here. We managed to find something. I went looking again for fried chicken - hoping to salvage something good from this meal. Still no chicken. I took a small slice of pizza that was under cooked - the cheese was not melted and the sauce was cold. I had such hopes after the experience we had just a couple of weeks before at the Golden Corral in New Jersey (see last article). Well, at least the food here was not overly salty - it was pretty much tasteless. Well - while we were up looking for food, when we got back to the table our silverware was gone, our charge receipt - which is all you are given to put on the table - and the server puts his name on the bottom and is to stay out - well that was taken away - but the empty soda glasses remained and the large cups that had been brought - still with plenty of drink still in them were still there. My wife saw this and asked me what happened. I had seen the server when I was getting up from the table and he saw me going over to the buffet - but he decided - I guess - that we had left - but why leave the cups then?  Everything here is beyond understanding.

So - another not good dinner at a Golden Corral. Before writing this article I went to reviews to see what others have had to say and it gets mostly only one or two stars and most say they will never go back. We will likely never be up that way again - so we are not going back. I would love to say that even a bad Golden Corral is better than no Golden Corral at all - but with this one - skip it! Outside in the parking lot there was a Carl's Jr. fast food restaurant - which we were surprised to see as we thought there were none in the North. We kidded driving in that maybe we should go there instead - since it is very rare that we eat on one of those due to location. We should have done that - we would have enjoyed it more and it would have been a lot cheaper.

This Golden Corral - if you care by now - is located at 360 Route 211 E, Middletown, NY 10940. On the way home I hoped that this meal would sit well as it was a long drive through the mountains and no rest areas. It did, but the trip home took a few hours and when I pulled into the driveway I was hungry.