With a holiday week that was not feeling very special - not that it should - I had thoughts of going off somewhere to have a better than our usual buffet. I thought about the casinos in Connecticut, a drive to New Jersey to Golden Corral, or even all the way to Lancaster, PA for a day. None of that seemed worth the tolls and gas. My wife suggested that we go to a buffet locally that we might only go for for a special celebration. There were two I thought about - one was going to cost over $80 for the two of us so I ruled that one out - and we decided to go to DJ's International Buffet which we have been to many times in the past, would cost half what that other buffet would cost, and we only go to for special occasions.
We were there a year ago - and had I gone back to read my article from then, we might have just stayed home to eat, but I didn't check and we went. We went on a weeknight for dinner. The price of dinner on Monday to Thursday is $20.99 per adult. They often run coupons which get sent out in local advertising mailers and sometimes in newspaper supplements.
I thought that it would be empty - based on it was a weeknight - but it was fairly busy. We were seated right away and we went up to the buffet. I started with Udon Soup, which is not at the soup bar which still has a number of soups. The Udon Soup is right across from the soup bar at the grill. The bowls are out filled with udon noodles, a piece of broccoli and a piece of krab - not crab though it is supposed to be crab. If you don't know, krab is fake crab that looks like snow crab leg meat but is actually a piece of fish formed to look like that. There is a hot serving pot of soup for the Udon Soup that you ladle into the bowl yourself. I looked for other things that usually go into Udon Soup but I did not see any. The soup was good. It had the right flavor and the noodles were thick and long. (I will put this here so that it does not get lost later - there were several bowls of noodles out when we went up. When those were gone - not long after - none were brought out again.)
There is a large sushi bar that includes just fish with no rice and that is what I headed for. I took good size pieces of tuna and salmon. I also took some of the seared tuna that is covered on the edges with black pepper and is marinated. All of it was good.
I had a few appetizers - grilled beef on a stick, a grilled pork chop, a baked scallop, a small eggroll, and some mozzarella cheese from the tomato salad where the salads were. The beef on a stick was good. I have been craving steak and grilled beef and this was the start of what satisfied that - at least for this night. The pork chop was slightly sweet but tasty. The baked scallop which was a large scallop shell covered in baked cheese with small bits (barely evident) of scallops, corn, and shredded krab with corn kernels throughout - all in a mayonnaise based sauce. It was tasty but it would have been nicer had there been more evidence of scallops in it. The eggroll was all roll and very little filling. It was as if they took the wrapper for a full size eggroll and wrapped it around into this little eggroll. The cheese was bland.
In the past there has been steak grilled to order on a flame grill. I looked around the grill area and saw a sign for the steak that said to ask. I asked. A nice size but very thin steak was brought from the refrigerator at the end of the grill area and put on the flame grill for me. I asked for it rare - as I always do. This steak - as many Asian buffets that claim they have steak - was just a quarter inch thick. This steak should cook in a few minutes and rare should cook for no more than 60 to 90 seconds. It was turned after a minute when the flames started to come up around it. What set this steak apart form others at Asian buffets was the fat around it which was not a bad thing. I would have taken it off much sooner but he let it cook for several minutes before he took it off. I added some French Fries to the plate and a few large black Greek olives from the salad bar and took it back to the table. The char taste of the steak was just what I was craving. It was not rare - it was more a juicy grey inside. It was very juicy and it tasted like I had hoped it would taste - a steak off a flame grill. I even had a second one later on. Also not rare but tasty all the same. I wondered while I was eating the second one if I should just ask for it well done - and get the crunchy outside that I also like on a steak. (My perfect steak is charred and crunchy outside with a red rare inside - closest I get to that at a buffet is Golden Corral when the chef knows what he is doing.)
There are snow crab legs served at dinner on weeknights - hot. When we got to the restaurant the tray was empty. When I went up after the steak they brought out more that filled about a quarter of the tray- maybe 15 or so claws and single small legs - not clusters. I took two of the legs. Others were descending on the tray and they were all gone by the time I headed back to our table. (They were not filled again the rest of the night we were there.) They were not hot inside which with crab legs is a problem because that makes them difficult to get the meat out of the shell. They were tasty. It was a good thing I did not want more as there were no more to be had. We left a little after 9 pm (they close at 10 pm) and they still had brought out no more crab legs.
There are a lot of seafood dishes served on this buffet. A good number of them are spicy - and while there are signs over most of the trays some signs obviously did not match what was in the tray below. I can't eat spicy and "picky" eater wife does not eat seafood other than shrimp - and does not eat spicy, I tried only a few of the seafood dishes. There was a steamed halibut in ginger sauce. it was bland and was not as good as other steamed fish I have had at other Asian buffets (some at lower prices). There was tilapia with their "special" seasoning. It was better than the halibut, not spicy, and OK. Tilapia is the popular fish at Asian buffets. It is not a good fish to eat if one eats fish for the benefits of eating fish. Farmed tilapia is known to actually decrease benefits gained from other fish when consumed.
It came time for dessert and I decided to get one of their made to order dessert crepes. These are cooked on a round griddle at the grill counter. It was 10 minutes to 9:00 pm - they close at 10:00 pm. I caught the eye of one of the cooks as he walked by and asked for a crepe. He picked up a small container that had a coating of crepe batter on it and told me that there were no more crepes for the night because there was no more batter. There were other tables still occupied in the dining rooms that were not yet near ready for dessert. There was an hour and ten minutes until closing. If more batter was made at this point, it would certainly keep until the next day if there was any left over. No, there were no more crepes.
Just about all of the food that we had was good. On our last visit a year ago, I found things not kept hot enough. Almost all that I had was at the correct temperature - the crab legs should have been kept hotter. I felt that we had a good dinner - BUT it bothers me that there were three main items here that you are paying for in the $21.00 dinner price that they ran out of and did not replace - the Udon Noodle Soup, the Snow Crab Legs, and the Dessert Crepes. It is not as if they are going to make this up with a reduction in price - never will happen! You are paying for what you are not getting that you should be getting. This will, likely, not keep me from going back but we do not come here regularly because of the price and it will be some time before we return.
I will let you decide if this buffet is worth going to. It was fine. Long ago - even under this name and owner - International Buffet has a long history of changes - there was much more "international" in foods offered and more of a variety. That was then - this is now. If it matters there is lobster on Friday to Sunday at diner - the price per adult is then $25.
D.J.'s International Buffet is located at 1100 Stewart Avenue in Garden
City, New York. There is a website, linked at the side in the right
column. Beware that when you open the website it plays annoying music,
which can be turned off, but if you turn it off and go to another page
(except the price page) the music starts again.
Showing posts with label international. Show all posts
Showing posts with label international. Show all posts
Friday, February 23, 2018
Friday, September 15, 2017
GLOBAL BUFFET X3, Levittown, NY
What happened?!?
I had not intended to write an article but just make a comment on the last article about our third visit to Global Buffet but it just seemed that it needed to be set apart. We had not intended to dine at Global Buffet on this night but we were heading to another restaurant (we don't just eat at buffets) and realized as we got there that they were closed to host a special event, so we decided to go over to Global Buffet.
My experience, in particular, at this dinner shows that Global Buffet at this point is inconsistent. Because we had not planned to dine at an Asian buffet, I decided that I was going to eat primarily American - which has not been a problem on our past two trips. I had planned on sliced turkey with a few other American dishes.
The turkey as unlike it has been on either of our first two dinners here. It was hard to distinguish this turkey from ham. It is in a serving tray next to the ham - each labeled - and the ham had pineapple slices on it - and the turkey did not - though on the outside and the meat both resembled each other closely. If this was turkey it was a cheap, processed turkey breast - a ball that was roasted - evenly brown/black on the outside - the meat was less white than turkey and more the pink of ham. The flavor was slightly salty - like ham. I would just say that this was another ham put out in the turkey tray - but as I say it was not covered in pineapple slices as the ham was. It was not good at all. There was nothing wrong with it but it was not good. Even OCB Turkey which was never a great turkey breast was better than this. After the first slice I decided that I had to find something else to complete the meal.
As I was going around the buffet to see what I would eat, I saw that the pork spare ribs looked different - more like I expect Chinese Spare Ribs to look - and still not in thick red sauce - but definitely covered in some type of thin sweet sauce. I took one of those. I also took a small beef rib. The beef ribs were now sitting in a tray with a thin reddish gravy on them - that was not there the last time. I wondered as I saw the spare ribs if they are reading this site and tried to create the ribs I described in our last article that I find better than the ones I had here on the last visit. These, on this night, were not better - and maybe not as good as they had been. The beef rib was better without any sauce on them.
So onward, to the next trip up to the buffet and I went to a tried and true choice from visit one and visit two - beef stew. Oh boy! It looked right. One bite of beef and it was spicy. At best that I can identify the spice I would say the stew sauce was full of curry. In the past few years my stomach has become sensitive to anything that is spicy and I knew if I continued to eat this I was going to have a problem. I tried a piece of potato from the stew - same taste of curry. What did they do? Did they change the recipe? If so, why? One possibility - the beef stew and the chicken curry sit in trays next to each other. Did someone mix the sauce from the curry into the beef stew? There was too strong a taste of spice for it to have been just the curry serving spoon finding its way from one to the other. I went back to look at the beef stew tray. The sauce on the beef stew looked exactly the same as the sauce on the chicken curry. I hope that this was a one time mistake and not an intentional change in recipe because the beef stew had been the best dish here.
Lastly, and minor, I took a slice of pizza which looked good and looked pretty much as the pizza at another Asian buffet that we go to regularly. The cheese was nicely melted on the top, but under that layer of melted cheese was another layer of the same cheese that was not melted at all.
My wife was not as disappointed as I was but she had intended to have the beef stew also and when she found out that it was spicy, she was not going to take it. She eats more general Asian buffet and does not mind the usual pepper steak and chicken with broccoli. She was the one of us who described this meal as inconsistent.
To the positive, there were stone crab halves that I did not try. They were large and they had nutcrackers next to the serving tray. Global buffet has started putting discount coupons in the local major newspaper, Newsday and also in one of the mailer discount coupon books. The coupon is for $2 off adult dinner prices up to 10 at the table.
And for the OCB nostalgic about this location, the men's and ladies rooms are in the same location as they were when this was OCB but you will not believe the transformation. They are fancy with fancy plumbing fixtures. There are paper towels and hand dryers. And they are clean. Seems that everyone who walks into these has the same reaction - wow, are these so much better than they were!
I really want this restaurant to succeed. I want to go and have a nice "international" meal at a good price. They maybe still have to break themselves in more, but right now it is inconsistent. Inconsistent is not good. We will go back - but things will have to go back to where it was a week ago and what should not be spicy must not be spicy, if we will go back after the next try.
ADDENDUM:
We went back a week later. The turkey was a little better - at least it was white and looked more like turkey. It is cheap turkey roll/turkey breast. At least it was edible. The beef stew was moved away from the the curry chicken - that is behind the beef stew and two trays over now. The beef stew was now edible and no longer was spicy or tasted like curry.
I tried the hibachi bar. I added what looked like a steak to my plate of vegetables. When I took the steak I had second thoughts. it was grey, lacking in any marbling, and was frozen solid - the frozen part did not bother me any. It was good and I brought it back to the table. I cut a piece of "steak" off and tried to eat it. I could not chew it. It actually was like rubber. I tried cutting pieces off in various parts of the meat. None would chew. Each came back out of my mouth and on to the plate. I ate the vegetables which were fine.
My wife has been eating the pepper steak here - from the buffet table - since we started coming here. She took a bite at this meal and said it was so spicy that it was burning her mouth. She said it has never been like that before - and I, too, have had it here before and no, it was never spicy. I asked her what tray was it next to. We went to look. It was right next to Hot Pepper Chicken - a very hot and spicy dish. So just like the beef stew the last time, either the serving spoon or something from the Hot Pepper Chicken went into the Pepper Steak! This is very serious. If one were allergic to something in that other tray - and ate the pepper steak they could be in serious trouble!
Inconsistent is still the best way to describe this buffet! Each visit there have been surprises and only on our second visit were the surprises not unpleasant. I cannot recommend this buffet to anyone at this point until they get their act together!
I had not intended to write an article but just make a comment on the last article about our third visit to Global Buffet but it just seemed that it needed to be set apart. We had not intended to dine at Global Buffet on this night but we were heading to another restaurant (we don't just eat at buffets) and realized as we got there that they were closed to host a special event, so we decided to go over to Global Buffet.
My experience, in particular, at this dinner shows that Global Buffet at this point is inconsistent. Because we had not planned to dine at an Asian buffet, I decided that I was going to eat primarily American - which has not been a problem on our past two trips. I had planned on sliced turkey with a few other American dishes.
The turkey as unlike it has been on either of our first two dinners here. It was hard to distinguish this turkey from ham. It is in a serving tray next to the ham - each labeled - and the ham had pineapple slices on it - and the turkey did not - though on the outside and the meat both resembled each other closely. If this was turkey it was a cheap, processed turkey breast - a ball that was roasted - evenly brown/black on the outside - the meat was less white than turkey and more the pink of ham. The flavor was slightly salty - like ham. I would just say that this was another ham put out in the turkey tray - but as I say it was not covered in pineapple slices as the ham was. It was not good at all. There was nothing wrong with it but it was not good. Even OCB Turkey which was never a great turkey breast was better than this. After the first slice I decided that I had to find something else to complete the meal.
As I was going around the buffet to see what I would eat, I saw that the pork spare ribs looked different - more like I expect Chinese Spare Ribs to look - and still not in thick red sauce - but definitely covered in some type of thin sweet sauce. I took one of those. I also took a small beef rib. The beef ribs were now sitting in a tray with a thin reddish gravy on them - that was not there the last time. I wondered as I saw the spare ribs if they are reading this site and tried to create the ribs I described in our last article that I find better than the ones I had here on the last visit. These, on this night, were not better - and maybe not as good as they had been. The beef rib was better without any sauce on them.
So onward, to the next trip up to the buffet and I went to a tried and true choice from visit one and visit two - beef stew. Oh boy! It looked right. One bite of beef and it was spicy. At best that I can identify the spice I would say the stew sauce was full of curry. In the past few years my stomach has become sensitive to anything that is spicy and I knew if I continued to eat this I was going to have a problem. I tried a piece of potato from the stew - same taste of curry. What did they do? Did they change the recipe? If so, why? One possibility - the beef stew and the chicken curry sit in trays next to each other. Did someone mix the sauce from the curry into the beef stew? There was too strong a taste of spice for it to have been just the curry serving spoon finding its way from one to the other. I went back to look at the beef stew tray. The sauce on the beef stew looked exactly the same as the sauce on the chicken curry. I hope that this was a one time mistake and not an intentional change in recipe because the beef stew had been the best dish here.
Lastly, and minor, I took a slice of pizza which looked good and looked pretty much as the pizza at another Asian buffet that we go to regularly. The cheese was nicely melted on the top, but under that layer of melted cheese was another layer of the same cheese that was not melted at all.
My wife was not as disappointed as I was but she had intended to have the beef stew also and when she found out that it was spicy, she was not going to take it. She eats more general Asian buffet and does not mind the usual pepper steak and chicken with broccoli. She was the one of us who described this meal as inconsistent.
To the positive, there were stone crab halves that I did not try. They were large and they had nutcrackers next to the serving tray. Global buffet has started putting discount coupons in the local major newspaper, Newsday and also in one of the mailer discount coupon books. The coupon is for $2 off adult dinner prices up to 10 at the table.
And for the OCB nostalgic about this location, the men's and ladies rooms are in the same location as they were when this was OCB but you will not believe the transformation. They are fancy with fancy plumbing fixtures. There are paper towels and hand dryers. And they are clean. Seems that everyone who walks into these has the same reaction - wow, are these so much better than they were!
I really want this restaurant to succeed. I want to go and have a nice "international" meal at a good price. They maybe still have to break themselves in more, but right now it is inconsistent. Inconsistent is not good. We will go back - but things will have to go back to where it was a week ago and what should not be spicy must not be spicy, if we will go back after the next try.
ADDENDUM:
We went back a week later. The turkey was a little better - at least it was white and looked more like turkey. It is cheap turkey roll/turkey breast. At least it was edible. The beef stew was moved away from the the curry chicken - that is behind the beef stew and two trays over now. The beef stew was now edible and no longer was spicy or tasted like curry.
I tried the hibachi bar. I added what looked like a steak to my plate of vegetables. When I took the steak I had second thoughts. it was grey, lacking in any marbling, and was frozen solid - the frozen part did not bother me any. It was good and I brought it back to the table. I cut a piece of "steak" off and tried to eat it. I could not chew it. It actually was like rubber. I tried cutting pieces off in various parts of the meat. None would chew. Each came back out of my mouth and on to the plate. I ate the vegetables which were fine.
My wife has been eating the pepper steak here - from the buffet table - since we started coming here. She took a bite at this meal and said it was so spicy that it was burning her mouth. She said it has never been like that before - and I, too, have had it here before and no, it was never spicy. I asked her what tray was it next to. We went to look. It was right next to Hot Pepper Chicken - a very hot and spicy dish. So just like the beef stew the last time, either the serving spoon or something from the Hot Pepper Chicken went into the Pepper Steak! This is very serious. If one were allergic to something in that other tray - and ate the pepper steak they could be in serious trouble!
Inconsistent is still the best way to describe this buffet! Each visit there have been surprises and only on our second visit were the surprises not unpleasant. I cannot recommend this buffet to anyone at this point until they get their act together!
Saturday, September 09, 2017
Global Buffet, Levittown, NY - SECOND VISIT
We went back to Global Buffet. (See our first article about this buffet.) They have made some positive changes in the past two weeks since they opened.
Either they read our article or someone there was told or realized that their steam tables were set at too low a temperature, but now the temperature of the food is correct. Nothing was cold or just warm. Everything that needs to be hot was properly hot.
When we were there the first time, we overheard someone ask the manager why there was no Egg Drop Soup. There is now Egg Drop Soup. The soups section has changed. Gone is the so-so chicken noodle soup and also the soup that was unidentifiable in the serving pot. The soups now are WonTon Soup, Egg Drop Soup, Hot and Sour Soup, Miso Soup, and Clam Soup. They have also added in one of the spaces for a soup pot server, steamed Dim Sum filled with meat. I tried the WonTon Soup. It was good. I don't know if it was just chance but the wonton was the largest wonton that i have ever had. When I walked past later it may have just been chance as what I saw was standard sized. There is not much to do with wonton soup to make one different than another. The broth was better than most.
There was an additional meat on the American meat carving section. They added large beef ribs. They are big and long ribs with a lot of meet. The meet is stringy but that is how beef ribs are. They do not have a light sauce on them based on what was in the pan they are served in, but this did not add any different flavor to them. They were pretty good. Now, I know what some are going to think - just like OCB's long gone beef ribs - not really. These are cooked more like short ribs than OCB's beef ribs were - but they are something you rarely see anymore - and don't see at a buffet. In this section, they have made a place for the turkey gravy to sit in the steam table and it was kept properly hot. The turkey seemed more to be a roasted turkey breast - but it was juicy and good and the gravy makes it better.
My wife found a shrimp dish that she says was not there the last time. It was called Seafood Delight - which in other Asian buffets usually is a mix of shrimp and fish. This was just shrimp and that made her happy. She said it was very good.
I tried more Asian dishes this visit than I did the first - as I was focusing then on the American offerings. The sushi bar was full and there was a tray of large pieces of raw salmon - no rice. They were big and moist - and good. Then there were the usual sushi in addition. Next to the sushi bar there are Asian cold "appetizers" including peanut chicken with noodles. That was good - not spicy and that made it even better. I tried the pepper steak and the beef was not overcooked, a little chewy, but tasty. The sauce did not overwhelm it - as it often does in other Asian buffets. The Spring Rolls are standard - but not over cooked as they are in some other buffets. I tried stuffed fish - a roll of fish stuffed with more fish. It was fine. I tried their spare ribs. The spare ribs are close to Chinese restaurant spare ribs - not covered in sticky red sugar sauce, but just broiled under a hot broiler. Teh spare ribs were good - not as good as the spare ribs at Good Taste Buffer in Commack, NY which I have written about several times in the past that to me have the best Chinese Spare Ribs of any buffet. These at Global are close but not as good. I can only describe the ones at Good Taste as having sizzle - these lack the sizzle. BUT not bad - and better than most.
I did go back to the things I liked the first time - the turkey, the beef stew, and the baked clams. All still good! I even tried a french fry to see how it is - something very basic but not all Asian buffets that serve them do it well. Not much of an achievement but here it was good.
The ice cream machine is working and the soft serve ice cream was nice and creamy - not at all icy. There were a few different cakes including a chocolate cake with cheesecake on top and a coffee cake. I tried both of those and they were good. I had intended to take the hot apple strudel and took these instead. I was happy I did. My wife took the strudel and liked it.
The service was still good. The Senior price has gone down to $12.99 from $13.99. The adult price stayed the same. An effort was made to keep everything moist and also empty or near empty trays were refilled fairly quickly.
At the end of the meal my wife summed it up - "It's pleasant!". Yes it is. The food is fine. The decor is nice - not at all like it was as OCB. It is funny sitting in there after all of those years sitting in the same space as OCB. We were near the side door and my wife said to me, that we were near where the claw machine was - yes, we were!
They still don't have a web page but they do have a Facebook page. From the Facebook page I saw that they had a special dinner for Labor Day that included lobster and steaks and with on increase in price. There was a negative comment that there was no lobster while they were there - I don't know. I am looking at negative comments about this restaurant in view of what I am seeing for myself - especially now with the improvements I have seen in just two weeks. The restaurant across the street is trying hard to get their business back - which many of us know went down long before this new buffet opened - and I am not sure that some negative comments I have seen have not been planted.
At this point I will say, "Yes! Try it!"***. It is primarily an Asian buffet but it is not hard to sit down and not eat any Asian dishes for the entire meal with the meat carvings and other "American" dishes and sides. You could have corn on the cob, fries, mashed potatoes, mashed sweet potatoes and any of the meats out to carve. We have not tried the hibachi grill - it is standard to what most are like. I looked closely at the grill area behind the counter - there is a flat grill and also a char flame grill. I don't know what they make on that grill but it is there. I know many were expecting an OCB like buffet and this is not it. Give it a chance for what it is. I will be going back.
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. Here is the phone number (516) 605-1799. Hours on their Facebook page say they are open 11:00 am to 11:00 pm. Good for a late night dinner or if you are running late and all others have closed for the night.
***
READ THE NEXT ARTICLE AND IT'S ADDENDUM FOR AN IMPORTANT UPDATE BEFORE GOING TO THIS BUFFET!
Either they read our article or someone there was told or realized that their steam tables were set at too low a temperature, but now the temperature of the food is correct. Nothing was cold or just warm. Everything that needs to be hot was properly hot.
When we were there the first time, we overheard someone ask the manager why there was no Egg Drop Soup. There is now Egg Drop Soup. The soups section has changed. Gone is the so-so chicken noodle soup and also the soup that was unidentifiable in the serving pot. The soups now are WonTon Soup, Egg Drop Soup, Hot and Sour Soup, Miso Soup, and Clam Soup. They have also added in one of the spaces for a soup pot server, steamed Dim Sum filled with meat. I tried the WonTon Soup. It was good. I don't know if it was just chance but the wonton was the largest wonton that i have ever had. When I walked past later it may have just been chance as what I saw was standard sized. There is not much to do with wonton soup to make one different than another. The broth was better than most.
There was an additional meat on the American meat carving section. They added large beef ribs. They are big and long ribs with a lot of meet. The meet is stringy but that is how beef ribs are. They do not have a light sauce on them based on what was in the pan they are served in, but this did not add any different flavor to them. They were pretty good. Now, I know what some are going to think - just like OCB's long gone beef ribs - not really. These are cooked more like short ribs than OCB's beef ribs were - but they are something you rarely see anymore - and don't see at a buffet. In this section, they have made a place for the turkey gravy to sit in the steam table and it was kept properly hot. The turkey seemed more to be a roasted turkey breast - but it was juicy and good and the gravy makes it better.
My wife found a shrimp dish that she says was not there the last time. It was called Seafood Delight - which in other Asian buffets usually is a mix of shrimp and fish. This was just shrimp and that made her happy. She said it was very good.
I tried more Asian dishes this visit than I did the first - as I was focusing then on the American offerings. The sushi bar was full and there was a tray of large pieces of raw salmon - no rice. They were big and moist - and good. Then there were the usual sushi in addition. Next to the sushi bar there are Asian cold "appetizers" including peanut chicken with noodles. That was good - not spicy and that made it even better. I tried the pepper steak and the beef was not overcooked, a little chewy, but tasty. The sauce did not overwhelm it - as it often does in other Asian buffets. The Spring Rolls are standard - but not over cooked as they are in some other buffets. I tried stuffed fish - a roll of fish stuffed with more fish. It was fine. I tried their spare ribs. The spare ribs are close to Chinese restaurant spare ribs - not covered in sticky red sugar sauce, but just broiled under a hot broiler. Teh spare ribs were good - not as good as the spare ribs at Good Taste Buffer in Commack, NY which I have written about several times in the past that to me have the best Chinese Spare Ribs of any buffet. These at Global are close but not as good. I can only describe the ones at Good Taste as having sizzle - these lack the sizzle. BUT not bad - and better than most.
I did go back to the things I liked the first time - the turkey, the beef stew, and the baked clams. All still good! I even tried a french fry to see how it is - something very basic but not all Asian buffets that serve them do it well. Not much of an achievement but here it was good.
The ice cream machine is working and the soft serve ice cream was nice and creamy - not at all icy. There were a few different cakes including a chocolate cake with cheesecake on top and a coffee cake. I tried both of those and they were good. I had intended to take the hot apple strudel and took these instead. I was happy I did. My wife took the strudel and liked it.
The service was still good. The Senior price has gone down to $12.99 from $13.99. The adult price stayed the same. An effort was made to keep everything moist and also empty or near empty trays were refilled fairly quickly.
At the end of the meal my wife summed it up - "It's pleasant!". Yes it is. The food is fine. The decor is nice - not at all like it was as OCB. It is funny sitting in there after all of those years sitting in the same space as OCB. We were near the side door and my wife said to me, that we were near where the claw machine was - yes, we were!
They still don't have a web page but they do have a Facebook page. From the Facebook page I saw that they had a special dinner for Labor Day that included lobster and steaks and with on increase in price. There was a negative comment that there was no lobster while they were there - I don't know. I am looking at negative comments about this restaurant in view of what I am seeing for myself - especially now with the improvements I have seen in just two weeks. The restaurant across the street is trying hard to get their business back - which many of us know went down long before this new buffet opened - and I am not sure that some negative comments I have seen have not been planted.
At this point I will say, "Yes! Try it!"***. It is primarily an Asian buffet but it is not hard to sit down and not eat any Asian dishes for the entire meal with the meat carvings and other "American" dishes and sides. You could have corn on the cob, fries, mashed potatoes, mashed sweet potatoes and any of the meats out to carve. We have not tried the hibachi grill - it is standard to what most are like. I looked closely at the grill area behind the counter - there is a flat grill and also a char flame grill. I don't know what they make on that grill but it is there. I know many were expecting an OCB like buffet and this is not it. Give it a chance for what it is. I will be going back.
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. Here is the phone number (516) 605-1799. Hours on their Facebook page say they are open 11:00 am to 11:00 pm. Good for a late night dinner or if you are running late and all others have closed for the night.
***
READ THE NEXT ARTICLE AND IT'S ADDENDUM FOR AN IMPORTANT UPDATE BEFORE GOING TO THIS BUFFET!
Monday, August 28, 2017
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.
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.
Friday, April 20, 2012
Return to the Festival Buffet, Foxwoods Casino Resort, CT PART I
About a year ago I wrote about a return trip to the Festival Buffet at the Foxwoods Casino in Connecticut. We recently went back again.
This is one of the buffets that comes to my mind when I think, "what buffet would you really like to go to". From my experience with casino buffets it so one of the nicer of those that I have eaten at. As I pointed out in the March 2011 article (linked above), there are two different experiences to be had there - the weekend or as they call it, the enhanced, buffet and the weeknight buffet. This trip was made for business in the earlier part of the day that had to be done mid-week, so we went on a Wednesday night in April. The weather was nice and the trip to Connecticut as usual was miserable with traffic and construction along the way - there and back. The Connecticut Turnpike always seems to be under construction - and there is never anything to notice that has changed (though I am sure if you live there, you can tell the difference). Anyway, we got there after our business appointment. It was just 6:30 pm and seemed too early to eat. We walked past the buffet and there was no line so we walked around the casino complex for about an hour. The buffet serves until 10:00 pm on weeknights. When we went back to the buffet there was still no line - though it was not empty inside. We paid and walked right in and were seated.
The price of the buffet since a year ago has gone up two dollars per adult on the weeknight price. This does include soft drinks. The price is now $18.99 each.
The dining tables are in three locations within the buffet. There is a section that is actually on the promenade outside the restaurant, separated by a low, decorative wall. There is a section that fills the room with the buffet stations all around it. There is a section next to that room that is separated from a hall off the promenade, though not as much out in the open as the front area is. The seating area on the promenade is a smoking section. This is also adjacent to a bandstand with a music show that starts around 8:30 - 9 pm or so and the music is LOUD. Even if this was not the smoking section I would still not want to sit there - though if you want to Rock while you buffet, you might enjoy it. We asked for a table in the center dining room and there was no problem.
Our meals usually start with soup and there was a surprise - where there were two soups last year, there were four soups on this night. And they were not all cream soups which was a criticism that I had last year. There was chicken rice soup, minestrone soup, a bean soup, and New England Clam Chowder. We later discovered that there was a fifth soup - Chinese chicken dumpling soup at the Chinese area. My "like it simple and plain" wife chose the chicken rice soup and I choose the New England Clam Chowder.
You likely know that New England Clam Chowder is the white cream version and not the red thin version, which is called Manhattan Clam Chowder. The chowder was good. It was thick and full of clams and potatoes. It was nicely seasoned and the clams were cut into chewable pieces, as were the potatoes. My wife said that the chicken rice soup tasted "homemade" and not what would come from a can. The soups (on this visit) started us off happily.
There is an extensive salad bar with two sides - one side had romaine lettuce for Caesar salad and a pre-mixed lettuce salad with blue cheese dressing on it. There was a variety of dressing next to these bowls including creamy Caesar dressing. There were also toppings including real bacon bit pieces. There was also a servers full of mixed olives in a dressing, half sour pickles, sweet pickles, hot peppers, and chunks of chicken. Around the other side of the salad bar were bowls of lettuce, dressings, salad toppings and fixings, cottage cheese, and prepared salads including pasta salad, macaroni salad, potato salad, etc. I made myself a Caesar salad and my wife fixed her usual, salad with vegetable toppings but no dressing. We both enjoyed the salads. I have had Caesar salads in many buffets. I like them most when you put your own dressing on, which you do here. The dressing was nicely flavored and not too sharp, as it can be.
The entrees and side dishes are set up in sections or stations. There is a seafood station, a large general station of various hot entrees and side dishes that includes two carvings, an Italian station, a Chinese/Oriental station, and a Barbecue station. On Fridays and Saturdays, the large general station is divided to include snow crab legs. There are not more dishes at this section on the weeknights - just a duplication of dishes on both sides of the carvings.
I went straight to the Barbecue section. There were fixings to make tacos and there was barbecue which included barbecue brisket, Kansas City ribs, and barbecue chicken. On the weekends you will also find steak here. I took a piece of the brisket and a piece of the ribs. There were sweet potato french fries that I could not resist and I took a very small sampling of those. I went around to the other sections and added a piece of Italian sausage from the Italian station with a small sampling of the baked manicotti. Passing the Chinese section, I spotted a wok server with Japanese noodles with seafood and took a small spoon of that. I had not seen any vegetables that appealed and at the Chinese station there was a wok of string beans sauteed with tofu. A small spoon of that went on my plate. My plate was beginning to resemble an international platter and I went back to the table.
END OF PART I - Part II NEXT WEEK
This is one of the buffets that comes to my mind when I think, "what buffet would you really like to go to". From my experience with casino buffets it so one of the nicer of those that I have eaten at. As I pointed out in the March 2011 article (linked above), there are two different experiences to be had there - the weekend or as they call it, the enhanced, buffet and the weeknight buffet. This trip was made for business in the earlier part of the day that had to be done mid-week, so we went on a Wednesday night in April. The weather was nice and the trip to Connecticut as usual was miserable with traffic and construction along the way - there and back. The Connecticut Turnpike always seems to be under construction - and there is never anything to notice that has changed (though I am sure if you live there, you can tell the difference). Anyway, we got there after our business appointment. It was just 6:30 pm and seemed too early to eat. We walked past the buffet and there was no line so we walked around the casino complex for about an hour. The buffet serves until 10:00 pm on weeknights. When we went back to the buffet there was still no line - though it was not empty inside. We paid and walked right in and were seated.
The price of the buffet since a year ago has gone up two dollars per adult on the weeknight price. This does include soft drinks. The price is now $18.99 each.
The dining tables are in three locations within the buffet. There is a section that is actually on the promenade outside the restaurant, separated by a low, decorative wall. There is a section that fills the room with the buffet stations all around it. There is a section next to that room that is separated from a hall off the promenade, though not as much out in the open as the front area is. The seating area on the promenade is a smoking section. This is also adjacent to a bandstand with a music show that starts around 8:30 - 9 pm or so and the music is LOUD. Even if this was not the smoking section I would still not want to sit there - though if you want to Rock while you buffet, you might enjoy it. We asked for a table in the center dining room and there was no problem.
Our meals usually start with soup and there was a surprise - where there were two soups last year, there were four soups on this night. And they were not all cream soups which was a criticism that I had last year. There was chicken rice soup, minestrone soup, a bean soup, and New England Clam Chowder. We later discovered that there was a fifth soup - Chinese chicken dumpling soup at the Chinese area. My "like it simple and plain" wife chose the chicken rice soup and I choose the New England Clam Chowder.
You likely know that New England Clam Chowder is the white cream version and not the red thin version, which is called Manhattan Clam Chowder. The chowder was good. It was thick and full of clams and potatoes. It was nicely seasoned and the clams were cut into chewable pieces, as were the potatoes. My wife said that the chicken rice soup tasted "homemade" and not what would come from a can. The soups (on this visit) started us off happily.
There is an extensive salad bar with two sides - one side had romaine lettuce for Caesar salad and a pre-mixed lettuce salad with blue cheese dressing on it. There was a variety of dressing next to these bowls including creamy Caesar dressing. There were also toppings including real bacon bit pieces. There was also a servers full of mixed olives in a dressing, half sour pickles, sweet pickles, hot peppers, and chunks of chicken. Around the other side of the salad bar were bowls of lettuce, dressings, salad toppings and fixings, cottage cheese, and prepared salads including pasta salad, macaroni salad, potato salad, etc. I made myself a Caesar salad and my wife fixed her usual, salad with vegetable toppings but no dressing. We both enjoyed the salads. I have had Caesar salads in many buffets. I like them most when you put your own dressing on, which you do here. The dressing was nicely flavored and not too sharp, as it can be.
The entrees and side dishes are set up in sections or stations. There is a seafood station, a large general station of various hot entrees and side dishes that includes two carvings, an Italian station, a Chinese/Oriental station, and a Barbecue station. On Fridays and Saturdays, the large general station is divided to include snow crab legs. There are not more dishes at this section on the weeknights - just a duplication of dishes on both sides of the carvings.
I went straight to the Barbecue section. There were fixings to make tacos and there was barbecue which included barbecue brisket, Kansas City ribs, and barbecue chicken. On the weekends you will also find steak here. I took a piece of the brisket and a piece of the ribs. There were sweet potato french fries that I could not resist and I took a very small sampling of those. I went around to the other sections and added a piece of Italian sausage from the Italian station with a small sampling of the baked manicotti. Passing the Chinese section, I spotted a wok server with Japanese noodles with seafood and took a small spoon of that. I had not seen any vegetables that appealed and at the Chinese station there was a wok of string beans sauteed with tofu. A small spoon of that went on my plate. My plate was beginning to resemble an international platter and I went back to the table.
END OF PART I - Part II NEXT WEEK
Friday, December 03, 2010
D.J.'s International Buffet - One more time...
It has been almost a year since I have written about D.J.'s International Buffet in Garden City, New York. I have been there several times since my last article but I thought that I would come back now and let you know how things are.
The rebirth of this buffet had a bumpy start several years ago when it closed for renovations and reopened sometime later as much less of its former self. It had been a favorite of many. It took a few years to get it back to speed and now it is close to its former glory.
This is a large Asian buffet with a mix of foods from Asian to Italian. The price is not inexpensive - $24.99 per adult on the weekend (Friday through Sunday) with an additional $1.25 for unlimited fountain soft drinks. Monday through Thursday dinner is $17.99. This is one of the most expensive Asian buffets in the area. The meal is extensive and the food is good so the price is justified - NOW - for what you are paying. But for some of us, this is not something that is affordable every week, and I reserve this for dinners when I want something special.
The sushi bar is now extensive. There is a long sushi bar with sushi chefs standing behind the bar and preparing fresh sushi as needed. I have seen people request special rolls and sushi and it has been made for them. There is a large assortment already out and there is a nice variety of raw fish just on its own without rice or in a roll. I like their seared tuna. I like many of the sushi that they have to offer and some of it is labeled as to what it is. The chefs will tell you what something is if you don't recognize it.
There are several soups. The lobster bisque is good but it varies - it should be thick. It has been thick and thin. The taste is there regardless and there are small pieces of lobster in the salmon color red broth. Of course, there are the usual Chinese soups, clam chowder, and on this night, Italian Wedding Soup.
The salad bar is sparse. There is a little assortment, but if you want to fix a green salad there is enough there. There is also a crock of mixed black and green Mediterranean olives. These fit in with the international fare.
The dumpling selection varies but there are several to choose from and away from the steam table and on the nearest hot buffet table there are fried dumplings as well. Next to the dumplings there are grilled meats on skewers - nicely seasoned chicken and also nicely seasoned beef. There are also shrimp and sausage sticks.
There is also an assortment of cold seafood including shrimp, salmon, clams on the half shell, raw oysters, and half cold crabs. Some may recall the large, already peeled shrimp from the old days - now the shrimp is in the shell. There have also been on occasion cold crab legs here - in addition to the hot crab legs on the buffet server.
They have entrees that range from American to Italian, to Chinese - with a little bit of mix in between. The are often some unusual dishes included and each time I come there are a few changing and different dishes. This night there was beef stew, small chicken pot pies, and a Chinese sausage and tofu dish. I tried the beef stew which was tasty but grizzly and the Chinese sausage and tofu. There were no longer pieces of sausage left in the serving bowl. There were two pieces of tofu which I found turning the contents over several times with the serving spoon. They came up from the bottom and I took one of them. The rest of the dish was bean pods, sliced water chestnuts, sliced carrots, and onion. It was in a mild and thin brown sauce. The taste was very good. I really wanted to try Chinese sausage but the serving bowl remained the same for the rest of the evening - half full but with all of the sausage and the tofu taken out. There was plenty more to take so other than a minor disappointment of not finding what was a surprise to find in the first place, it did not matter much.
One of the big draws here are the crab legs served every night and the lobster in ginger sauce which is served only on the weekend dinners. The lobster is cut up into chunks. Depending on who is dining and the crowd you will get lobster easily or you will stand in a line waiting for a new tray to come out which will be descended upon by those in line and if you are lucky there will be pieces worth taking when you get up to your turn. They do regularly refill the lobster so it is likely that if you keep an eye on that part of the buffet you may just get to be the first on line. There are also nights without much of a crowd - or later on any one of the nights - where you can walk right up to the tray and take your pick. I find it interesting that the most meaty part of the lobster - the tails - are not always taken first, and if you move the pieces around in the tray with the serving tongs you will find sections of tail with large chunks of lobster meat.
If you feel that you would like even more then there are two carvings - Peking duck and Prime Rib of Beef. These are over by the grill and the dumplings.
Dessert offers an interesting assortment of fresh fruit, puddings, a large flan full of custard and covered in melted sugar, hard ice cream that you serve yourself from a freezer chest, and a large assortment of the little cake squares that are found at most Asian buffets. I call these "Little Debbie" cakes because they are the size and quality of the cakes by that name found in supermarkets in the snack cake aisle. Just in case you want something different for dessert they now are making - over at the grill - made to order hot crepes filled with your choice of filling and covered in gobs of whipped cream.
There is enough to eat. The food is good. Something I did not say when they first reopened. If you don't mind spending a little more then this is a good choice. I know readers that have traveled several states to come here - mostly for the lobster - that is a lot of gas to use and pay for to get lobsters. But, nevertheless, they have come and come back.
D.J.'s International Buffet is located at 1100 Stewart Avenue in Garden City, New York. Their phone number is 516-227-2472. The hours of the restaurant are Lunch Monday to Friday, 11:00am to 3:00pm;Brunch Saturday and Sunday 11:30am to 3:00pm; Dinner Monday to Thursday, 4:00pm to 10:00pm, Friday to Sunday, 4:00pm to 10:00pm. There is still no website.
The rebirth of this buffet had a bumpy start several years ago when it closed for renovations and reopened sometime later as much less of its former self. It had been a favorite of many. It took a few years to get it back to speed and now it is close to its former glory.
This is a large Asian buffet with a mix of foods from Asian to Italian. The price is not inexpensive - $24.99 per adult on the weekend (Friday through Sunday) with an additional $1.25 for unlimited fountain soft drinks. Monday through Thursday dinner is $17.99. This is one of the most expensive Asian buffets in the area. The meal is extensive and the food is good so the price is justified - NOW - for what you are paying. But for some of us, this is not something that is affordable every week, and I reserve this for dinners when I want something special.
The sushi bar is now extensive. There is a long sushi bar with sushi chefs standing behind the bar and preparing fresh sushi as needed. I have seen people request special rolls and sushi and it has been made for them. There is a large assortment already out and there is a nice variety of raw fish just on its own without rice or in a roll. I like their seared tuna. I like many of the sushi that they have to offer and some of it is labeled as to what it is. The chefs will tell you what something is if you don't recognize it.
There are several soups. The lobster bisque is good but it varies - it should be thick. It has been thick and thin. The taste is there regardless and there are small pieces of lobster in the salmon color red broth. Of course, there are the usual Chinese soups, clam chowder, and on this night, Italian Wedding Soup.
The salad bar is sparse. There is a little assortment, but if you want to fix a green salad there is enough there. There is also a crock of mixed black and green Mediterranean olives. These fit in with the international fare.
The dumpling selection varies but there are several to choose from and away from the steam table and on the nearest hot buffet table there are fried dumplings as well. Next to the dumplings there are grilled meats on skewers - nicely seasoned chicken and also nicely seasoned beef. There are also shrimp and sausage sticks.
There is also an assortment of cold seafood including shrimp, salmon, clams on the half shell, raw oysters, and half cold crabs. Some may recall the large, already peeled shrimp from the old days - now the shrimp is in the shell. There have also been on occasion cold crab legs here - in addition to the hot crab legs on the buffet server.
They have entrees that range from American to Italian, to Chinese - with a little bit of mix in between. The are often some unusual dishes included and each time I come there are a few changing and different dishes. This night there was beef stew, small chicken pot pies, and a Chinese sausage and tofu dish. I tried the beef stew which was tasty but grizzly and the Chinese sausage and tofu. There were no longer pieces of sausage left in the serving bowl. There were two pieces of tofu which I found turning the contents over several times with the serving spoon. They came up from the bottom and I took one of them. The rest of the dish was bean pods, sliced water chestnuts, sliced carrots, and onion. It was in a mild and thin brown sauce. The taste was very good. I really wanted to try Chinese sausage but the serving bowl remained the same for the rest of the evening - half full but with all of the sausage and the tofu taken out. There was plenty more to take so other than a minor disappointment of not finding what was a surprise to find in the first place, it did not matter much.
One of the big draws here are the crab legs served every night and the lobster in ginger sauce which is served only on the weekend dinners. The lobster is cut up into chunks. Depending on who is dining and the crowd you will get lobster easily or you will stand in a line waiting for a new tray to come out which will be descended upon by those in line and if you are lucky there will be pieces worth taking when you get up to your turn. They do regularly refill the lobster so it is likely that if you keep an eye on that part of the buffet you may just get to be the first on line. There are also nights without much of a crowd - or later on any one of the nights - where you can walk right up to the tray and take your pick. I find it interesting that the most meaty part of the lobster - the tails - are not always taken first, and if you move the pieces around in the tray with the serving tongs you will find sections of tail with large chunks of lobster meat.
If you feel that you would like even more then there are two carvings - Peking duck and Prime Rib of Beef. These are over by the grill and the dumplings.
Dessert offers an interesting assortment of fresh fruit, puddings, a large flan full of custard and covered in melted sugar, hard ice cream that you serve yourself from a freezer chest, and a large assortment of the little cake squares that are found at most Asian buffets. I call these "Little Debbie" cakes because they are the size and quality of the cakes by that name found in supermarkets in the snack cake aisle. Just in case you want something different for dessert they now are making - over at the grill - made to order hot crepes filled with your choice of filling and covered in gobs of whipped cream.
There is enough to eat. The food is good. Something I did not say when they first reopened. If you don't mind spending a little more then this is a good choice. I know readers that have traveled several states to come here - mostly for the lobster - that is a lot of gas to use and pay for to get lobsters. But, nevertheless, they have come and come back.
D.J.'s International Buffet is located at 1100 Stewart Avenue in Garden City, New York. Their phone number is 516-227-2472. The hours of the restaurant are Lunch Monday to Friday, 11:00am to 3:00pm;Brunch Saturday and Sunday 11:30am to 3:00pm; Dinner Monday to Thursday, 4:00pm to 10:00pm, Friday to Sunday, 4:00pm to 10:00pm. There is still no website.
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