Global Buffet, Levittown, New York

We went for dinner to the just opened Global Buffet which is located in the space that Old Country Buffet last occupied. You enter through the entrance that you entered when this was OCB and going through a second set of doors (as you did before) you come into an area that will become a bar or wine bar. There is a long bar counter along the wall to the left, and a lot of glass shelves on the walls holding decorative wine bottles lying horizontally across the shelves. To the right is an opening and this is the entrance to the restaurant. To the right is the cashier but you do not pay as you enter. You pay at your table at the end of your meal. A host brought us to our table. You may just be able to make out the form of the OCB when you see the room but there has been extensive work done and a lot has been added.

There are mostly booths through the restaurant with a few tables. There are two party rooms - one in the back where the OCB party room had been and another area in the front that is separated from the rest of the restaurant by a wall with glass decorative etched windows looking into the restaurant and an open entrance - that did not seem to have a door. There is a very small stage in the back corner of that room for parties. The dining rooms are fancily decorated and are very nice. On the east side of the restaurant are the buffet tables (nine hot/cold, double sided buffet serving tables), a dessert bar that is along the front of the wall that is an L shape - the short leg of the L parallel on the front to the front party room, then a hot foods carving area, followed by a long hibachi grill. Moving back from the grill there is another L with a sushi bar.

Outside in the entrance area from the street there is a sign with prices. The prices are pretty good. There is a lunch price of $9.99 for adults ($8.49) for seniors) Monday to Friday - and a children's price. The dinner price is $14.99 for adults and $13.99 for seniors plus a children's price which is for Monday through Saturday. There is a Saturday brunch price which I did not note. The Sunday lunch and dinner price is the same and is also $14.99 for adults and $13.99 for seniors. Soft drinks are not mentioned on the sign but are $1.99 and you get refills.

Now I will tell you what so many have been waiting to hear. This is an Asian buffet. There is a carving section that has you carve yourself Roast Turkey, Roast Brisket, and Glazed Baked Turkey. With that there is turkey gravy, mashed potatoes, and chunk pan fried potatoes. Over on the buffet tables mixed in with a large variety of Asian dishes are pork chops with peppers and onions on top, lamb with cream sauce, corned beef and cabbage, chicken Marsala, macaroni and cheese, french fries, mashed sweet potatoes, and beef stew. There is fried chicken that has been cut up into pieces - I don't mean whole pieces of fried chicken, but those pieces cut up into pieces. There was Sausage with Peppers and Onions, seafood pasta, Italian-style baked clams and "Italian" shrimp. There were also several fish dishes including a rolled and stuffed fillet of fish that was baked. There was typical Asian buffet pizza. There is also a Taco Bar and a decent salad bar with both salad greens and toppings and also prepared salads - a little better than you usually see in this area. There were six soups: Won Ton Soup, Hot and Sour Soup, Clam Soup, chicken noodle soup, and what appeared to be a seafood bisque of some kind. Most things are labeled, this soup was not.

The Asian foods are just about all that you generally find in an Asian buffet. There is a sushi bar and then there is an hibachi grill. The hibachi grill is a long row of raw vegetables and cut up pieces of various meats that you assemble yourself on a plate and hand it to the chef behind the grill at the end. This is the extent of the grill. Do not expect whole steaks or anything like that.  The majority of dishes here are Asian.

How was the food? I am writing based on the second night they are open. Let's say that what I am going to report is opening shake out issues which hopefully will improve. There is a problem with serving temperatures. Many things were not hot enough. When something is first put out it is hot. Sitting on the steam table, even with hot warming lights over it - in the middle of the table covering both sides and not directly over each tray, the some of the food that I took was cold. I focused my meal on American food items, as at this point, I am "Asian buffeted out". For soup I took the chicken noodle soup. It turned out to be a thin watery cream soup with pieces of chicken and bowtie noodles. It had little flavor.  I took corned beef and cabbage. Corned Beef is a favorite of mine and I was excited to find it. I understand that corned beef varies a great deal and there are many cuts. Some cuts of corned beef are very tough - almost difficult to chew. I took two pieces of corned beef - one from the bottom of the liquid in the tray and the other nearer the top. Both were cold. Both were so chewy and tough they were impossible to eat. I left most of both of them - trying each just in case one piece was better. It wasn't. I carved myself turkey twice during the dinner. The first piece I took was sufficiently warm. There was a small tray of gravy in the turkey tray and I took some gravy and put it on top. Together on that first try it was all fine. Later in the meal I went back for more turkey and this time when I ate the turkey it was near cold - and the tray of turkey gravy had been taken out of the turkey tray and put on the side of the counter and left there - with no heat under it or over it. I was not going to take the gravy this time. I took some of the ham - it was fine and warm enough. I took a pork chop which is more a slice of pork cooked like a pork chop. It was also cold, did not have much taste, and it was very tough - also hard to chew - to the point that I left over some of that as well. I tied chicken salad from the salad bar - real mayonnaise style chicken salad as opposed to Chinese Chicken Salad. It was also hard to chew. I tried the seafood and pasta - the pasta was underdone and chewy.

My wife was choosing a mix of Asian and American foods and she liked what she was having. What did I like? The beef stew was both hot, tender, and tasty both times I went up for it. I liked that a lot. The carved ham was fine. The cut up fried chicken was fine. The mashed potatoes tray had been empty for awhile and when it finally was refilled I took some mashed potatoes and it was fine. The mashed sweet potatoes were fine. The turkey the first time around was fine. I liked the baked clams a lot.

The desserts here include several cut up fresh fruits, puddings, jellos, etc. along with the usual Asian buffet little pieces of commercially baked cakes and a big assortment of cookies. Some of the cookies look beyond usual buffet cookies - but I tried one expecting it to be soft to the bite but it was not. I looked really good. They have hot bread pudding on one of the buffet tables. It is a mixture of egg custard and slices of bread baked on top and it was tasty. Not as great as some bread puddings but good. They also have apple strudel cut into slices and hot. This is found at some other Asian buffets. My wife had it and liked it. They have a soft serve ice cream machine but it is not yet working. It will be shortly. The waitresses were talking about it at a near by table and it will be a few days before they can get it into service.  

I don't want you to come away from this article thinking that the food here or dinner here is not good. They need to progress a bit from their first two days being open. All the time we were there, there were Asian men who worked there going around to all of the food trays making notes on forms on clip boards. They need to get the temperatures of their steam tables adjusted, go around and stir the dishes so that they heat evenly and at the same time don't dry out. We certainly found things to eat - some of it could have been better. We did not leave hungry. The quality of the food seems fine. The price is decent. No coupons - or any advertising at all has shown up yet in the local newspaper for this restaurant - which is surprising. We will see if any start to show up. There were many people around us that seemed very happy.

Service was very good. Our empty dishes were taken away as soon as we were finished with them. Drinks were refilled with our waitress asking several times if we would like more - and it was promptly brought. There were a few moments of confusion by the waitress which were promptly corrected - no big deal. Everyone working was very polite and nice.

Will we go back? Yes. While it is a couple of dollars more than the Asian buffet we have been going to in Baldwin, it is much closer. If I am in the mood for Asian, it has all that I would expect and then there is the added benefit of the American dishes - which most of my readers know have been sorely missed in this area. (Maybe someone could introduce them to a good meat loaf recipe?) So I recommend it? If you are eager to see it for yourself and try it - sure. Just understand that there are some improvements needed which they will pick up on and fix. If you want to wait and give them some time to shake out the wrinkles, we hope that giving them some time will bring it up a notch or two. And is they are smart and read this article they will know exactly what they need to look closer at.

As we go along we will let you know what happens. As I say, we will be going back - and when there is something to write about, we will write it.

Global Buffet (the and grill seems to not be on any sign now - but the grill is here and open) is located at 3541 Hempstead Tpke, Levittown, NY 11756. I have seen three different phone numbers on two different phone listings - one with one number and another with two different numbers from each other and the one on the other listing. As a result I am not listing any phone number. There were no hours listed that we could see at the restaurant. There is no website and there is no Facebook page. Anything that you find about Global Buffet on the Internet if it does not say Levittown, NY it is not them. There was a Global Buffet that closed in Oswego, NY a year ago and there is a Global Buffet in Canada - that is definitely not related to this one. At some point there should be a website and a Facebook page -  but that is only a guess based on standard operating procedure for restaurants for this day and age.

Minado Japanese Seafood Buffet, Carle Place, New York

It has been two years since I have written about Minado. Minado is part of a small chain of Japanese seafood buffets located in New York, New Jersey, Pennsylvania and Massachusetts. We have only been to the New York location which is in Carle Place on Long Island in New York. This article is based on our very recent visit for dinner on a weeknight.

This is the most expensive buffet that we go to on even a semi-regular basis - and semi-regular in this case means MAYBE once a year.  Dinner Monday to Thursday costs $31.99 and this does not include any beverage. Friday and Saturday dinner and Sunday and Holidays all day the price is $33.95. For two, on a limited budget, this is a buffet for special occasions and we had such an occasion and just went for dinner on a Wednesday night.

The restaurant was crowded - a lot more crowded than we have seen it before except perhaps the first time we went in 2010 when there were several parties going on in the separate party rooms of the restaurant. It is the holiday season, schools are closed and the restaurant was busy with tables of families, couples, and groups of friends. We walked right in and were seated. There was no wait for a table. A waiter came over and when we did not order beverages - either hard or soft - he seemed disappointed - which he should not have been so obvious about. That set me off at the start with concern about him but in the end he was OK.

We started with soup and there are now three chef prepared soups in addition to a few soups out for self-serve. Each of the soups featured different noodles. We like Udon soup and that is what we ordered from the gentleman behind the soup counter. There was also a ramen soup that was made with pork bone broth and another noodle soup. The Udon noodles are taken and put into a basket when you order and dropped into a vat of boiling water to heat and then put in a cup with broth. You then let the chef know what you would like added to the soup from a selection of ingredients including tempura shrimp, seaweed, scallions and more that typically go into Udon soup. I have had this soup in a few Asian buffets and I like the one they make for you here the best.

There is a large selection of sushi of every type. The fish is fresher than any I have had at any other Asian buffet that serves sushi. The tuna is a dark almost red-brown color and tastes better than other tuna sushi that I have had. There is also small dishes of just raw fish put out each with a thick chunk of tuna or salmon and a slice of a white fish with a silver shiny skin. Some with all three. None with all the same fish. I would much prefer having it served on a platter to take the fish that I would like best - salmon and/or tuna but they do not do that. The fish in the little plates was plain with no sauce of any type or marinade - as they once had in the past. And they also once had those platters of fish out to take - but as I say - no more.

There is a long row of Japanese salads all on ice that comes around the buffet and heads back as long as the sushi area which is the length of this large buffet area. Each is well labeled with what it is called and what the ingredients are. You can easily tell if there is something you wish to avoid when you read the signs. There are salads here with raw fish as well as other ingredients. Ever want to try raw beef - there are thin, small slices of raw beef in a marinade here to try.

This all for me is very much a tasting meal. I do not take more than a small quantity of anything that I take here because there is just so much - and I am very tempted by everything. I know from past visits here that I can very easily overeat here and then I am not happy afterwards. I pace myself and make sure not to overload on any one thing.

After the salads, I went for dumplings. There were four. A meat gyoza dumpling, a vegetable gyoza dumping, a shrimp siu mai, and a crab and meat siu mai. All were steamed after pan frying. They were all good! You see what I mean about pacing one's self here in how much you take? We have not yet gotten to the entrees.

There are also cold snow crab leg clusters - large clusters without claws. The problem that I find with cold crab legs is that when you break them open the meat stays stuck in the shell. There are nut crackers on every table to crack shells but even with that, getting the crab meat out of the shell is a struggle. Hot crab legs do not have this problem - until they sit on your plate and get cold - but when eaten hot, the meat will just pull right out of the shell with only needing to break the leg section in half and sliding all of the crab out at once. There are no hot crab legs here. The cold crab legs if you can get out the meat offer a lot of meat that depending on your liking of snow crab may be well worth while.

There are also hot appetizer meats on skewers - charbroiled sliced short ribs, broiled chicken, charbroiled mushrooms with peppers, and more. All good of what I tried.

Now we come to the entrees. There was a large platter of beef with two really large beef bones running through each side. The meat was just falling off the bones and you pulled off what you wanted into your plate. This was good but very fatty. There were many platters of many entrees. I took some of the beef teriyaki that was nicely prepared and had a good steak flavor. I took a split and stuffed, whole, broiled prawn with the head on. This was very good. Often when these are served in Asian buffets you have to fight to open them and get the meat out. Because these were split and stuffed (with imitation crab which was openly identified on the label over the hot tray) the meat came right out. It was good. I took a little of other entrees as well and also some Japanese fried rice and Soba noodles made like Lo Mein. 

With all of this there is an hibachi grill and while hibachi grills are common in Asian buffets, this one cooks one order at a time and does it right as it would be done in a Japanese steak house. It is done with flare and fast knife work and spatula mixing. You can choose steak, chicken, shrimp, scallops, or just vegetables. There is no sweet sauce added. The sauce they mix in is a light brown sauce of the consistency of soy sauce but it was more than soy sauce. Zucchini squash and onions are cooked on the grill along with the meat. Two good size pieces of steak go on the grill. I asked for the steak to be cooked rare and it was. I must remember next time we come here - and that will be in a year - maybe - to ask for a small portion from the hibachi. What comes off the griddle filled the dinner plate - and this was the last thing that I took. It was way too much given what I had already eaten before. It was way too much. 

This brings us to dessert. While the desserts are not lavish, they are different. There are small squares of out cakes - green tea cake, chocolate butter cake, fruit mouse cakes, small cups of Tiramisu, other cakes, jellies (jello like desserts), and cookies. There is also a crepe station - now moved to the end of the dessert counter. The woman behind the crepe griddle makes each to order and fills it to order as you watch. The problem with this now is the location, as the line to the crepe station lines up in front of the dessert bar and it was difficult to get to the cakes unless you were also on line waiting for crepes. We just made our way in to the cakes we wanted to take as crepes after this meal would have been just way over the top - for us. Many were getting them. There is also a cold buffet server of ice with platters of raw fruits - melon, pineapple, oranges, mango, grapes, and more. There was one disappointment for us on this particular night - the soft-serve ice cream machine was not working. A sign apologizing was on the machine. This meant no green tea ice cream which we both look forward to when we come here.

There is plenty here - as you can see - and plenty that is not fish along with a great deal that is. Other than shrimp my picky eater wife does not eat fish or seafood. She has no problem eating as much of a large variety of non-seafood as she cares to eat at this buffet.

The food is good and the food is quality and prepared and served properly. It is worth the money that they charge if you have the money to spend on a single meal. Lunch prices are cheaper. There are some signs that indicate that some selections are not included on the lunch buffet. I do recommend this buffet. As I say we go here for special occasions.

Minado Japanese Seafood Buffet is located at 219 Glen Cove Rd, Carle Place, New York. Their telephone number is 516-294-9541. There is a website and the link is at the side of this page. Hours may always vary from location to location so check on the website before you go. On the website you will find details for all of the locations. The website in the past detailed the menu. It no longer does.

Top Asian Buffet 2015 - Yummy Asian Buffet, East Meadow, New York

OUT OF BUSINESS IN 2016


Yummy Buffet is our choice for Top Asian Buffet for 2015. We have, of course, written about Yummy before.

Yummy is a small, local Asian buffet on Long Island in the town of East Meadow. This has been the location of a Chinese restaurant for many years and a few years ago it was bought and re-done by a family who have brought excellent Asian cooking to this restaurant. It does not compete in this area in size. It is smaller than the rest in physical size and the amount of food that can be out at any one time on the buffet. It more than make up for this in the quality of the food that is cooked and the "menu restaurant" taste of what is served - which is something that generally cannot be said about usual Chinese/Asian buffet food.

This buffet, in addition, to the foods on the buffet tables, also has a small hibachi grill and a sushi chef that will make you whatever sushi rolls or sashimi that is on an extensive menu posted at the sushi station - to order. Both the hibachi grill - you choose the meats and vegetables and noodles - and give them to the chef (who is also the Sushi chef) who will cook them for you to order. I like what I have grilled a certain way and I have never been disappointed - and the sushi bar are included in the price of the buffet.

This restaurant more than meets our top buffet requirements of quality and taste. It also has excellent service. If the young women who come to your table are not family they work as if they are - I suspect that they are. They are there to take away your used plates and refill your beverage - always.

The other criteria that we look at is value and this meal has been $13.99* - 7 days a week for dinner. Less at lunch. This is equivalent to the formerly local chain "country" buffet (formerly as the nearby OCB is now closed) - and far exceeds what you got there. There are also discount coupons in local advertising publications and also on their website. This makes the value of this buffet even better. (Unfortunately, I have to make note that the price on Saturdays and Sundays plus holidays changed to $15.99 in 2016. As this award is given for 2015 that does not effect our decision on the exceptional value that you get here. If this price remains for 2016 for weekend dinners we will re-evaluate when looking at our 2016 awards. The value on weeknights including Fridays is still very much there. When it gets even two dollars higher without any changes on the menu, when we look at a buffet for a Top Award we have to take that into consideration. The restaurant will tell you that for the higher price there is lobster and crab legs on the buffet on the weekends. From past visits on weekends when it was $13.99 there has been lobster and crab legs on the weekend dinner buffet. On a 2016 Friday visit there was lobster on the $13.99 Friday dinner buffet. Lobster on an Asian buffet on Long Island means lobster pieces in the shell in ginger sauce - and generally the result is whoever can get there first will empty the tray.  Every restaurant does what it needs to do for business reasons, and this has been their decision for 2016.)

This buffet never seems to be crowded - despite the good food and everything else good. It can be almost empty when other buffets have lines to get in. We have never been able to understand this and when those who we have recommended this buffet to have gone, they have been pleased. If you go and it looks empty - go in anyway. The food is always fresh and if there are few people dining they just put less in the trays to keep the food from drying out and refill as needed. They "tend" this buffet very well - making sure that everything is being served as it should be. Ordinarily, if I go to a buffet for the first time and there is no one inside dining, I will walk out. While our visits here now are not a first time visit, we do not hesitate to go in and dine.

So - this is our choice for 2015 for Top Asian Buffet. Try it on a weeknight including Friday or if you don't mind the extra two dollars try it on a Saturday or Sunday for dinner. Lunch is less but do not expect the same foods that might be found at dinner on the lunch buffet - taste and quality will still be there but some of the foods found at dinner will not be on the lunch buffet.

Flaming Grill and Supreme Buffet, Baldwin, New York

This is a new buffet that we found in a way by happy accident. One of our regular readers emailed to let me know of the reopening of an Asian buffet in Baldwin, New York. The buffet that he told me about was renamed Island Buffet. I put that tip in the back of my head. A short time later in the local newspaper there were coupons for the grand opening of a new Asian buffet in Baldwin, NY. I just assumed that this was the buffet that our reader had told me about and we clipped the coupon and decided that we would give it a try when we had the opportunity. That opportunity came and with coupon in hand we went out on a Friday evening for dinner at the new buffet. We arrived at the location of the buffet that we knew and it seemed that the address on the restaurant that we passed quickly driving down a busy road to get to the parking lot on the next street that was behind the restaurant was wrong. We parked and walked around to the front and the address did not match the coupon that we had. The name of the restaurant that we could now clearly see did not match either. We were standing in front of Island Buffet. The ad and coupons were for Flaming Grill Buffet. At the time I did not remember the name that our reader had told me and we decided that this unknown buffet might be fine, we had no idea about the price and we set out looking for the address on the ad for Flaming Grill Buffet.  As it turned out we had passed that about two streets down in a strip shopping center.

When we arrived at the parking lot for Flaming Grill Buffet there were large banners announcing its grand opening. We walked up to the restaurant and the windows in the front were blacked out. We could not see inside. There were people coming out and we went in. Inside was far more impressive than the plain storefront appearance of the outside. There was a very large and nicely decorated restaurant behind those blacked out windows. There was a short line to get in. Like the chain buffets you pay as you enter this buffet. The price is $10.99. There are two children's prices according to age. The lunch buffet is $7.99. Soft drinks (Pepsi products) with unlimited refills are $1.69. We had a coupon for $9.49 each. We paid at one of the two cash registers. When you pay you are asked what drink you are having and that is put down on your receipt. You then walk a few feet down to the host who you show your receipt to and you are seated. Everyone was extremely pleasant.

The buffet was crowded and at this excellent price it is no wonder. I am always skeptical in this area if a price seems too low, but this buffet proved to be both good in value and food. There is a dining room along the right side of the building with a view of the buffet and a narrower dining room on the left side of the building walled off from the buffet. There is also a party room in the rear. We were asked if we preferred a table or a booth and I asked for a table. We were escorted to the dining room on the right side. As we entered the dining room and were shown to our table I was uncertain. The room was on the dark side - though very nicely decorated but not as bright as the larger dining room on the other side. It looked as if the kitchen was located in the middle of this dining room but as it turned out it was just a large service area for drinks and a place for the servers to bring the used dishes. As I saw later on the rear side of that service area was another section of this same dining room. We went right up to the buffet to get started.

The buffet servers are numerous. There are eight large buffet servers all together in addition to a hibachi grill area and a large rectangle buffet server open in the middle with one side with sushi, a short side with oriental cold prepared salads, and the other long side with a large dessert buffet including full size layer cakes and a chocolate fountain. This chocolate fountain was encircled in a see through plexiglass case with a door that was open for access to the hot, flowing chocolate. There were employees in the middle, some preparing sushi and others putting out the cakes. The other short side had plates. We counted five hot buffet servers and three cold buffet servers in addition to the grill and sushi/dessert island. Almost a third of this large restaurant is the buffet. I should add that not only were the hot buffet tables steam tables but over each tray was a heating lamp. This kept everything at just the correct temperature.

We walked around the entire buffet before we found the soup which shared a hot server with other hot foods. There were four soups - wonton with the wontons in the soup and not in a steam server on their own, egg drop, hot and sour, and miso. I scooped a wonton out of the wonton soup, put it in my bowl and filled my bowl with egg drop soup. The soup was very good and the wonton was what a wonton should be - light, full of meat and tasting just like the wontons taste in a menu Chinese restaurant. This was the best wonton that I have had at a buffet. I bit into it and smiled. It was not what I expected. It was - in my opinion - a properly cooked, real Chinese restaurant wonton. This meal started off well!

I next went up for sushi - and my picky eater wife went up for dumplings. There were many different types of sushi rolls and there were four types of nigiri - raw fish on rice. I took salmon nigiri and tuna nigiri. There were two other types of fish - one with the skin on - that I did not recognize. The sushi bar did not have labels. Everything else in the buffet did. I went over to where there were other cold fish items and I saw that the cold, raw oysters were being refilled. A woman was emptying a tray of oysters onto a bed of ice. I am hesitant about eating raw oysters at a buffet unless I see that they are moist and fresh looking, that they have not been sitting, and that they are on a good layer of ice. These looked just that way and I took three. At the side was a server with cocktail sauce and I added a dollop to each. The sashimi was good - not fancy Japanese buffet good but fresh and good. The oysters were cold, wet, and fresh but each had some remnants of shell - not what a well opened oyster should have. I had to be very careful as I scooped the oyster into my mouth to find the bits of shell and not chew or swallow them. The oysters tasted good, but beware of the shell. Despite the shell this buffet was still going strong!

My wife had chosen a selection of the dumplings that they had, and on my next plate that is what I went for. There was a meat filled shu mai, a pan fried mixed meat and vegetable dumpling, and a steamed pork bun. There was dumpling sauce next to the pan fried dumplings. Shu mai is my least favorite dumpling and I usually do not take it. I wanted to see how this one stacked up against the dry ones I have often had at Chinese buffets. This one was light and moist. The meat may have been chicken, perhaps mixed with pork. The meat was light in color and very nice tasting. I was glad that I tried it. I then tasted the pan fried dumpling which had a mixture of pork and chopped greens inside. The dumping was light, thin and not doughy or chewy. It had a nice flavor. I saved the pork bun for last. This is a steamed round mound of light dough filled with chopped pork in the center. The dough was thick but properly cooked in the steamer and the pork center was tasty. Another very pleasing course!

I am not going to try to list all that was on the buffet. Things will certainly change from night to night. There was a lot of dishes. There were many hot appetizers, Asian entrees, vegetable dishes, seafood dishes, and  side dishes. I will share what I had.

On my trip around the buffet looking at all that there was to choose from, I spotted a tray of spare ribs. These were not Chinese spareribs but more country spareribs. They were covered in a brown barbecue sauce that was not overly sweet or overwhelming. They were laid out on the tray in sections of three meaty ribs and there was a carving knife out to cut less if you did not want three. The ribs were moist and meaty. These are similar to other "country" style ribs that I have had at SOME other Asian buffets. They were good. Do not expect smoker ribs or real country ribs. But they tasted good, the meat came off the bone with little effort, and there was a lot of meat on each rib.

I tried stuffed scallops which were scallop shells halves filled with fresh tasting chopped scallops, some mayonnaise, and melted cheese cooked under a broiler. The taste was distinctly scallops - which is good. They were a pleasant change from the usual stuffed clams which in other buffets are all breading. There was little - if any breading in these. (They had stuffed clams as well but I did not try those.) I also tried half a stuffed blue crab. This was a half blue crab cooked in its shell with legs and claw. There was a very light breaded coating on the outside of the shell. There was little meat in the half crab but it was tasty. (There are on crab legs here.) There were also small, fried crab cakes which they called crab pastries. These were deep fried with a light crab and breadcrumb mixture inside. They were tasty. There was also fried talapia - thick chunks of talapia deep fried and breaded. That was tasty as well. I also tried shrimp and vegetables which was shrimp in a light white sauce with slices of carrots and chunks of zucchini. It was very good - the zucchini tasted very fresh. There was a light buttery taste to the sauce. My wife liked this also and took more when she went back.

In addition to egg rolls and spring rolls, they had a "house special" roll. This was a long thin rolled wrapper around chopped pork and vegetable and deep fried. This was a cross between a spring roll and an egg roll but longer than either of those. It was a little greasy but good.

There were many meat dishes all over the buffet. I tried chicken with black pepper which was good. I tried hibachi beef - not from the grill but from the buffet - which was very good. On one buffet there was a tray of a whole baked ham in pineapple sauce. Next to that was a tray of slices of roast beef. There was also steamed whole talapia in ginger sauce that was cut into pieces including the whole head if you cared to take that. I have never seen a whole talapia fish before. I like talapia, but talapia is a fish that gets bad write ups as far as being one of the least healthy fishes. I will not go into that here and if you want to learn more just Google talapia.

It was easy to find something to eat on any one of the five hot buffet servers. There is also the hibachi grill - with a line of about eight or so people most of this night. I was not sure if I wanted to keep sampling the buffet selections or go to the hibachi grill and create a plate. If I did I knew that there would be no room for anything else. I saved this for the end and before I was too full to enjoy it. There are a number of things on the hibachi cold selection to put on your plate to give to the chef at the grill to cook for you. There were some things that you don't often see - at least at buffets here - one of those was whole eggs in the shell. I have only seen this in Asian buffets in Virginia and at one of those I tried it. The egg is cracked and mixed into all the rest that you select when it goes on the grill. No one here that I saw tried this. I did not either - I might on a return trip as I liked it when I had it in Virginia. Anyway, there was also white rice to add to your mix. This made hibachi rice on the grill mixed into your other selections. (There is also ready made hibachi rice on the buffet.)  There were peeled raw shrimp and Krab (not real crab). All of the meats were frozen - as they are at many Asian buffets. The chicken was in big pieces not thin slices. There were pieces of pork. There were also fairly large, but not thick steaks. As usual, you fill your plate with cold items and when it is your turn the grill chef takes it and cooks it on the solid grill. People were getting up to the chef who was asking them for their plate. As they handed it him they were giving him very detailed instructions - make it medium well, I want a lot of teriyaki sauce, do this, do that. He seemed to be half listening and cooking things as he wanted to. I purposely did not give him any instructions and he cooked everything just about the same. Some asked directly as they were watching theirs cooked to put more sauce on or add garlic or add hot pepper - which he did. But for the most part he cooked the meat well and added teriyaki sauce unless you told him not to. He cooked mine and scooped it onto a clean plate when it was ready and handed it to me. I choose a steak, bean sprouts, mushrooms, and zucchini. It tasted good. The steak was very tough. As in most of the Chinese buffets with hibachi grills in this price range what looks like steak is usually thick sliced beef cut into steaks (which is what steaks are) but these are not steak cuts of meat. The steak was cooked on the grill and laid whole over the vegetables when it was all done. I cut it up myself when I got back to the table and mixed it together. It was fine.

Dessert. There was an excellent assortment of desserts here - and not the little sheet cakes cut into squares. There were three whole layer cakes - slice yourself a slice - big or small. My wife tried the chocolate cake - all chocolate and it was good. There were a number of puddings, etc. and a lot of types of fresh fruits, as well as canned fruits. There was a freezer chest with ice cream bars, cups, and the like. There were lots of desserts here - and they looked and were good. Enough said.

The service was excellent. Everyone who worked here was Asian - they all spoke perfect English. Everyone was pleasant. Our server took dishes away as soon as they were finished. She came over several times to ask if we wanted drink refills - and got them quickly. She was at a nearby table talking to a couple and answering questions about dishes - and suggesting things to try. She was concerned that an older man was OK when he seemed a little unsteady. She also was taking pictures of the people at the table next to us with their phone - making sure to take two to get a good shot. This was way beyond any server at an Asian buffet that I have experienced. When she sees that you are done with the meal - and never rushed us or anyone - she came with a tip tray and fortune cookies. This is a gentle reminder that the tip is not included in the price - a problem often encountered by servers when one pays when entering. She deserved a tip and got one!

We will definitely go back. I have been getting tired of the local Asian buffets and we go often. This buffet will be on our list of go tos! I recommend that you try it.

The Flaming Grill and Supreme Buffet is located at 1773 Grand Avenue, Baldwin, New York 11510. The phone number is 516-544-2222. When I went looking for a website I found another buffet with the same name and an identical website located in East Rutherford, New Jersey. I assume - but do not know for certain that they are owned together. The website for the Baldwin buffet is linked at the side of this page. The hours are Sunday to Thursday from 11 am to 10 pm. On Friday and Saturday the hours are from 11 am to 10:30 pm. The price is the same for dinner every night. Sunday is dinner price all day.

Minado Japanese Seafood Buffet, Carle Place, New York

It has been about two years since I have written about Minado Japanese Seafood Buffet. This is a buffet that we go to just once a year for a special occasion. While it is not astronomically expensive, it is the most expensive buffet that we go to at $29.99 per person for dinner on a weeknight. The dinner buffet is $31.85 Friday to Sunday. It is also the most different buffet that we go to. It is all Japanese from the freshest sushi that I have had at any buffet to green tea ice cream as part of an extensive selection of desserts. On a very limited dining out budget and with my wife who does not eat seafood other than shrimp, this buffet restaurant has to be good for us to spend the money and keep going back - even if that is only once each year.

Minado is part of a group of several locations in New York and New Jersey. Some are called Minado and some are called Nori Nori. What was interesting on this night that I had not seen here before was that inside there was a mix of signs - some saying Minado and others saying Nori Nori. The sign outside over the restaurant still read Minado. Even some of the plates had the Nori Nori name on them. 

We went on a Thursday night. The restaurant was not crowded but it was busy. We were seated at a small table for four. The table was just about right for the two of us. There were similar tables with four at them but they had to feel cramped. There are much larger tables for big groups and also private party rooms.

As we usually do, we started the dinner with soup. There are typical Chinese restaurant soups such as wonton, egg drop, and hot and sour. There is Japanese miso soup. But my soup of choice here is Udon noodle soup made to order at the corner of the grill area. Here your noodles are heated in boiling water, added to broth, and then you are asked which or all of the ingredients out before the chef you would like added to your soup. I get them all - though I have no idea what some of them are. The most recognizable are tempura shrimp and two very large shrimp were placed on top of my soup with all of the rest of the ingredients. There are other types of noodles to choose also. I love this traditional soup and I have not tried anything else here.

Following the soup, I went for sushi while my wife went for dumplings. This is sushi unlike any other that I have had at any other buffet including Japanese buffets. The fish is extremely fresh and tastes as such. The selection of different types is wider than any other that I have seen. There is a selection of all types of fish - some of which I will not try - no raw octopus or squid for me. But if you like it, it is here. There was something different from other years that we have come here. They used to have a selection of different raw fish (sashimi) out on platters on beds of ice - just fish. Instead of this, there were small plates each containing a piece of raw salmon, a piece of raw tuna, and a piece of some unknown to me white in color raw fish. There was a mild marinade on top and some had a few small pieces of lettuce salad that they were sitting on - some did not. I try as much as I can - and want to - eat low carb and I have a problem for this reason eating rice. I usually take some sushi rolls and fish on rice, but when there is just raw fish out I take that primarily. It was always nice that there were, in the past, just the fish out on platters each clearly labeled as to what it was. I still do not know what the white in color fish was in the bowls. One piece was so chewy - I am sure it is supposed to be - that I did not finish it. There was another piece of the same in one of the other bowls and that I did eat all of. It would be nice to know what it was. I had taken yellowtail tuna on rice so I know it was not that. I also took red snapper on rice and it was not that. Part of eating here for us is trying new things. I certainly tried some fish that I have not had before. One thing here that tells me that this fish is of a different and higher quality than sushi that I have had at other buffets is the color, the greater flavor, and the texture. The red tuna is dark red/brown. If you wish, you could easily make the whole meal here sushi. There is so much more that I move after one or two plates to the so many other things that are here to choose from.

There is a cold seafood bar with crab legs, clams, and oysters. The oysters are covered in a light, thin sauce with some greens and a thin slice of lemon added on top. In front of the oysters there was a tub of a thin red liquid and all of the Asian people taking oysters were spooning this sauce on top. I usually put cocktail sauce on my raw oysters - and there was cocktail sauce by the cold steamed shrimp that were also out - but I thought that I would try my oysters as the others were eating them - and I spooned some of the red liquid on top also. I was halfway back to the table when I realized that this red liquid must contain hot sauce. For some reason that has not occurred to me - silly me! I had five raw oysters in there shells now swimming in this, and I was not going to let them go to waste. The oysters were actually the only thing out on the entire buffet with a line to get to them. OK. I got back to the table and I poured off as much of the sauce as I could from each oyster. It was a good thing that I did because the little that remained set my mouth burning. My mistake that I must remember the next time that I go. Even with the hot sauce, the oysters were good - and tasted very fresh.

After the oysters, I went to the long row of prepared Japanese salads that are out. These are an assortment of salads made of various vegetables, lettuce, some with raw fish, some with noodles, some with various seaweed. There was Hijiki with Shitake Mushrooms that is a type of dried seaweed mixed with the mushrooms and with a light dressing. It has a consistency and look unlike anything else and it tastes a little nutty, is slightly crunchy, and we both like it. This is saying a lot because my wife rarely eats anything with a dressing on it. There was raw beef, smoked salmon, raw salmon in a cilantro dressing. There was a noodle salad. All of it different and good. Again, I could have gone back and made my meal just these salads, but still there is so much more.

There are various appetizers. There are meats and shrimp skewered on sticks and flame grilled. There is slices of large beef ribs - sliced across the ribs including bones from several ribs - flame grilled. There were Japanese dumplings with pork and a shrimp dumping. There are tempura shrimp and vegetables. All continually being refilled.

Then there is a long row of entree dishes. The selections change each day from a list of dishes that may be found on their website. The website is linked on the side of this page and you can look there at the menu to see what may or may not be there on the night that you come. I enjoyed Japanese crab cakes, soba noodles, some of the whole pollock steamed in ginger, chicken teriyaki that was not the usual cubed chicken with thick sweet sauce poured over it - but large pieces of chicken cut from the bone with a mild teriyaki sauce that allowed the flavor of the chicken to come through, B.B.Q pork ribs that were unusual in that they had a just slightly sweet sauce on them but the bone seemed to be missing yet the usual grizzle end of the rib was there, and I had more. The ribs were tasty and different. It was all good. When I was younger I could eat so much more than I can now at a buffet. When I am here I wish that I could eat like I did then before I start to feel full.

What I did not have at this dinner was the hibachi grill. It was there and it was making hibachi beef steak and hibachi chicken breasts with large slices of onion and zucchini, grilled on a flat grill. I have always enjoyed this - and I was very tempted - but I recalled from other meals here and at other Japanese buffets, that the amount given at the hibachi grill is a meal in itself - a full plate of meat and vegetables. When I have this, I really don't have room to have anything else. I decided that I would skip the hibachi and go for the entrees instead. The hibachi looked good. All that were having it, looked to be enjoying it. Maybe next year. As I keep saying, there is just so much here to choose from, one needs to set some limits to be able to enjoy as much of a variety as possible.

Dessert also brings a lot of choices. There are several fresh fruits out. There are cakes, pastries,and cookies. All looking like the little squares found typically at Asian buffets, but these are not the same as those. The cakes taste like cake - and there was a variety to try. Despite that I should not have, I did take two small squares of cake - one a blueberry cake and the other green tea cake. The blueberry cake was the tastier of the two. The green tea cake was fine but the idea of it was better than it was. I also took some of the green tea ice cream with is in the soft serve machine. This was good. I have had it before. It is mildly sweet and very refreshing. You can taste the tea, and it draws you to keep eating it and go back for more. I was satisfied with the small swirl that I took. There is also cooked to order crepes. These looked wonderful! I have tried one here in the past and it is good. The crepes come with your choice of toppings and if you want to take it over to the soft serve machine and put vanilla or green tea ice cream or both on top, go right ahead!

I think that you can tell that I enjoyed this meal. My picky eater wife was very happy also. She found plenty that was not fish. This is one of those buffet meals that we both happily finish by saying "Oh my!"

The service was very good. The soda is extra - and costs $2.49. While this sounds like a lot especially when added on top of a $30 meal, it is only thirty cents more than what OCB is charging for soda now. The restaurant is opened on weeknights until 9:30 on weeknights, 10 on Friday and Saturday and 9 on Sundays. At about 9:00 pm on this Thrusday night, our server came to the table to tell us that if we wanted anything more from the grill or if we wanted crepes we needed to go and get them then as those stations would be starting to close. That is fair, and everything else was still being served.

Now, I have said this before about this particular location of this buffet - for a Japanese buffet, many of the servers are Japanese (or Asian), all of the sushi chefs behind the sushi counters are Japanese, but the rest of the cooking staff - at the grill, the crepes, and coming from the kitchen are Hispanic. This is a heavily Hispanic area and perhaps that is why. I just find that odd - but locally it is not unusual.

I very much recommend this buffet. Remember it is a lot more expensive than the buffets I usually recommend to you. The lunch price is less (about $10 less - so still a $20 lunch for one) so if you want to try it for less you might try lunch.

Minado Japanese Seafood Buffet is located at 219 Glen Cove Rd, Carle Place, New York. Their telephone number is 516-294-9541. There is a website and the link is at the side of this page. Hours may always vary from location to location so check on the website before you go. On the website you will find details for all of the locations.

Prime Buffet, Williamsburg, Virginia

In September 2011, I wrote about a Chinese buffet in Williamsburg, Virginia called Rainbow Buffet. We were in Williamsburg this August and we went to have dinner at Rainbow Buffet and discovered a new name on the front of the restaurant- Prime Buffet. Looking in through the window, everything looked exactly the same. We went in for dinner. We actually went to this buffet twice in one week and my article will reflect both visits.

I am not certain that this buffet is not run by the same people who ran Rainbow Buffet and have just changed the name. There are some differences and the price has been lowered. That is correct - the price at Rainbow Buffet for dinner was $9.50 which is extremely good. The price at Prime - all nights for dinner is $7.99! Unlimited soda is an additional $1.89. This is an exceptionally good price considering what you are getting at this buffet. In the local tourist give away magazines found at all of the hotels and gift shops, the advertisement for this buffet includes a coupon - 10% off! Imagine $7.99 to start with and then 10% off!  There is also a local app for your smartphone with restauant coupons and Prime is included on that app - all you do is show them the ad on your smartphone display at the cashier and get your 10% off.

I will tell you up front that gone are the snow crab legs (which were an additional $5.00). There are no crab legs. There is however a great deal to eat at this buffet.

Let's start with soup - there were the three basic Chinese restaurant soups - Wonton, Egg Drop, and Hot and Sour. I tried the egg drop and my wife had the wonton. She felt that the wontons were seasoned on the spicy side. The egg drop soup was standard with large pieces of egg in a semi-thick soup. The egg drop soup was good.

There is a salad bar but frankly most people skip the salad bar at a Chinese buffets and we did. It was the standard greens, toppings, and dressings. It all looked fresh and crisp.

There is a sushi bar and there was a man behind the sushi bar making sushi to put out. The selection was small and was mostly varieties of vegetable sushi. There were some tuna and salmon rolls with small pieces of fish in them. The sushi was fine, the selection was limited.

I am going to list the dishes that we found on one night and then tell you the different dishes that were there when we went back. Since going I have read internet reviews that criticize this buffet for having a limited selection. You judge that for yourself from this list. On the buffet were pan fried dumplings, steamed peach buns (they look like peaches - these are steamed dough with a sweet filling), fried cheese wontons, steamed founder, stuffed shrimp, egg rolls, wings, steamed small clams in the open shells, seafood delight served in a shell, sauteed mushrooms, vegetable mei fun (thin rice noodles with vegetables), American macaroni and cheese, fried crab cakes, shrimp with onions, peas, and carrots, tofu in a sweet sauce, cut up barbecue chicken pieces, chicken on a stick with teriyaki sauce, ground meat taco (this looked to me like pizza, but was labeled as a taco which was cut into wedges), Krab (not crab but the fish substitute that is common in almost every Chinese buffet that I go to), fried frogs legs, fried scallops, fried shrimp, chicken and broccoli, curry chicken, "vegetable delight", brown rice, white rice, fried rice, lo mien, honey chicken, pepper chicken, General Tso chicken, beef and broccoli, chicken in garlic sauce, beef in garlic sauce, barbecue spare ribs (the type in sweet red sauce), Mongolian pork, sesame balls, rib tips, fried potatoes with onions, sweet and sour chicken, half baked potatoes with cheese, Chinese green vegetable, yam slices, garlic bread, AND peel and eat shrimp. On the second night there was coconut ham, steamed crayfish, corn nuggets, chicken nuggets, and corn on the cob taking the place of five of the items that were there on the first night. Other than that everything on the second night was the same on the main buffet servers.

Now, if all of that is not enough, there was also an hibachi grill. This was a large counter grill next to the sushi bar, both of which took up a wall at the rear of the buffet area. The food for you to select for the grill was one of the cold buffet servers that was next to the grill. There was no one at the grill but there was a bell to ring. The kitchen door was next to the grill and there was no problem on either night for someone to come right away. The items to select for the grill were raw beef, raw chicken, raw pork, and fish. There were noodles to add to this along with vegetables like bean sprouts, onions, mushrooms, etc. There were two sauces to choose - garlic sauce and teriyaki sauce. I had the hibachi grill on both nights. The first night, the man at the sushi bar came over to cook for me. I had picked chicken and a variety of vegetables. I did not want garlic sauce or teriyaki sauce and I asked him to just put soy sauce on it while he cooked it. This was no problem for him. He cooked it and placed it on a plate and handed it to me and it was good. On the second night, a woman came out from the kitchen to cook for me. She was very pleasant and took my dish of the same things that I had chosen on the first night. I asked her for just soy sauce and this seemed to confuse her. I am not certain that there was a problem understanding English. That is fine - I would rather a real Chinese chef than someone who is not Chinese cooking at the Chinese hibachi grill. I tried to help her to understand but it was not getting very far - there were, after all two sauces on the sign - garlic sauce and teriyaki sauce. She was pleasant throughout. I just said, I will have it plain. This caused her concern - in a nice way. She understood this - she could not understand how I could eat it plain off the grill. She had to be a mom because that is how she reacted and kept asking me if I was sure. I said yes and tried my best to explain that I cannot eat the sweet teriyaki sauce and I don't care for garlic sauce. She seemed to understand that and proceeded to cook my grill plain. It too was good and I added my own soy sauce at the table. It really was not a problem. Sometimes you should just not stray from the menu.

There was an assortment of desserts - nothing elaborate, but more than adequate. There was fresh fruit, pudding and prepared desserts, tarts, home baked almond cookies, fried donuts, and hot apple pie served from a hot tray in the hot buffet server. There was also hand-dipped Hershey ice cream. On the second night there were also bananas in sweet red sauce.

The food was good. It was not the best Chinese buffet food that I have had, but it was cooked properly, well tended on the buffet - nothing was dried out, and it tasted good. It was no different in quality from most of the other Chinese buffets that I have been to all over. Food that needed replacing was replaced. If it had not been good we would not have gone back a second time!

The servers were pleasant and the plates from the table were removed promptly. Sodas were refilled, though on the second night, the table next to us with a rather unusual and large crowd kept the server so busy that at one point I did have to wait until she was finished making them happy before she could get back to us. She was not to blame.

One of the things that I look for in an ethnic restaurant and especially an ethnic buffet is to see if people of that culture and background are eating there. On both nights there were several tables of Asian people eating.

We almost went back a third time. We decided to give another buffet that we were uncertain about a try - which I will write about in another article.

If you are in this area and you want to eat very inexpensively in a decent Chinese buffet with a lot of choices, then try Prime Buffet. Prime Buffet is located at 3044 Richmond Road (Patriot Plaza), Williamsburg, Virginia 23185. The phone number is 757-220-1666 . There is no working website.

Minado Japanese Seafood Buffet, Carle Place, NY and Other Locations - Revisited

Minado Japanese Seafood Buffet is one of the buffets that we go to once a year for a particular special and fun occasion. It would be nice to go more often but the price - for us - prohibits that. And the price like everything else, keeps going up. We were last there a year ago in December. You can read the article about that visit here. Even though this recent visit was a weeknight - after the holidays - the restaurant was crowded. A large part of the clientele of this buffet is Asian.

The price now at Minado is $29.95 for weeknights and $31.95 Friday to Sunday. These prices do not include beverages. We go on a weeknight. The buffet is Japanese and it is not all seafood. There are six serving sections at this buffet.

The main attraction is sushi and there is an extensive cold section of sushi continually being made and put out. The variety of the sushi rivals that of any Japanese restaurant or sushi bar. It is far beyond what you will find in the usual Asian buffets. The sushi is good. I do have to note, however, that prior to this trip, the tuna, especially, stood out in taste - very different than what I have had, but on this trip the tuna was not different at all - there was nothing wrong with it, but it was not what I remembered. I wondered if it was just this particular fish or if they have lowered the standard of the tuna they are using. I don't know. Again, there was nothing wrong with it - it was good - but just not as good.

Moving around the buffet, there is a cold seafood section with cold snow crab legs, shrimp, raw shellfish, and pieces of sushi fish without rice. Here also I had the thought that they have cut back some, as the types of fish put out were fewer than years past in this section. Again, all good.

The buffet server turns a corner and there is a long section of Japanese prepared salads, some with fish or meat, some just vegetables, some spicy and some not. There are some very different and tasty salads to try here and while at some buffets the salad section is just an after-thought, here it is popular and a nice part of the meal. This section is as long as the sushi section and all is on ice. This buffet clearly labels everything that is out and also includes the primary ingredients in each dish. There is no guessing what is in something. My picky eater wife is very happy to see that when we come here. She knows exactly what she will like to take and what to avoid because it has something in it that she does not like. It would be great if all buffets followed this simple idea and clearly labeled things - especially when the name does not give any clue to what something is - or the name is in another language - like Japanese or Chinese.

The next part of the buffet that you come to is the grill area and here you will find an hibachi grill, a hot dessert griddle for crepes, hot grilled appetizers on skewers, and a udon soup station. The hibachi is your choice of chicken, shrimp, or beef. The udon soup is made to your order and the chef will include or leave out any of the ingredients that he has in front of him to create the soup.

The buffet turns a corner and the hot entrees start. There is a variety of Japanese dishes that are meat, fish, or vegetable. The expected chicken teriyaki and beef teriyaki are here along with tempura. The variety can include any of these: B.B.Q. Pork Ribs, Baked Stuffed Mushrooms, Beef Teriyaki, Blue Crab in Oyster Sauce, Breaded Crab Sticks, Calamari in Wispy Lemon Sauce, Calamari Rings w/ Paprika Sauce, Chicken Teriyaki, Calamari w/ Carrot Sauce, Chicken Teriyaki, Corn Crab Cake, Crab Cake Ball, Crab Soup w/ Seaweed, Deep Fried Fluke w/ Wasabi Sauce, Dynamite (Seafood Medley), Egg White Fish w/ Kabayaki Sauce, Fried Rice, Fried Rice w/ Soy Bean & Seasoned Seaweed, Fried White Fish w/ Asian Sauce, Grilled Butter Fish w/ Ginger, Grilled Salmon w/ Asian sauce, Grilled Scallops, Grilled Seafood Cake, Grilled Shrimp on Skewer, Grilled Sword Fish w/ Teriyaki Sauce, Japanese BBQ Chicken, Japanese Pork BBQ, Mahi-Mahi, Miso Soup, Oden, Pork Gyoza Dumplings, Pork Loin w/ Gravy Sauce, Prime Rib, Red Snapper w/ Masago Sauce, Salmon Roll w/ Grain Mustard sauce, Shrimp Shumai, Shrimp Soup, Spicy Shrimp, Steamed Clams, Steamed Green Mussels, Stuffed Jumbo Shrimp, Tempura Shrimp w/ Sweet Sauce, Tofu w/ Shitake Sauce, Tonkatsu, Turbot w/ Fried Tofu, Udon Noodles, Vegetable Shrimp Tempura, Vegetable Tempura, White Fish w/ Marinated Shrimp, Yakisoba w/ Vegetables, and Yakitori. Do not expect to find all of these dishes at any one time. These are the dishes that the restaurant selects from and only puts out several of them. There will be plenty to eat.

Going back to the opposite side of the room where the sushi bar is located is where you will find the dessert area against the wall. There is not an extensive dessert area but there is a nice selection of little cakes, fresh fruit, and jello. The soft serve machine always has Green Tea ice cream and this is something special to try if you have never had it. It is unique in taste, creamy, and refreshing. For dessert you can also return to the grill area where you will find hot crepes being made with fillings of syrup and fruit, covered with whipped cream.

On this particular night there was a problem that took place at the hibachi grill. There was a woman customer who on her turn stepped up to the grill with a line of people behind her and ordered her plate to be made. When that was done and handed to her, she ordered another one. When she started doing this a third time the people behind her became angry - and rightly so. Two men came from the line and started to complain to the chef who clearly did not want a problem but started on making the third plate for this woman. They got loud and stormed off. A short while later - with this same woman still at the grill - a manager came over and instructed the chef that he was only to cook for those people who were actually waiting on line and there was to be one plate to a person - at a time. The woman insisted that friends had been on the line and had to get off and she was "just" getting their orders made for them. I had been on the line for awhile and there had been no one with her, but she was a table with several other women. She took her three plates and went back to her table to join her friends. What the manager did was the correct thing to do and it is not fair for someone to take up so much time when there is a line behind them.

The chefs preparing the sushi are all Japanese (or at least Asian). The people who are cooking at the grills are Hispanic. It seems odd that a restaurant that goes out of its way to present itself as authentic cuisine would not have Japanese chefs - at least in all visible cooking areas. Would Japanese chefs cook what is being made any differently? I really can't say. One thing I will say is that there was more of a language problem with the non-Japanese chefs on this night that we were there. When you are at a grill and need to order and make what you want known, it helps to be understood and not be certain what exactly the non-understandable response was from the chef.

The food is good. The service is fine. The price is high. At the time that we had this meal, we had just been to Chen's buffet which I have written about several times. It also has an hibachi grill and, as I have written, in the first couple of weeks of opening, Chen's was doing hibachi right. The hibachi that I had at Chen's at that time was tastier and better than the hibachi that I had on this night at Minado - and the dinner price at Chen's is ONE THIRD the price of Minado. Things have changed at the hibachi grill at Chen's now so I would not say the same is still true - not in regard to the difference in price.

If you want a different type of buffet, you are an adventurous eater, and you can afford it try Minado Japanese Seafood Buffet. It is less expensive at lunch but not that much less expensive at $17.75 to $21.75. Those are lunch prices way beyond me.

Minado has five locations. One in New York (this one), one in Massachusetts, two in New Jersey, and one in Pennsylvania. They also run restaurants under the name Nori. The buffet that I have written about is located at 219 Glen Cove Road, Carle Place, New York. Their telephone number is 516-294-9541. There is a website and the link is at the side of this page. Hours may always vary from location to location so check on the website before you go. On the website you will find details for all of the locations.

Chen's Buffet City, Levittown, New York - An Update

It has only been several weeks since my first article about Chen's Buffet City in Levittown, New York appeared. As I had said in that article we have made this a regular place to dine on our list of local buffets. I want to give you all an update from the first article addressing some of the things that I wrote about then.

The first thing that I want to say is that the temperature of the food on the buffet is no longer a problem. We know that someone from the restaurant did read the article on this site and commented. Since then the food has been served at the proper temperature. What is supposed to be hot is hot and not just warm - or cool as was the case before. The food temperature is not a concern any longer.

I would like to talk about the Hibachi grill. I had said in that article that in the several times that I had been there before writing the article, I never had the hibachi food prepared the same way twice - and not at my request but how the hibachi chefs were cooking it. At this point the hibachi cooking has become consistent- but not for the better.

Perhaps had I not been there in the second week of their opening and had not been at the grill when a "master" hibachi chef was there teaching the employees who would be chefs at the grill how to cook hibachi style - the way it is done at Japanese hibachi restaurants - I would just think that how it is done now at Chen's is the way they do it - and I would have no expectations of anything better. But I was there watching the training - and I had a plate made by the "master". In fact that plate was better than some I have had at hibachi restaurants. That is all gone now. Now, the same ingredients - almost - are still there for you to take and have cooked on the hibachi grill, but the method used to cook this all is completely different.

To go back to what they were doing - and what is done on most hibachi grills at restaurants - the grill was lightly oiled first, and then butter was added to the grill (I don't want to hear about butter is no good for you - I am telling you how it was done correctly) - and then your vegetable and/or noodles that you selected were put down on the grill on the butter. More oil and butter on another section of the grill above your vegetables and your beef, chicken, or shrimp were put down to cook. As the food cooked, sauces were added. At that time two sauces were added to the food - both meat and vegetables - one was soy sauce and the other was a mixture that was primarily teriyaki sauce. As this was cooking, the chef would take a sharp knife and on the grill start quickly slicing and cutting the vegetables into small, bite size pieces and also would cut the beef into strips and then again into smaller pieces. If you had chosen chicken that was cut up small raw, and shrimp did not need cutting. Meat and vegetables would cook separately until almost the end when all would be mixed together with a little more sauce added. That was how it was done in the beginning.

This is how it is done now. Only oil goes down on the grill. The butter is long gone. The vegetables and the beef are put down in the same manner BUT if you have chicken or shrimp, those go into the mixture of vegetables to cook. They have started to ask with steak, how you would like your steak cooked, but the chefs have no idea what rare, medium rare, or medium mean. All steak is cooked the same and cooked medium well to well done. The steaks now are also no longer the large thick cuts of beef that they were several weeks ago. Now they are thin slices of beef. Not the "good sized steaks" that I told you about in my first article. I had a feeling that they were going to cut back on the hibachi as it was just too good to be at a buffet with an $11.49 dinner price. Now, instead of their using a traditional hibachi sauce as described above, they have a sign - "Choose Your Sauce - 1) Soy Sauce 2) Teriyaki Sauce 3) Lo Mein Sauce" (I am not sure what Lo Mein sauce is). You now pick one sauce. OK - but just a little of that sauce goes on the vegetables when they are almost done cooking. Nothing goes on the meat unless it is chicken or shrimp that get some of the sauce when the vegetables have sauce put on them. Nothing goes on the steak with the exception of a shake of pepper. No longer is anything cut up. It is just grilled in large pieces and that is how it is put on your plate. The steak is no longer cut up. You get the whole slice of steak sat on the top of the vegetables on your plate. The steak has little taste now and is either eaten as meat on the side of the vegetables or you cut it up and mix it in yourself- which benefits it now to get some flavor into because on its own, it is next to tasteless. Compared to what this hibachi dish once was at THIS restaurant, it is very disappointing. Does it cost them more to cook this way - not really. They are still doing as many dishes at a time as they were - nothing has been speeded up despite their not cutting the meat or vegetables. All in all the hibachi grill at Chen's is now very disappointing and only an approximation of what hibachi grill food should be. I say this because if you read my first article and go there now, you are going to say, "What is was this guy talking about!" when it comes to the hibachi grill.

The rest of the buffet is pretty much as it had been and is still good. They do put out less assortment of sushi on weeknights than they do on Friday and Saturday - and the meal price is the same all nights. On a recent Tuesday night there was no tuna or salmon on rice and only one roll actually contained salmon. The rest were pretend "Krab".

They still talk about snow crab - and there is no snow crab. What they call snow crab is "krab" meat - imitation crabmeat made from fish. There are stone crabs but less have been put out than there had been.

The chocolate fountain remains. The same problems that exist with chocolate fountains at buffets remain here - and I have watched as people pick up the marshmellows, fruit, cookies with the tongs, put them on a plate, then take sticks and then one by one with their fingers put the marshmellows, fruit, or cookies on the wooden skewers - and then it goes into the fountain and under the chocolate. When you eat the chocolate, you are eating everything that was on anyone's fingers who went up and dipped something into the chocolate fountain. I am still amazed how Boards of Health anywhere in the US allow these to be served in a non-supervised, do it yourself situation. Are the people who do the dipping to blame - actually no, because I could not figure out any other way to get that items onto the sticks without actually picking them up with your fingers. And because of this there needs to be someone in attendance who with gloves, takes the items and puts them on the sticks for you with gloved hands, or all items come from the kitchen already on the sticks - and this is just not going to happen. I know many enjoy these chocolate fountains. If you stop and really think about what is happening and watch what goes into these fountains including fingers themselves (not to mention the double dipping - from chocolate to mouth to chocolate again - heck we watched triple dipping one night).

Now, we still go to Chen's and it is still on our list of go to on a regular basis buffets. I still like Chen's and I still recommend it. It still has large crowds and long waits to get in on Friday and Saturday nights - and holidays. We have waited over a half hour on some nights to get in. People like it. I like it. Just be aware, that it is not just as I had described in my first article. Things have changed some - and in just ten weeks since opening.

Chen's Buffet City, Levittown, New York

A new Asian buffet has opened on Long Island, New York. It opened in mid-December with great anticipation. I watched for months the location be transformed from a large, empty storefront that years ago was once a chain drugstore to a new buffet restaurant. The location is actually directly across the way from the Old Country Buffet. Each time we passed we wondered when it would open. Just about when it looked like it was open, we called and were told "next week", and then that next week we called again, only to be told again "next week". It finally opened and it has had large crowds ever since. I have actually been there five times at this point - so many things were happening in December that I just did not have a chance to write this article - and we kept going back.

Chen's Buffet City is a combination of Chinese buffet and Japanese hibachi/sushi. If you look on their website, they call themselves a Japanese buffet, but they are not really. Other than the hibachi grill and the sushi bar, this is a Chinese buffet. Most of the dishes on the buffet are Chinese.

Since I have gone back so many times in just a short time, it is clear that I like this buffet. The food is good. There are a few problems that I will go into later but know up front that this is a good buffet. The dining room is large with a combination of booths and tables. The buffet servers are in the rear of the room with eight large double sided buffet servers. Half of the back wall is the hibachi grill and the other half is the sushi bar. There is a small lobby when you come in and the only nights that we did not wait for a table were weeknights. We have been there two weeknights, two Friday nights and New Year's Eve. Yes, we went New Year's Eve and they were serving their regular buffet at the regular price. The room that night was packed and we waited almost 45 minutes to get in. When you go in and there is a wait you are given a number that will be called when your table is ready. The numbers are not in sequence and there seems to be a code for the number in your party in the number - so do not be surprised if the numbers are not called in order of the number itself.

The price of the adult buffet at dinner is $11.49! Yes, for all that this buffet has to offer it has the least expensive dinner price of any Oriental buffet on Long Island. This price is the same no matter what night you go - weeknights or weekends. Soda, tea, or ice tea is $1.00 and it is unlimited. Lunch is $7,99 for adults. There are children's prices - dinner - under 2 free, 3-6 $4.99, 7-11 $6.49 - lunch - 3-6 $2.99, 7-11 $4.99. On our first visit after our first glass of Diet Coke (they are not using Coke products- I suspect they are an off brand) they ran out of Diet Coke- they came back to say so and that they will bring regular Coke- no, no we told them we can't drink that and need something without sugar - we settled on hot tea for my wife and iced tea for me- they were trying and since they had just opened they were not anticipating the crowds or the amount of Diet Coke that is consumed at Chinese buffets. This has not happened since.

There is a large salad bar with a variety of Asian prepared salads, lettuce and salad toppings. If you want salad you will not be disappointed. I don't find a need to have salad at an Asian buffet so I have skipped the salad bar. On the same cold server you will find mounds of peel and eat shrimp, cold mussels, and raw clams. There are also cold stone crabs. No matter what you see in the print advertisements or the home page of their website there are no crab legs. Let me repeat that so that you don't get disappointed when you go - THERE ARE NO CRAB LEGS. There is, next to the shrimp, what looks like crab meat strips - but I am very sure (though I did not sample this) that this is not real crab but the fish Krab substitute. I believe, that they intended to serve snow crab legs, but when they actually opened realized immediately that they could not offer that along with everything else that they have for the price that they are charging. This is not very much a loss unless you are a crab leg fanatic. There is plenty more here.

There are six soups - wonton, egg drop, hot and sour, miso, clam chowder, and chicken vegetable. I like to mix soups - I add a wonton to a mixture of hot and sour and egg drop - I enjoy this because it takes the spice off the hot and sour. The soup has been good every time.

It is hard to describe where to start and what they have because they have so much. There are the usual assortment of Chinese appetizers - small egg rolls, spring rolls, fried crab claws, fried cheese stuffed wontons, wings, chicken on a stick, shrimp balls, deep fried fish dumplings. chicken nuggets, fried plantain, fried squid, seasoned french fries, baked clams, steamed clams and more. There are steamed peach buns, steamed shu mai, steamed crystal dumplings which are sweet, and pan fried dumplings. The dumpling sauce is over by the pan fried dumplings which are another server with entrees. They do have spare ribs - these are the typical Chinese buffet style spare ribs overly covered in thick red sugar sauce.

While my wife will go to the buffet servers and take a selection of the many Chinese entrees, I go over to the hibachi grill. This is the same type of hibachi grill that you will find in a Japanese restaurant or buffet. They do have a wider variety of raw vegetables to add - making it appear like more of a selection found at a Mongolian barbecue grill - but this is not a Mongolian barbecue grill. The meat is what makes the difference. There are good sized steaks here to take, pieces of chicken meat, shrimp, and cross slices of beef ribs. There is also noodles - and these noodles are so long that it is almost impossible to take a portion and put it on your dish without several noodles that go on for feet still coming up from the serving tray. You can take whatever you like on a plate - add the meat on top - some just take meat - some just take vegetables and when it is your turn - and there has always been a line - you hand it to the chef and he puts the meat down on the grill separate from the vegetables and cooks it with the addition of oil, butter, soy sauce, teriyaki sauce, and garlic. Now - I told you that I have been to the restaurant five times. I have been up to the hibachi grill ten times - twice each visit. I have not had my hibachi cooked the same way twice. This is not a good thing. Even the same chef has not cooked it the same way twice. There are usually two chefs at the grill to handle the crowd. Sometimes I have been asked how I would like the steak cooked, sometimes not. Sometimes they add butter, sometimes not. Sometimes they put garlic, sometimes not. Sometimes they add two sauces and sometimes one. When we first went, there was a very skilled hibachi chef at the grill - and a crowd of Asian men behind the grill watching him. Obviously, he was the teacher - and that plate was the best that I have had there so far. He even squeezed an orange onto someone's shrimp. I have not seen that since. The last time we were there, the chef did not even cut up the steak as has always been done before and is usual for hibachi steak - he just cooked it and put it on the plate whole next to the vegetables. There is no consistency in cooking at the hibachi grill - and even though I like it a lot, there needs to be. If you don't want them to add something tell them right away - some understand English better than others, but make yourself known. If you want no fat used - tell them. I will tell you that I have been to a Japanese hibachi since going first to Chen's and I like the hibachi dishes that I have had at Chen's better.

The sushi bar is large but the assortment is small. There are mostly rolls and they are not quick to refill the trays when they are empty- though there are always two sushi chefs standing at the bar. They have put out shrimp, salmon, and tuna on top of rice, but these are taken quickly and then rarely will you see them again. I was a bit surprised on New Years Eve when I went up to the two sushi chefs - at the time there were salmon and tuna on rice out on the buffet - and I asked for just some pieces of tuna and salmon with no rice. I could have easily taken the salmon and tuna on rice that was out and not eaten the rice - as was suggested to me by a man who was passing and heard what happened, but I did not want to waste the rice. Both chefs looked at each other and then looked at me like I had asked them to fly - and said "no!". I asked again, in case there was a language issue - and I got a definite no again. So I took the rice and left it over. I really do not understand this, and it was the first strike this buffet received in my mind.

The selection of entrees is extensive and different ones have shown up replacing others from visit to visit. The first visit there was an excellent shrimp with scallions which has not been there since. There has been a shrimp with lobster sauce that was a thick brown sauce that was very good. Since that time the shrimp and lobster sauce has been the standard light sauce with large pieces of egg white. It is also mixed with krab pieces. The sauce is good and close to the full flavor as to what I have had a Chinese menu restaurants. There has been kung pow chicken on one occasion. There is always chicken and broccoli and beef with peppers. There is a large tray of teriyaki chicken. There is a large tray of egg foo young, but beware of the tray of brown sauce that is behind it because that is not egg foo young sauce - I was suspicious when it was a dark brown. It is beef gravy. (Not good on egg foo young!) There is a beef roast out for you to slice yourself. There is salmon and there is steamed whitefish which was good but it needed ginger sauce. Of course, you will find lo mein and fried rice. There is also steamed brown rice in addition to white rice. There is a large tray of corn on the cob. There is sweet and sour chicken. There is stone crab with ginger sauce. There is a dish with shrimp and corn. There is duck but no fixing to make Peking duck but the pieces of duck are meaty and good. Other dishes that we have seen include salt and pepper shrimp, stuffed mushrooms, spicy chicken, honey chicken, general tso chicken, sesame chicken, coconut shrimp, mussels with oyster sauce, mixed Chinese vegetable, bok choy, baked seafood, baked spinach, beef and cheese casserole, fried shrimp, sealegs with bacon, mushrooms in oyster sauce, garlic shrimp, sauteed green beans. and more. There is pizza, rolls, and garlic bread, too. This is another of those buffets that there is so much that you cannot possibly eat it all at one visit.

Dessert is also more than you will find at most Chinese buffets with a large assortment of fresh fruit, pudding, jello, hard ice cream cups that are found in two freezer cases, little cake squares, cream puffs, cookies, etc. The big dessert feature is a - CHOCOLATE FOUNTAIN! This is totally unsupervised and with all of the other comments that I have made about these in other articles I found a new problem here. First, the selections to dip are marshmallows, pineapple chunks, macaroons, sugar filled wafer cookies, bananas, and apple wedges. The fruit is out in a cold server on the table with the fountain. There are sticks in a cup to take to dip with. There are tongs to take from the serving trays. Now, here is the problem - and this exists at EVERY chocolate fountain You take what you want to dip and put it on a plate. Then you take the wood skewers and with your FINGERS put each item on a stick. The item that has been in your fingers now goes into the chocolate. You might have just as well dipped your fingers in. See the problem. Now, this takes nothing away from Chens - it is no different with other chocolate fountains. But I watched everyone doing this while at Chen's. There is no way to avoid this other than to have a server at the fountain wearing gloves and dipping for you - and that is going to be rare any place (other than Shady Maple where that is done). So please, don't overwhelm the comments section about the chocolate fountain - it has all been said already. If you enjoy chocolate fountains then this is a good one. I tried it here once just to taste the chocolate and it was good chocolate.

After reading this I am sure you are hungry. I am. I mentioned problems at the beginning and I have included a few. One last problem that is consistent time to time is that the food is not kept hot enough on the buffet. It is not cold, but warm. You need to take from the bottom of a tray to be sure you get hot food. I heard about a part of China where food is traditionally served luke-warm and I am starting to wonder if many of these buffet owners come from that province. As I have said before, food on a buffet needs to be kept HOT - not just warm. There is a microwave out in the middle of the buffet with a sign that says to the effect - "if the food is not hot enough for you heat it up". Really? Not an acceptable solution but perhaps the food is not intended to be hot. You will notice that this has NOT kept me from going back.

I very much enjoy this buffet and it is becoming a regular for me. It is a wonderful value and the food is good. I am hoping that with time the crowds will settle down and there will be less of a wait to get in. The OCB across the road must be crying because they have never been this busy.

Perhaps I should not recommend it, because it will mean a longer wait when I go -but I really have to recommend Chen's Buffet City to you. This is a definite try it if you are nearby.

Chen's Buffet is located at 3056 Hempstead Turnpike, Levittown, NY 11756. Their phone number is 516.520-0888. There is a website which is linked at the side of this page. They are open 7 days a week and their hours are:
Lunch Buffet: Monday to Saturday 11:00am-3:30pm
Dinner Buffet: Monday to Saturday 3:30pm-9:30pm
Sunday and Holidays: 11:00 am-9:30pm.