Back again to Global Buffet, Levittown, NY

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Back to Peking Buffet, Williamsburg, VA

A number of years back in 2007 the Peking Buffet was our first "Best Asian Buffet". They still have the certificate framed in their door's entrance way. It is also listed on their website. This was always a buffet that we looked forward to going to whenever we were in this area. Then about four or so years ago, they added some things and made some changes to what was served on the buffet. I am sure many will like what they added - a section of Thai food and also a Sushi Train. Many will also like the changes to some of the dishes on the buffet toward hot and spicy. We don't really like hot and spicy - and most of the Thai food that is on its own buffet section is also spicy - so the appeal for us to come here was reduced a bit. Where we would have come back more than once, it has become a maybe visit once. It is however the only Asian buffet of any significance remaining in this immediate area. Others that we have been to in the past and have written about are now gone.

So - w were there recently and we went back. My experience this time was more positive as I found some entrees on the Vegetarian section of the buffet that are favorites and while I am not a vegetarian, these dishes and a few others made for a very satisfactory meal.

One of the things that has remained here is an extensive selection of soups - and with this there is a noodle section at the grill counter where you select one of several different types of noodles and a soup will be created for you by the chef behind the counter consisting of ingredients of your choosing.  We both had Vietnamese pho noodles with cilantro in broth. It was very good - it always has been.

I have written about the Sushi Train before and you can look up any of my other articles in the past few years about this buffet. Let's just say that if you want to stand and watch unlabeled plates of sushi move past you on a track and "have to" take each single piece with its plate, and try to carry more than two or three back to your table - and you like spicy sushi - you will love this. I don't bother with it any more. It may work in Tokyo where you sit at a counter with this going by in front of you - it does not work in a buffet.

The two dishes that I found on the Vegetarian section were vegetable chow mein and vegetable moo shu.  I wish other Asian buffets would add these two simple dishes. I like chow mein. I like moo shu. I admit that to the chow mein I added chicken from the chicken and broccoli tray as I walked back to our table. I also went to the Mongolian grill - they still have the large round domed grill that was very popular at many Asian buffets a number of years ago - and have now been replaced by small hibachi grills.  At his grill, it is the usual choose your meats and vegetables - then pour over that sauces - and hand this to one of two chefs who move your selections around the circumference of the big grill with sticks until it is cooked. The sauces are spicy or sweet. I put none on mine and added soy sauce when I got back to the table and this made me happy.

While we were eating a family of four came in. The couple had a toddler age boy and girl. They decided that they were ordering from the menu - which you can do here if you don't want the buffet. They ordered sushi rolls for themselves and fried rice and lo mein for the kids. What came were two huge platters of fried rice and lo mein. Enough in each platter to feed four hungry adults. All of this was on the buffet (except perhaps the specific sushi rolls that they ordered). The kids each ate about five spoonfuls of the fried rice and noodles. The parents did not take any. All of this was still on the table when they left. It was not that they did not like it - they seemed very happy while they were eating, but it was way too much. They must have paid more for this than if they had ordered the buffet - for the size of these platters and what the sushi ordered this way costs, they had to have. They should have just ordered the buffet. Even the waitresses who cleared the table after they left were amazed at how much food was left untouched.

There is a lot to eat here if you like what you find and if you can eat what is here. Everything is tasty. The food is good. Service is good. The price is also very reasonable at $12.99 for dinner. I am hoping that when I have an opportunity to go back, they will have the chow mein and moo shu again - not spicy.

If you are in this area and want to have all you care to eat Asian, try it. I am certain that anyone who does not mind hot and spicy Asian foods will find much, much more than those of us who would like to eat it but just can't - but still we found enough to eat to end the meal full.

The Peking Restaurant in Williamsburg, Virginia is located at 120 Waller Mill Road in the Big Kmart Shopping Center. (Kingsgate Green Shopping Center – Bypass Road (Rt.60)). The phone number is (757) 229 - 2288. There is a website and that is listed at the side of this page.

Back at D.J.'s International Buffet, Garden City, NY

It has been almost two years since we have been to D.J.'s International Buffet. This is an Asian buffet that is a considered to be a step above most of the others in this area. It has been around for a long time - closed suddenly, reopened a year or more later, with a new owner though keeping most of what it had been prior including most of the menu. Since then it has changed in menu and interior decor a few times. There have been newspaper ads in the past several months - maybe longer - saying new menu and changes. There are usually coupons and we clip them just in case we decide to go. We don't generally go. The price for dinner here is $19.95 on weekdays and $27.95 from Friday through Sunday. This is just too much for just any meal. We have in the past gone to this buffet for "special occasions" when spending the additional amount for dinner for the two of us to celebrate seems more justified. We just had a special occasion and considered two "special" buffets to go to -  Minado Japanese Seafood Buffet or D.J.'s International Buffet. Since the dinner price at Minado is $31 on a weeknight we decided to go to International Buffet - and we had a $3 off each dinner coupon. Prices for dinner do not include the beverage.

There have been some changes since we have been here last. The food on the hot and cold buffet tables is being served now in porcelain platters rather than in metal hot trays. Under the platters are the heaters from the steam table and everything was kept properly hot - or cold. This gives the buffet a nicer appearance than most - though there are not as many dishes now being served - as the platters are going across the middle of each buffet hot table and where there would have been two trays of food - one on each side - there is now one large platter going across. So half as many choices. This is still a large buffet and there is plenty of food to chose. In addition to the buffet tables there is a long sushi bar, a cold seafood bar turning the corner, a hot appetizer grill, and now where there used to be dumpling steamers, there is Udon Noodle Soup which you prepare yourself. Across from this is a soup bar with five soups. Across the buffet room is a dessert bar that is along the wall including a chocolate fountain and soft ice cream - and a hard ice cream treats freezer case.

I did not see the Udon Soup when I went for soup and took what has been my favorite of their soups for a long time - lobster bisque. This is a pink, semi-thick. cream bisque with no recognizable pieces of lobster - though it tastes of lobster. I scoop out a wonton from the wonton soup and add it to the lobster bisque. I like it. It has varied over the years. It was good on this visit. My wife told me about the Udon soup and even though I enjoyed the lobster bisque I like Udon Soup too. Well, before dessert, I went and took a bowl of the Udon Soup. There are bowls full of Udon noodles, shredded "krab", and a head of broccoli in each bowl. These are kept cool next to a pot of broth. In front are items to add to your bowl if you wish. I added dried seaweed and something that I have always seen put in Udon soup that looks like bread crumbs but I suspect are a dried fish of some type.  The hot broth brings everything hot in the bowl by the time you get back to the table. I first removed the broccoli, stirred the bowl to mix the contents and get everything swirling in the hot soup. The soup was very good.

My next course was from the sushi bar and since I don't eat rice I went directly to the tray of just raw fish. I took several large chunks of salmon and tuna. I also took a few other things that I will describe but do not know the names of - all of which I have had before in Japanese sushi restaurants - a partially cooked tuna crusted with black pepper in a thin sauce, the same but with a white fish, and raw, marinated beef with a pepper crust. All were very good. There were many different sushi rolls. If you would like to make a meal of a good variety of sushi it is very possible to do here. Of course, there is a lot more to eat here than sushi so I took a good sampling of what I can eat and then moved on to the rest of the buffet.

I will tell you about the things I took and will not try to tell you about everything that was here. There were two types of dumplings - lightly pan fried pork dumplings and also steamed shrimp dumplings. Both were very good. These were much better than they had been in the past. There were spare ribs that were nicely charred on the outside and while they were brushed with a sweet sauce, it was not the usual Chinese buffet too sweet red sauced spare ribs. There was a lot of meat on the ribs - close to but not quite traditional Chinese restaurant spare ribs (that only one buffet that I know of serves). The ribs were good. There was fresh corn on the cob at the grill that was made on the grill - I took a half ear of corn that was well charred. I have not had corn this way for a long time - not Asian - but good. Steamed flounder in ginger sauce was very good. There are crab legs here every night. They are not full clusters but individual legs. Your server brings an empty plate and a nutcracker to your table. The crab legs are fairly steadily replaced and remain hot - so you are able to open them and get the crab meat out without it sticking and remaining inside a mushy shell (which happens as crab legs start to cool). There was a dish that I have wanted to try - that I have seen on a menu at a Japanese food stand - called Chicken Katsu. I knew that it was a fried cutlet - and these are made with various meats. I was able to try it here and it was good. It is a breaded and fried chicken cutlet with a mildly sweet glaze on top. It is served here cut up into strips. I liked it (and now I know if I go back to that food stand it is something that I would enjoy - I don't only eat at buffets.) I tried stuffed lobster - not what you think. These were lobster heads that were hollow and filled with a crumb stuffing and what must have been bits of lobster. It tasted of lobster, though it was more crumb stuffing than anything else. These were baked. They had similar in crab shells. I tried Mongolian steak - good and and beef in black pepper sauce - OK.I had a King Seafood Roll - this was odd - a breaded fried roll shaped like but softer than an eggroll filled with chopped seafood. It was different and good. I took shrimp and some scallops out of the Seafood Delight platter and this was very fresh tasting shrimp and scallops. I tried Grand Marnier Shrimp which looked like what other Asian restaurants call coconut shrimp. It had the same texture but tasted very different. It was good - but not something that I would take more than one piece of. There was a lot more. These dishes must vary each day as the menus on the website of all of the dishes served only includes some of the things we had and saw and some of what we had are not listed at all.

It is easy to eat too much here but I made sure that I did not walk out feeling like I was going to burst. I stopped when I started to feel full and did save some room for a dessert.

The desserts here are a mix of the typical Chinese buffet little pastries and cakes plus an entire cold buffet table of fruits and desserts. One of the desserts on this table was Tirimisu. Intertnational Buffet for the longest time has had flan on the dessert buffet and it is still there - but it was orange in color (as I have recently seen it at another Asian buffet). I took a serving spoon full (one) of Tirimisu. It was very good. There was a liquor under taste to it but I am sure there was no alcohol in in it. There are lots of children who are at this buffet with families and there is nothing that is going to not be OK for kids as well as adults.

You should know that the weekend dinner includes Lobster in Ginger Sauce. This is why the price goes to $27.95. From past experience here, when there is lobster on the buffet there is a line of people waiting for a new tray to come out and the best of that tray is gone in a few minutes. Lobster is nice - it is not worth the fight or the money - and then come away with a few small pieces that are mostly shell. 

The meal was good! The service was good. There were three birthday parties going on in the room but the servers were still able to attend to them and all of their tables. Dishes were taken away promptly and drink refills were offered and brought.

We were very pleased with this meal. It was a nice celebration for our occasion. Will we go back? Yes,but for an occasion. This is too expensive for us for a weekly buffet meal - even with the coupon. If you feel that the price is within your budget and you are in this area of Long Island, NY try it.

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 a website linked on the side of this page. 

Return to Yummy China Buffet, East Meadow, NY

We decided to go back to Yummy China Buffet in East Meadow on Long Island in New York. We had just gotten a circular in the newspaper with their menu stating that their price was $15.99 with free soda - as it had been when we first went a month or so ago. This, that first time, was a sudden reduction in price from the usual $19.99 every day for dinner that this buffet opened for business with a number of months ago. In my first review I mentioned that it was uncertain if this price would remain in effect and that is still uncertain as the advertisement that we just received said that the price was for a limited time and showed it through March. This buffet is priced just right at $15.99 including the soft drink.

So we went back and were very pleased - again - with the meal that we had. For the most part the same dishes were on the buffet with just a few exceptions. We went both times on a Friday night so it may just be that this is the usual Friday night offerings. Everything that we had was good so there really was no disappointment that there were not other dishes that they show on their rotating buffet menu.

The best thing here in my opinion is a dish that they call Yummy Pork and I mentioned this in my first article about this buffet. This is a large piece of pork with the skin on that has been slow roasted to the point that the meat is moist and just pulls apart. The addition of the skin still on and roasted with the meat in whatever seasonings that they are using makes this delicious. I was very happy to see that this was there on the buffet on this second visit.

This time I also went up to the sushi bar to see what would happen if I asked for sushi without rice. There was absolutely no problem having this made for me. The sushi is served at a sushi bar with a chef making sushi to order from a menu - all is included in the price of the buffet. There are various rolls, sashimi, and also platters. The people at the table next to us were ordering sushi platters and they each were given a tray sized platter with various assortments of sushi. The platters have different names on the menu that sits on the counter next to the chef and each is described with what it includes. I ordered a salmon roll without rice. I was told that it would take ten minutes as there were two other orders in ahead of mine. This is the only drawback with this type of sushi service at a buffet as the one chef is doing all of the work to order. It was not a problem and I waited until he put my plate of salmon roll up on the counter for me to take. It was a roll of six pieces and he even  garnished the plate. I went back later for another roll. I was very happy. I can't eat rice - though I would love to - and I love sushi. Getting sushi without rice at a buffet has always been a challenge and I always wind up taking the rice and leaving it on my plate after I eat the fish.

I also tried the baby clams in black bean sauce. These ere very good and I rarely eat cooked, steamed clams. These clams were small, in the shell, and cooked in a very tasty sauce.

My wife commented during the meal that everything tastes like it is supposed to. That may sound like an odd comment but at many Asian buffets, the food is a bit different from what you would get if you went to a non-buffet Asian restaurant. Here the shrimp tastes like shrimp, is not mushy or hard, and has just the correct texture. This is true here for just about all of the dishes.

I had commented in my last article about this buffet that there had been no beef dishes out on the buffet. On this night there was beef with peppers. There was also a full tray of crab legs - which are individual legs and not clusters.

Everything is well tended and served at the correct temperatures. There is someone from the restaurant always checking the buffet and making sure that nothing needs to be replaced. If it does, a new tray come out from the kitchen shortly. The trays that are out are also stirred and not allowed to dry out.

Be aware, as I had suspected in my first article, that the soda served is not name brand. It is fine, it is just not Coke or Pepsi. It is included in the price and that helps to make it OK. 

Service here was again very good. The young lady who took care of our table cleared our dishes promptly and refilled our sodas without our asking.

I am very much hoping that the price here remains at $15.99 including the soda. Soda at buffets is about $1.99 or more in this area so when that comes off the price for comparison, the buffet dinner price becomes $14.00. Other than one buffet near to the location of this buffet, other Asian buffets on Long Island are starting at $14.99 without the soda. So this buffet's price - at this price - is very good for the area.

I feel that starting out with the $19.99 price hurt business at this buffet. On a Friday night, this buffet should have most of its dining room full. While there was a steady turnover of tables less than half of the tables in the small dining room were full. Two of the tables had regulars who the owner knew and came over to chat with several times. All of the employees here are very friendly to everyone! But if people are not coming, I have to wonder why. To start out with a high price and then see a need to lower that price to bring in business means that a lot more advertising needs to be done to let people know of the new price. They did send out this circular in the newspaper but it took them almost two months to do so. The other possible problem is that formerly this was a very run down Chinese buffet and many do not realize that it is under new ownership, far, far cleaner that it had been, and the food is much, much better. Taking over a failing restaurant can be a big problem as the former reputation remains with the location sometimes. I saw this before with a restaurant that was associated with a former restaurant in the same location that had problems. This can be overcome with good word of mouth and a lot of advertising to let everyone know that this is not the restaurant that once was here.

As I was leaving after a fine meal, I started thinking that this buffet has all of the markings of a Top Buffet. The price is the only concern and if it stays where it is at the present time, this buffet could be a best Asian buffet.  We will keep an eye on the price and on the consistency of the restaurant as a whole and see.

I do recommend Yummy China Buffet and Sushi Restaurant. Try it if you are in this area!

The Yummy China Buffet and Sushi Restaurant is located at 398 Merrick Avenue, East Meadow, New York 11554. The telephone number is 516-486-2525. There is no website. The restaurant is open from Tuesday to Sunday from 11:30 am to 10:00 pm. Prices are the same for weekdays and weekends. The lunch price is less. The restaurant is closed on Mondays.

Yummy China Buffet and Sushi Restaurant, East Meadow, New York

For years there has been an Asian buffet in East Meadow, NY, that my wife and I refereed to as "the little Asian buffet". I have written about it a number of times. It went from fair to poor to terrible and back to almost fair over the years. It never had much business and we always wondered how they could stay in business, especially with the competition near by. It finally closed - at least it looked like it was closed and then a sign went into the window that it was under renovation, and then opened with the same name which shortly was changed with the addition of Yummy at the beginning of the name. We wondered if it was different. At the time we first walked in to the newly reopened buffet we knew nothing about it. There had been no advertising at that point, no sign saying "Under New Management" or "Under New Ownership", or if it was just the same place as it always had been with a temporary closing. We went in one night and walked right back out. Nothing looked different inside from what we could see standing at the reception desk. I asked the price and was told $19.99! Wow! This had been a risky dinner when it was $11.99. There was no way that we were going to spend $40 for the two of us on a weeknight. We turned around and walked out.

I had not written about this at the time. I decided that it would not be fair of me to do so without actually knowing for certain what was going on inside for this price. One of our readers wrote during the past year and told me that she had been there for lunch and that it was OK but not worth the $9.99 charged every day for lunch. Then we started getting ad circulars for the restaurant stuck into the newspaper. There were coupons for 10% off but even at that, this was not a buffet to try for still as much as it came out to be with the 10% off. Then just after New Years Day we saw a moving marquee sign outside that seemed to say "Dinner $15.99". I called to make sure and yes, the price "for the Holidays" was $15.99 and a free beverage. At that price, we would give it a try.

We went in on a Friday night and there were four tables in the entire restaurant filled. This was just too reminiscent of this buffet before. I did not recognize any of the people working as having been there before. I had found a small review on a local community paper that talked about the new owners and staff as being a family running and working at this restaurant. We went in. The room was the same but with improvements that had been much needed. The ceiling was replaced and no longer looked like it was about to fall in where it had leaked. The tables and booths were arranged the same but the tables were new - with, for some reason, a large straw sun umbrella in the middle of each one going up to the ceiling. The booths looked the same but had been reupholstered and perhaps the tables had been replaced in them as well. Across the ceiling were hung colorful Chinese paper lanterns.  The room was brighter. The buffet tables and counter were exactly the same. The area that had been a grill in the rear is now a small sushi bar with a sushi chef standing behind (more about this later). We sat down and a very pleasant young lady came over to ask what we would like to drink. We both ordered Diet Coke. What came was not Diet Coke or Diet Pepsi. It must be an off brand of soda with an odd taste. Their circular says "Coke" and "Diet Coke" - it is was the real thing it was not mixing properly in the machine.

We always start with soup and there were four soups - Wonton, Egg Drop, Hot and Sour, and Miso. Nothing special about the soup but the soup was good. We tried the wonton soup and the egg drop soup and both were good.

In an Asian buffet I usually go up for sushi next, when they have it. Since this buffet is being billed as a sushi buffet in its name, I expected to see a lot of sushi. I walked up to the counter and there were a few pieces of an unknown sushi roll on a serving board. OK. I looked for a sign - "ask the chef", whatever, but saw none. There was a menu of sushi rolls on the counter in very small print. Do I ask for the chef to make me these?  I had no idea. (I have to add here that I saw a review on the Web about this restaurant and the comment was that a sushi roll was ordered and an extra charge appeared on the bill. This discouraged me from asking for anything of the sushi chef. It was too bad that I saw that review because this is not the case here now at all. One problem when looking up reviews for this buffet is that reviews are mixed up with those about this location and the old owners.) Latter while we were there, someone asked for a sushi roll to be made and it was made to order. This is a nice idea but so very different from most other sushi buffets - especially in this area - that it is not a good idea. Also, I would not want all of one sushi roll but would rather pick and choose different slices of roll - and I don't eat the rice. When we come back to this buffet and we will likely do that, I will ask for just fish and seaweed rolls with no rice and see what response I get. So, if you are into whole sushi rolls, this is the place to come. At the sushi counter there also was cold seaweed salad which was very good.

I just joined my wife who was picking appetizers from the buffet. I will tell you what there was out that night and items do change from a list of items from night to night (and the lunch buffet will not have as many items and will not have certain "special" dinner items). There were pork egg rolls that were good and tasted the way a pork egg roll should take which is not always the case at buffets. There were Spring Rolls, Fried Shrimp, Chicken Wings, Pan Fried Dumplings, Cheese Wontons, Chicken on a Stick, Yummy Meatballs, BBQ Spare Ribs, and Boneless Spare Ribs. On the salad bar there were cold crayfish, cold shrimp in the shell, cold baby clams, cold mussels, Edamame, Crabmeat salad (not real crab), half hard boiled eggs, and the fixings for a lettuce salad. The dumplings were good. There were also hot steamed crab legs. These were single legs and not clusters. The BBQ Spare Ribs were in a sweet sauce but not the usual overwhelmingly sweet red sauce usually found. The dumplings were also good. The Yummy Meatballs were interesting and tasty though I could not tell if they were beef, pork, or chicken or any combination.The appetizers were mixed into the general hot buffet so walk around the whole buffet server to see everything before you decide what to take.

Main courses were interesting. There were somethings here different from other buffets and some things much the same as you find at most Asian buffets. Again, these change night to night. There are things on the list that the restaurant sends out about what is on the buffet that were there the night we were there and other things that were not. There was Chicken and Broccoli, Sweet and Sour Chicken (add the sauce yourself), Sesame Chicken, General Tso's Chicken, Chicken with Garlic Sauce, Taiwan Chicken (just very slightly sweet), Teriyaki Chicken, Vegetable Egg Foo Young, Sauteed String Beans, Shrimp with Lobster Sauce (missing the pork but one of the best buffet shrimp with lobster sauce I have had and no Krab mixed in - just nice size shrimp), Yummy Salmon, Yummy Scallop - a mix of scallop and cheese baked on a large scallop shell and nice), hot steamed clams, Salt and Pepper Shrimp, Baby Clams in Asian BBQ Sauce, Mushrooms, Corn on the Cob, French Fries, Fried Plantains, Vegetable Lo Mein, Vegetable Fried Rice, White Rice, Brown Rice, and Garlic Bread. I have saved the best for last and the most different thing from other Chinese/Asian buffets - House Special Roast Pork. This was a large serving of what could have been a side of a whole pig. This had the skin that was roasted crisp and meat that just fell apart as you picked it up off of the serving tray. It was delicious and I went back more than once for more. This is only served at dinner and hopefully is served every night at dinner. There was a good assortment of dishes to choose from
but you may notice what is not here - beef. There were not beef dishes served on this night (unless the meatballs were beef). There are beef dishes on their list. What also is not here and for some who may have been here when the price was $19.99 is lobster. The Lobster Cantonese is not part of the regular buffet any longer. More about this later.

All of the food that I have listed and that we tried was high quality, fresh, and properly cooked and served. The food was much higher quality than most buffets. It was clear while we were eating that this is a family restaurant and I suspect that the lady who kept coming out from the kitchen with more trays to refill the buffet is the mother of the family - and she is cooking as she does for her family. There was a lot of attention paid to make sure that nothing was drying out and nothing was missing for any length of time. The cooking is good. The food was good.

Dessert is more or less the usual Asian buffet assortment of desserts. There is hard ice cream and also soft serve ice cream. There were cakes, cookies, puddings, and fruit. They had one of the best almond cookies and it seemed as if these were baked in the kitchen. They were full of almonds and had a nice texture. There was also a chocolate fountain.

Service was very good. It was clear that the young lady who was taking care of us at our table was also a member of the family and she was attentive. 

So - for $15.99 with the soda included this was a good meal at a fair price. At $19.99, no. I asked before we left if the price was going to stay at $15.99. I was told that it would stay there for awhile and that they were trying out this price and to get the price to $15.99 they eliminated the lobster from the dinner. The lobster is still available if ordered for $5 extra. I hope that they decide to keep the price at $15.99 including the soft drinks. At that price I will go back. At $19.99 I would not - even with the Lobster Cantonese. From the look of the poor attendance of diners at this restaurant that night, a lot more people need to know about this price change, and more will come. They said that their new newspaper circulars will show the new price - though it has been a couple of weeks and there has been no new ad yet. I will be looking for it. If you are going to try this buffet, call first and ask about the price.

The Yummy China Buffet and Sushi Restaurant is located at 398 Merrick Avenue, East Meadow, New York 11554. The telephone number is 516-486-2525. There is no website. The restaurant is open from Tuesday to Sunday from 11:30 am to 10:00 pm. Prices are the same for weekdays and weekends. The lunch price is less. The restaurant is closed on Mondays.

Ruby Buffet, Massapequa, New York

During the early summer of 2012 we saw signs in an indoor shopping mall not too far from our home about a new Chinese buffet "coming soon". The sign was posted next to the food court and we wondered where they would fit a buffet restaurant - and we were not sure if this would be a real sit down buffet restaurant or a counter buffet in the food court with per pound prices. Months and months went by with no sign of any buffet and no indication where it would be in the mall.  In late October we saw the first signs of the buffet - construction outside the mall building but attached to it - next to the food court. There was a sign - "Ruby Buffet Coming Soon". It would be attached to the mall but not in the mall.

In late December we saw an advertisement in the newspaper for Ruby Buffet and a coupon for 20% off. We finally got to try the restaurant in mid-January. The day we were going to go, I did an internet search for Ruby Buffet and found a webpage and also discovered that this buffet was part of a chain of Ruby Buffets with three locations in Pennsylvania, one in New Jersey, one in Maryland, and this one in New York. Each location had a webpage and I went to see what I could find out about Ruby Buffet. The first thing that struck me was the price - $14.99 which is on the upper mid-range of buffet prices in this area. Children are $8.99 (6-10 - over 10 pay adult price) and $6.99 (2-5). Under two are free. Soda with refills is $1.99. For a family this meal can get expensive. Looking at the website, I was taken with the photos of the food being served. Platters of sushi and sashimi, whole prawns with the heads (which are common in other areas, but not in New York), large crab leg clusters, a nice looking carved steak, and a tray of wonderful looking spare ribs were featured in the photos. They described themselves as international in one spot, as a Japanese and Chinese seafood buffet in another spot, and under their name on the sign it says "Asian Buffet". From the photos on the website I was eager to go and try this buffet. I had been thinking prior to that day that I would love to have good Chinese spare ribs. Not the type that most buffets serve - small ribs with no meat covered in thick red sweet sauce - but rather real Chinese restaurant ribs which I know only one Chinese buffet serves - Good Taste Buffet in Commack,NY (which I have written about several times on this site and you can find the articles in the archives). When I saw the photo of the ribs at Ruby Buffet they looked just like those. I thought that if we go instead for the first time to Ruby Buffet I could have those ribs and also try a new buffet that we have been meaning to try. I also saw a photo of a very appealing steak that caught my eye as well. It was with much anticipation that we headed out to Ruby Buffet.

The buffet is located outside the food court in the rear of the mall, right off the parking lot and has its own entrance outside. There is no entrance to the restaurant from inside the mall - and this buffet is open much later than the mall is - to 10 pm on weeknights and to 11 pm on Fridays and Saturdays. We went on a Friday night. There were a lot of cars outside the entrance in the parking lot. It turns out that these were shoppers at the mall. When we went into the restaurant on a Friday evening it was almost empty. There were several tables tables filled out of many. This was a big surprise. Asian buffets in this area on a Friday night are packed. The weather was good. There were people in the mall. There was hardly anyone in the restaurant. My first thought was that at $14.99 this buffet was priced way too high for the location. This management was hoping that this buffet would hold its own as a stand alone restaurant without connection to the mall, but from appearances, that was not happening. Not far away is a larger Chinese buffet with a lower dinner price that has had lines to get in most nights - especailly on Friday and Saturday night - for the past year since it opened. 

We went in and were seated. The dining room is very nicely decorated. There are booths around the walls and there are tables in the middle of the dining room. Along the walls there are four other small dining rooms. These rooms had about sic to eight tables along the walls in each. The rooms seemed too small for party rooms and they had no doors to separate them for a private party. It was just odd that such small rooms would be scattered about. A server came right over and asked for our beverage order and we went right up to the buffet. I looked quickly around the buffet servers and I was not seeing what I had seen in the photos - well, let me put it this way - similar items were there, but they did not look anyway near prepared as they were in the photos. There were three, double sided hot buffet servers in the middle of the buffet area which takes up the rear of the restaurant. We went up first for soup. There were Oriental in design, square soup bowls. There were four soups. One was the standard wonton soup, another was hot and sour, the third was Seafood Soup - a white thin soup with a mixture of egg and pieces of seafood (not uncommon at some buffets), and the fourth soup was Seafood Bisque - a thick, orange color soup with what appeared to be flat noodles but I believe more to be pieces of Krab broken up into the soup, chunks of potato, carrot, and a few small lumps of what could be real crab,shrimp, or other seafood (it was hard to tell). I took the Seafood Bisque. My wife took the wonton soup.

My wife commented to me how good the wonton soup broth was. She described it as light and not salty. (Based on this, I went back toward the end of the meal and took some - by now it was more salty - perhaps because it was added to or perhaps it had cooked down in the hour and became more concentrated.) The Seafood Bisque despite the unknown seafood content was very tasty. Bisque should have a little bite to it and this one was just right. I very much enjoyed the soup! Around the point that we were finishing our soup, the manager who had been hovering around various tables came over to ask how the food was - we said very good - as it this point it certainly was.

We moved on to our next course, and my wife went to the dumplings and I went to the sushi bar. The small platters of sushi somewhat resembled what they had in the photos. There were no labels on anything. There was an assortment of rolls, fish on rice and one small platter of just pieces of fish with seaweed salad on the side. This platter emptied quickly - with the few diners in the restaurant - and did not get replaced until we were leaving, despite the two sushi chefs behind the counter. I am not sure what they were making but it did not seem to be actively replacing what was missing from the platters on the ice covered counter. In fact, later in the meal we observed one moving out empty platters and rearranging those left to look as if nothing was missing. The quality of the fish was just less than average for other buffets or equal or less cost. It was not bad but not full of flavor.

I next went up to try the dumplings and saw on the end of a long cold buffet server on the side that there were peel and eat shrimp, raw clams on the half shell, and raw oysters on ice. I am very careful about raw shellfish at buffets and it must be on hard ice and not look glazed, dry, or waxy in any way. The oysters looked wet and fresh. I took some of those and spooned some cocktail sauce on. (The rest of that buffet server had an extensive salad bar, fresh fruits, canned fruits, and puddings.)

I then went over to the dumplings and took a dim sum and two pan fried dumplings.  There were also bean paste buns and a roll of some type of leaf filled with rice and bean paste, tied with string in a bundle and steamed. The oysters were fresh and good. The dim sum was typical of buffet dim sum. The pan fried dumplings were light and in the style that I have had them at Japanese restaurants. They were good. My wife tried the leaf stuffed with rice and bean paste and she said that it was very good. She commented that the bean paste was not sweet as it is in a bean paste bun.  We should have ended the meal here and this review would come out much better than it will.

I had come for spare ribs and I went next to take some. The spare ribs that were out were nothing like the ribs that were in the photo. These were not Chinese-style spare ribs. These were an attempt at spare ribs from a barbecue restaurant. They had a brown sauce covering them and it looked like they had been baked rather than grilled in a flame broiler. There was little meat on the bones and what was there would not cut off or bite off. I took two ribs and had little meat to eat and what meat that I could get off was hard to chew and not very tasty. The sauce was an attempt at American barbecue sauce but not quite. I was very disappointed. Sometimes a restaurant should leave photos off their site that do not reflect what you will actually find when you get to the restaurant. Later, more ribs came out - replacing the two I took - and I decided I would try again. This time the two ribs I took had slightly more meat come off the bones but it was still hard to hack off and the taste was not worth the effort. (Good Chinese spare ribs are not hard to make - the ribs go under a flame broiler and are turned halfway through. They come out moist, crispy on the edges, and full of flavor. I have watched them made many times at the Chinese take out and they come out wonderful. Why is this so hard for a buffet to do?!?)

I went over to the crab legs. There were no large clusters as there were in the photo. There were small legs - the smaller two legs of a cluster attached. I am not sure where the rest of the cluster went. I took two of these paired crab legs back to my table. When I got there a server came running over with a wooden bowl. The size of the bowl would hold twice what was out in the serving tray on the buffet. Nice gesture, I guess. I broke the larger of the two legs off one of the pair and cracked open the shell with my hands and pulled out the meat - in one piece. I took a bite and my mouth filled with the taste of all of the salt in the ocean. I have had crab legs in buffets and restaurants for many, many years. I have never had crab legs that tasted as much as pure salt as these. Perhaps it was just the one. I tried the other - exactly the same. Not good. Not good at all. If crab legs are naturally very salty, everyone else must do something to rinse that salt off before they are boiled or steamed and served. I have never before had any this salty - even in the cheapest buffet!

My wife all of this time who is a picky eater - as you regular readers well know by now- was picking through the few actual entrees that were on the buffet. She tried a little of the beef and peppers. She even tried the steak - which by the way was nothing like the wonderful looking steak in the photo. This was a piece of steak that had been browned on top and only slightly on bottom and looked like it had some type of coating on top - though it was hard to tell what that might be and did not taste coated. In fact, (I tried it too) it did not much taste like anything. Ah, well. She eventually resorted to going back to the beginning items and took appetizer items like chicken on a stick and peel and eat shrimp. She did like the seaweed salad, but as I mentioned, it never came back out until we were leaving and she had taken what little had been on the original platter near the beginning of our meal.

It looked like there were a lot of things to choose to eat -and there were - but there were few stand alone entrees. There was chicken and broccoli and beef and peppers - of course, these are the two Chinese buffet standards. I am not sure how they came to be that but go to any Chinese buffet and there they will be as if these are the pinnacle of Chinese cuisine.  I will say that they were made well and these two dishes had a better taste than many other Chinese buffets. There was General Tso chicken - another buffet staple. There was honey chicken, chicken and shrimp with black pepper sauce, seafood scampi, salt and pepper crab halves that were primarily shell, coconut shrimp,
 I sounds like a lot but as we walked around and looked for what was not hot and spicy and what was not overly sweet, we were walking around looking and looking for what to take.

I tried some basics - an egg roll and lomein noodles. Buffet egg rolls are usually doughy. These were pretty much only the doughy wrapper with hardly anything inside. The not crispy dough wrapper was hard to bite into and next to impossible to chew. I resorted to scooping the little filling out with a fork and that had little flavor. The lomein noodles, themselves, were authentic and long. They were cooked in too much oil, and while they tasted good, they were too greasy. My wife tried the chow mei fun noodles and said that they were not bad. She also tried the fried rice and she said that it was lightly cooked - it did not look brown as most Chinese fried rice looks but more like Japanese fried rice.

I tried a crab cake. It was served with a bowl with what the sign said was honey mustard on the side. the crab cakes were small and thick. They were made with real crab. The first one I tried was tasty. The second one I took later - with a dab of the honey mustard - was more filler than crab and the honey mustard sauce was made with Chinese hot mustard. That ruined whatever taste there was in the crab cake.

There had been a tempting photo of a whole Peking Duck on the website. There was duck on the buffet, but what was out were two half drumsticks and little pieces of duck that were more bone and grizzle than meat. I tried one of the half drumsticks. It was OK. There were no Peking Duck pancakes or the usual vegetables that accompany the duck in the pancake - scallions, cucumber, etc. There was a bowl of the brown sauce to spoon on the duck.


This is a list of what was on the buffet on this night. To be fair there is a lot here, but quantity does not mean anything if the taste does not stand out for the better. Soups - Wonton, Hot and Sour, Seafood, and Seafood Bisque. Dumplings - Fried dumplings, dim sum, bean bun, steamed bun, gluten rice with bean paste. On the cold servers - seaweed salad, sushi, edamame, salad, "French salad", krab salad (not crab salad), pasta salad, shrimp, clams, oysters, seafood salad. Hot foods - chicken on a stick, lo mein, ribs, rib tips, spring rolls, egg rolls, seafood scampi, chicken and broccoli, pepper steak, fried shrimp, chicken fingers, NY steak with teriyaki sauce, garlic bread, spinach, honey chicken, General Tso chicken, crab legs, roast chicken, chicken wings, pasta with krab (not crab) and mozzarella cheese, pizza, string beans, shrimp and chicken in black pepper sauce, cheese wontons, sweet and sour shrimp, cheese puffs, corn on the cob, spiced crabs, salmon with dill sauce, fried Texas fish (catfish), baby clams with black bean sauce, coconut chicken, and french fries. Desserts - soft ice cream with cones and sprinkles, cakes, fruit, fried donuts, puddings, and almond cookies.


Desserts were three trays of the usual Chinese restaurant "Little Debbie" type sheet cakes, some cookies, soft serve ice cream and the fruits and puddings that I mentioned above. There was nothing tempting in the desserts. My wife had fresh melon and we both had a fortune cookie. I had decided that if there was something good I would try a dessert. They were all commercial and nothing was worth the carbs.

Service was good. There was a server at our table regularly to take our plates away - sometimes just as we finished with them. We were offered to refill our drinks. I was given the bowl for the crab shells. Everyone was pleasant and said hello when we came in and said good bye as we were leaving. 

Overall - the meal was a big disappointment. There were a few good things to eat. The Seafood Bisque was the best thing that I had in the whole meal. There were too many things that were just OK or not good. Nothing was bad. It was just not good. Had everything been cooked as it should have been and tasted as it should have - with all of the seafood, etc. the meal would certainly be worth the $14.99 ($16.96 with soda). But in the end - with how it all was - it just is not worth the price - and even at less of a price, it was not a place that I would go back to. It was just too disappointing. Perhaps this was why there were so few people in the restaurant. Perhaps those who would come here had already come and found what I did.

I cannot really recommend this buffet. I would love to be able to. Maybe they will improve. At some distant point in the future, I may go back - just to see if it gets better. But until then, this one was a big disappointment. (I have said that several times, haven't I? Hmm - must be how I truly feel.)

Ruby Buffet is located at Westfield's Sunrise Mall in Massapequa, New York off of Sunrise Highway. The address is 1 Sunrise Mall Suite 2152, Massapequa, NY 11758. The phone number is (516) 882 - 0300. There is a website and it is linked at the side of this page. I have no idea if my meal at this location is any indication of the food at the other Ruby Buffet locations.

Another Try at Peking Restaurant, Williamsburg, Virginia

In October 2011 and then again in February 2012, I wrote about an Asian buffet restaurant in Williamsburg, Virginia that had been one of our favorites. It is the Peking Restaurant and in 2007 it received a Best Buffet award from this site. Before October 2011 we had not been back to this area in several years and when we returned we expected to find this favorite buffet just as it always had been. It was not. You can go back and read the articles in October and February. I am not linking them here because I want to associate this article with the negative experiences that we had in those articles. I will say that after the last visit written about in February we decided that we would not go back to the Peking Buffet.

Since then I have learned what happened there. The general manager who had been there all along was no longer there - apparently, not by his choosing. He did go to open another buffet restaurant in the area which I have written about - Wasabi - and that buffet was very good. I have said on this site many times that the manager can make or break a restaurant - and especially a buffet! We are experiencing this with another buffet that we frequent whose excellent manager was let go for unknown reasons and the good buffet has nose-dived to barely a fair buffet. Others who liked Peking Buffet also noticed what I did last year and agreed with me. Things were not good there anymore.

We found ourselves in Williamsburg, Virginia again recently - as those of you who are regular readers know from the recent Williamsburg buffet articles. We had intended to have more than one dinner at Wasabi - the restaurant that the former Peking Buffet manager opened. We we got there we found Wasabi closed. There were advertisements everywhere for Wasabi. The building was dark and a sign on the door indicated renovations were being done. What I later learned was that the owner - the man from Peking Buffet - was made an offer by a Virginia "name" chef to buy him out, which he did and the owner left the US to go to Taiwan. Perhaps good for him, but not so great for those of us who really liked his buffet. The new restaurant that has opened at Wasabi's location is not a buffet and an up-scale Oriental menu restaurant with high prices.

So, I told you all that to get to this. We got to a point that we did not know where to go for dinner. We had been to the other buffets enough and could not really afford the menu restaurants around town other than the chains and did not want to do that. My wife, with reluctance, said to me do you want to try Peking Buffet again? My first response was no. I thought about it and found myself driving to Peking Buffet. I knew that nothing really would have changed there, but perhaps someone there read one of my more recent articles and maybe it might be different.

In terms of layout and serving areas, everything is the same.  One of the things to understand about the food here as I, personally, am concerned, is that on the buffet now there are an overwhelming number of items on the buffet that are either very sweet or extra hot and spicy. There are dishes that I can take at other Chinese buffets and not have a problem with, that I cannot take here because they are over-spiced. Some may find this as a good thing. I want to taste the food and not the spiced heat. Going up to the buffet for food, I had to be sure to select things that I was going to be OK eating. My wife, as the regular readers know, only eats "plain" foods - not just not spicy but beyond that. I decided that I would follow what she was taking and eat similarly - and perhaps I would have a better experience here than I have had on my last two visits.

We started with the noodle soup station which will create a soup to your order using any of several noodle types. This has always been good here - and was equally good on our last two visits. We like Vietnamese pho soup and that is what we had the soup chef at the counter make for us. It was good - it always has been good.  It still is.

I moved on to the "Sushi Train" which in my last two articles I explained is a moving counter with sushi on plates that move past you and you take the plates that you want. This concept does not work well at a buffet. First, you can stand there an overly long time waiting for something that went past to come back around again. Second, if you want five pieces of sushi, you are picking up five small plates. How are you supposed to carry all of these small plates back to your table. There are no trays. I went up with a large plate. I had decided that I would do one of two things. I would either take a small plate and dump the contents onto my large plate - and then have to get rid of the small plate - or I would use the large plate as a tray to carry the small plates stacked up. I went with the plate as a tray idea as I decided it would be rude to stack the little plates up on their counter and leave them. It would make a statement to how this idea does not work, but I would not do that. I took several plates of sushi and carried them back carefully on top of a dinner plate. The variety of sushi is broad. It is not well labeled and it is often a surprise when you find out that what you thought you were taking is not at all that. They have enough area to make a nice sushi serving area - but they continue with this "train" idea.


I went on to main courses and side dishes. I completely skipped the Thai section. These are beyond hot and spicy. The Japanese hibachi area is serving teriyaki and that is also made spicy. I am not sure why. I skipped that as well. There were some dumplings, noodle dishes, and rice dishes there that were fine. On the main buffet server between the Mongolian BBQ and the Japanese hibachi, there was a mix of standard Chinese dishes such as chicken and broccoli, pepper steak, and the like and then a number of hot and spicy dishes, and then a number of sweet dishes. As I said, I watched my wife and chose dishes that were plain to mild. One dish looked plain enough until you saw that the pan was lined with chili peppers. But there at least were things this time that were there to take that were not spicy. If you like sweet, there were a number of dishes cooked in sweet sauces.

I also went over to the Mongolian BBQ and remembering my last visit I made my plate up of meat - I took chicken - there was also beef, pork, lamb, and shrimp - and raw shredded vegetables and bean sprouts and put none of the sauces that were there on top. The sauces - even those that should not be  - are spicy. This was cooked for me and when I got back to the table I added soy sauce to moisten it. As I had it made, it was fine for me. Again, if you like hot and spicy, you can go to town with mixing the sauces that are out to have your meat and vegetables cooked in.

On one side of the round Mongolian grill serving counter there is a cold section and there were steamed shrimp on ice there. These shrimp are served with the heads on. This is how they would be served in the Orient. Most Americans don't like to see shrimp with the heads on. If you break off the head, it is just the same as the cocktail shrimp you usually fine.

The desserts here are typical Asian buffet desserts - little squares of cake, fruit, ice cream. One does not go to an Asian buffet for the desserts.

The restaurant is clean. Service is fine. At this meal we both had enough to eat. I did not feel hungry after we were through and we were both fine. I was able to find enough to eat this time even being careful in what I was choosing.  Overall, this was a much better experience than we had on the last two visits and meals eaten here.

Would I go back?  On this experience, I would go back and likely, will. Do I recommend Peking Restaurant? After your reading what I have written here in regard to the level of spice used and the types of foods that you will encounter, if you like spicy and/or sweet - or if you have no problem with picking and choosing to find what you can that is on the plain side, then yes, try it. I eat at a lot of Asian buffets. I have not had to pick carefully at any other as I find I have to here. Again, this is me - and there are others out there just like me. If you have food restrictions, it gets a little harder.  I do miss the Peking Restaurant that I once knew. There was a far wider variety of foods and the emphasis did not used to be on spicy and sweet.

The price of dinner here is $11.99. Lunch is $7.99. Thai food is only brought out after 4;30 pm. Sushi is served after noon. Soft drinks with refills are additional. The restaurant is open 7 days a week. Unlike many family buffets, there is a full service liquor bar.

The Peking Restaurant in Williamsburg, Virginia is located at 120 Waller Mill Road in the Big Kmart Shopping Center. (Kingsgate Green Shopping Center – Bypass Road (Rt.60)). There is a website and that is listed at this side of the page.

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.

Return to Wasabi Oriental Buffet, Williamsburg, Virginia

I first found Wasabi Oriental Buffet this past summer and wrote about it in October. In that article I was pleased with the meal that we had there and recommended it to you all as a great place to go in this area if you are looking for both a buffet and a Chinese meal. We were back in Virginia in early December and went back to Wasabi Oriental Buffet. I say, very happily, that it was just as good - and perhaps, better.

We were there on a winter weeknight. There were few people in the restaurant. In my first review, I noted a concern that some of the foods were just warm and not hot. That was not the case at all on this visit. All of the food was the correct temperature. If there was going to be an issue with food sitting or food not being kept hot, it would happen on a night like this. There was NO problem at all.

Since this was not my first visit to this buffet, I took items that I recalled I liked here, and was not as concerned as I would be on a first visit to take a broader sampling of the dishes offered. One thing that I wanted to try again was the Hawaiian BBQ. This is something that is featured in this restaurant's advertising. On this visit I took the chicken and the pork. Both were very good. They were not that sweet - and they had a nice flavor. I liked it enough to go back for more.

When I was here in August, I mention in my first article that there seemed to be the making of a made to order soup bar. At that time it did not seem to be operational. It was all set up this time in the back behind the Mongolian BBQ counter. No one was there when we went to get one of the soups out on the buffet in soup servers, but I am sure had I called someone over to make noodle soup for me, someone would have come right over to explain what they had and what they make. This was a very quiet night. I am sure on a busy night there would have been someone there - and in fact, the chef for the Mongolian BBQ who must be the soup chef as well, was behind the counter at various times during our visit - including when I went up for Mongolian BBQ.

The Mongolian BBQ is good here. There is the usual variety of meats and vegetables. The sauces are nicely seasoned and if you do not want hot and spicy, you have no problem here. I like being able to take my own selection of things I like and create a dish - and, I did go back up twice on this visit.

The sushi bar has a nice variety and on this visit there was more than just rolls. There was fish on rice. While some Asian buffets frown on taking the sushi and not eating the rice, there was no problem with that here. I love rice. I can't eat rice, and I like sushi. When there is no choice of just taking raw fish (sashimi?) - which is offered in some Asian buffets, I take the fish on beds of rice and do not eat the rice. I did this here - no problem.

Bottom line. It was good in August. It was good in December. I will be going back - and I travel through here at least twice a year. With our poor experience twice at what had been our must "go to" Chinese buffet in this area, we are very happy that we have found Wasabi. I like it and my picky eater wife likes it. If you are in Williamsburg, Virginia, try it!

Wasabi Oriental Buffet is located at 1203 Richmond Road, Williamsburg, Virginia. This is right near Colonial Williamsburg and William and Mary University. Their phone number is 757-645-3988. There is a website and there is a link to that website at the side of this page.

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

It was time for our annual Office Christmas Party for Two once again and as we have for the past two years, the local Minado Japanese Seafood Buffet was at the top of the list. This year I was a little hesitant about going back - not because the restaurant is not wonderful - IT IS - but because with my recent diet restrictions I was not sure that I would enjoy this buffet as much if I could not indulge in many of my favorites. Silly me! While I am writing this, a good two hours since we finished this great meal I am still feeling stuffed. I had no problem at all at Minado finding things to fill my plate over and over again.

As those of you who are regular readers know, I have eaten in a lot of buffet restaurants. I have eaten in many really great buffet restaurants. The meals that I have had a Minado - and all together there have only been three including this one - are the ones that I have perhaps enjoyed the most. The reason for this is that they are the most unusual meals that I have eaten at buffets. The fact that I can only really afford to eat here once a year for a special occasion may also lend to that enjoyment. Of course, the excellence of the food adds to it too. Let's face it - most buffets - no matter how good - are basically serving the same types of things. Foods that have become "American" foods - even at specialized buffets such as Italian and Chinese. At least for me, the foods found are not "that" unusual. But at Minado, the food is Japanese, and judging by the numbers of Japanese or Asian people that fill this restaurant's tables, the food must be pretty close to authentic.

The first thing to be aware of is that Minado is expensive. Monday to Thursday dinner is $28.99. Weekends the dinner is $30.95. This price has gone up one dollar since two years ago when I first came. The weekend dinner actually went down one dollar. Lunch is less and $16.95 and $20.95 and I know several people who go for lunch and tell me that the meal is just the same. We save this restaurant for this "special" party for two. When I started working at home, sharing a home business office with my wife several years back she suggested that just because I no longer worked in a corporate environment did not mean that I could not enjoy a "company Christmas party" every year. We would go and have our own Office Christmas Party at someplace special. Three years ago we decided upon Minado and now it has become part of this tradition. So we splurge. Now I know that many of you can well afford this meal and do not see these prices as expensive - but I also know that many of my readers would. (If I still worked for the corporation, I might think this expensive either - but when each dollar earned is hard earned this is on the higher end of a meal price.) This is also the type of meal that you want to keep special.

So what is so special about Minado. It is the food and the variety of it. Of course, it is Japanese. There is an abundance of sushi and raw fish. There are Japanese prepared cold dishes and salads. There is a large assortment of Japanese hot entrees. There is a soup station including made to order udon noodle soup. There is an hibachi grill. There are hot appetizers off a chargrill. There is cold seafood including cold crab legs (there are also hot crab legs). There is a dessert bar. And there is a hot crepe station. And with all of this - there is a lot of it.

I eat things here that I do not eat anyplace else - that are not served anywhere else that I go. On this night I had the raw beef again - thin slices of raw beef marinated. Surprisingly it is very good - well, I like my steak rare anyway. The raw fish here is exceptionally fresh. The best raw tuna that I have ever had I have had here - and each time that I have come.

There are sushi chefs working behind the buffet server constantly making sushi and replacing the platters that are on ice as they empty. Interestingly - and I am not sure how to see this - the sushi chefs seem to be the only actually Japanese chefs that are out at the servers preparing food. Those at the grills and the soup station are Hispanic. Never the less, they are Hispanics who have been well taught to cook Japanese. Regardless, no matter who is cooking here, the food is great and as I say, there are a lot of Japanese people eating here.

Each platter or serving tray that is out is clearly labeled to what it is and what the ingredients in the dish are. This is excellent- especially with so many unfamiliar foods. Knowing what is in the dish makes taking something that you have never seen before or heard of much easier and with confidence that it will not be something that you will not care for. And you know to avoid things that for whatever reason you cannot eat.

Last year I commented that the food was spicier than the year before. I did not find that this year. Things that were supposed to be spicy were, but many things were just right to my palate.

At most buffets - including this one - I take a little of whatever I take to taste and if I want to get more of the same I do or continue taking different things on return trips up to the buffet tables. At this meal I took a little and went back for something different. As it turns out - I am stuffed. I must confess that there were a few things that I went back and took a little more of - the raw tuna, the raw tuna seared on the outside, the raw beef, and smoked salmon.

I waited toward the end of the meal to go to the Hibachi grill. Some of you may be familiar with the Japanese restaurants where the chef cooks at your table and grills meats and vegetable while tossing knives up in the air. This grill is just like that - without the knife tossing. You have a choice of beef, shrimp, or chicken (or all three or any combination) and you are asked if you would also like vegetables - onion, zucchini, and mushrooms. The meat is put on the grill to begin to cook. The vegetables are put on the grill alongside. The onion is a large, whole slice of onion. The chef turns the meat - I had beef (I always have beef) which was a good size steak - and as it cooks he begins to cut it into strips with one of those same ultra sharp and pointed knives that I have seen tossed and juggled in those other Japanese restaurants. The vegetables are cut up on the grill as well. All of this is seasoned and then a bit of soy sauce and a quantity of butter is put on top of the food. The food is tossed on the grill for the seasonings and the butter to mix thoroughly through. You are then asked for your plate and it is all scooped up from the grill and placed on your plate. You get it all and it overfills your plate. This alone would make a dinner meal in regular Japanese restaurants perhaps with some fried rice and/or noodles on the side - and for a price equivalent to this whole buffet meal. Here it is just another of your selections as you go through the buffet taking what you like. And, of course, you can go back to the Hibachi and start all over again. This is what filled me up. This entire plate of steak and vegetables was a lot to eat. It would have even been a lot had it been shared by two. I must say that I did not stop with the plate of Hibachi steak. Perhaps I should have, but I went back for some more sushi and raw fish - oh, and a half bowl of miso soup (just to taste it - nice). Yes, I broke one of the rules - and I ate too much. I knew it before that last plate and I went up for more anyway. When I walked out of the restaurant after the meal, I gave a groan - I ate too much!

There is a nice dessert bar with a variety of little cakes though these are better than the little cakes that are usually found at Asian buffets. There are also fresh fruits and jello. There is a soft serve machine with both vanilla ice cream and green tea ice cream. The green tea ice cream is much in demand here and everyone seems to have a large bowl full. Even though we both should not have eaten any - we each had a very small cup full. It is very refreshing.

For others like myself and my wife who eat a low carb diet due to Diabetes, there was no problem selecting things to eat. We did perhaps eat a bit more carbs than usual but after the meal our blood glucose test numbers were within proper range (my wife's better than mine). There was no problem getting the same raw fish with out rice that is used in the sushi rolls. I took several rolls and fish on rice and left over the rice and nothing was said about it. Some of the marinades may have sugar in them - some are sweeter than others but there was nothing that was not manageable. Anyone should have no problem finding something they will enjoy here - this is called a seafood buffet and the only seafood my wife will eat is shrimp - and she had no problem selecting things and she only had a little shrimp.

Service here is excellent. The server was continually walking up and down the aisle taking care of his tables, removing dishes, and asking if there was anything needed.

If you would like to read my two past reviews of this buffet - with more detail on the dishes that you will typically find - they do change from time to time - but are selected from a master menu- the start with this article. That article will have a link to the prior year's article which has the most detail in it.

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 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.

I highly recommend this buffet. If you want, save it for a special occasion as we do.

One of my Favorite Buffets - Good Taste Buffet, Commack, NY

One of my favorite "local" buffets is a Chinese buffet in Commack, NY - about twenty miles each way from my home. I wrote about this buffet first in 2006 and since I have been there a number of times since that first happy discovery, I keep thinking that I have updated the review. I have mentioned the buffet in several articles, but I have not actually gone through a re-visit review. Since gas prices are lower than they were in 2006 I have been able to go to this buffet more frequently.

In November 2009 we set out one night on this long drive to go to Good Taste, arrived in the parking lot, got out of the car and walked up to what seemed to be a dark restaurant. In the restaurant next door on this "strip" mall, we saw that there had what appeared to be a serious fire in that restaurant with the windows and front all boarded up. Good Taste was closed and a sign on the window said nothing more than that. Oh boy. Some time later we were in the area again and drove past and it was still closed.

On this night I decided to try calling and see if they had reopened. Someone answered the phone! Yes, they are open again. No question about where we were going to go to eat!

Why do I like this restaurant so much? The quality of the food, the selection of the dishes, the spare ribs, and the value in the price make this Chinese buffet stand out from all others on Long Island - including the big, high priced Chinese, so called international buffets. Now, you notice out of all the foods I could mention, I mention the spare ribs. I wrote an article in April 2009 about these ribs. Yes, they are that good. But it is more than the spare ribs here.

Let's talk about the restaurant. First thing to note is that there is no evidence inside of any damage that may have resulted from the fire in the restaurant next door (that restaurant is still boarded up and does not look like it will ever reopen). There is no odor of smoke inside. The wall touching the wall of the other restaurant looks freshly painted white - but the very large, lighted photographs of Hong Kong and China on the wall look untouched. Everything inside is just as I described back in 2006. The layout of the buffet servers and the dining room is the same.

There has been a price increase - add a dollar to the prices that I listed in 2006. In three years that is not too bad an increase considering the increases in the other buffets in this area.

Food selection is has pretty much stayed the same as well over the past three years - with some new dishes added or substituted. There is a nice selection of sushi - a number of rolls and fish on rice. There are several vegetable rolls and a few spicy rolls. In addition there is sliced raw salmon on ice - nice to take if you like the fish and don't want to fill up on all of that rice.

Hot appetizers are plenty here. I do not see shrimp toast at any other buffet but here. There are several types of steamed dumplings still including the shrimp dumplings with whole shrimp inside and there is a variety of pan fried dumplings as well. I must still complain that there is no dumpling sauce to be found anywhere in this restaurant. There is a tray in the condiments section that is marked dumpling sauce, but this (after trying it countless times) is only soy sauce and in no way tastes like dumpling sauce. There is tempura, fried lobster balls (I resist making any joke here), sweet dumplings, and more along with the standards like egg rolls (nice ones) and spring rolls.

Then there are the spare ribs. I will not go on again about how good these spare ribs are, but I am not the only one in this restaurant that makes a meal out of these spare ribs and little else of the many excellent dishes that are offered. These are old fashioned, Chinese restaurant spare ribs. They are thick and full of meat, crispy on the outside and no sauce on them of any kind. None of that gloppy red sugar sauce that all other Chinese buffets have a need to saturate their spare ribs in is found here on these ribs. If you really want that sauce, there is a tray of boneless ribs close by and they are graced with this over-sweet sauce. There is real Chinese duck sauce and real hot mustard at the condiment section if you want to sauce your spareribs to taste. None is needed, but if you want sweet you can have it and if you want hot and spicy you can do that too.

If you are a crab leg lover there are substantial, snow crab legs on the hot buffet. One night that we were here they used the cluster tops to make salt and pepper crab - the cluster is coated in a batter with salt and pepper and fried. Break through the shell and suck out the crab meat with the taste of the salt in the batter on the shell and it is very good. There are also salt and pepper blue crabs - usually in the same serving tray. These are good too, but blue crabs only have meet in the sides and usually this is just a small nugget of crab meat.

There are a variety of hot entrees from the common chicken with broccoli - a staple at all Chinese buffets - to more exotic dishes ranging from Cantonese to the spicy dishes of China. There is a very nice shrimp with lobster sauce with meaty shrimp and a mild and egg filled lobster sauce. There are often additional entree dishes brought out on dishes and placed between the filled hot server trays. These tend to be the more unusual dishes. When you see one come out go up to get it while it remains hot. These special dishes do stay warm while on the hot server but they do tend to cool down some if they sit. There are also carvings at the end of the last hot buffet server. There is ham and a carved steak. You carve these yourself. Also here is Peking Duck. Overall, there is a good assortment of meats and seafood to choose from in the entrees.

Deserts take up a long buffet server along the back wall and there is a soft serve ice cream machine at the end of that counter. The desserts are a mix of the usual little squares of sheet cake common to most Chinese and Asian buffets and some of their own backing. There are home-baked almond cookies. The dessert is adequate but the meal is the focus is here.

Service is good. There are plenty of napkins brought to your table and if they are not there when you sit down, just ask your server for some. Dishes are picked up quickly. Soda dispensers are at the buffet counter and while this is not to be a serve yourself soda station, if your server is busy and you want more soda, I have seen many go up and fill their glass. I have found that the server will bring you refills promptly anyway.

This is a restaurant worth going out of your way for. It may just be the best Chinese buffet on Long Island and maybe in other areas as well. Many agree with me.

The restaurant is open seven days a week and the hours are until 10 pm on weeknights and 11 on Friday and Saturday. The last dinners are let in up to an hour before closing. There is no website, but the telephone number is 631-543-9583.

Dilemma in New Jersey

We had a trip planned to mid-New Jersey - basically the area west and a bit north of New York City. There are two buffets in this area that I enjoy very much - Buffet Europa and Makkoli Japanese. I had just recently been to Buffet Europa and despite the strong temptation to go again, I felt that it would be good to find a new buffet to try and share with everyone. On my previous trip - when I went to Buffet Europa - we saw another Japanese Sushi buffet (which I will not name). It looked nice as we passed it on the road and at that time thought that we might try it on the next trip through. One of my readers is close enough to this area to make recommendations and has been in contact with me through this site giving me suggestions for over a year now. I went back to his emails to check his recommendations and found this one on the list. I sent him an email and asked if he had been back there in the year since his first visit. He had not - but he liked it. I highly respect his opinion and I know from other recommendations that he has given that what I will find will be good.

I decided several days before the trip that I would check out as much as I could about this buffet to find recent opinions - a lot of things can change about a buffet in a year. I also wanted to check on what to expect being served since, as regular readers know, my wife is a very picky eater - the only seafood that she will eat is shrimp - and there should be some variety of non-seafood dishes for her as well. All that I could find with exhaustive searches on this restaurant were reviews all over a year old and consistently they were poor reviews. (This is why I am not naming the restaurant.) And each one said, "Skip this place and go to Makkoli." Yet, my email friend told me that the restaurant is good - and I did see his review on line to this effect as well as the recommendation that he gave me. I got a little nervous - it is one thing to eat and not feel so well close to home, but when there is a two hour trip between you and your house on roads without rest-stop restrooms, you have to give where and what you are eating careful c0nsideration. Still his recommendations have been reliable so I searched some more for information. The restaurant does have a website and I went there - turned off the annoying music that it insisted on playing for me and took a look around. Nice photos and what looked to me to be a nice restaurant as it is shown. I looked at the on-line menu. There was a variety of sushi and sashimi- even a bit more extensive than people had described in their poor reviews. The entree list was a bit short - and it was just about all fish - no shrimp listed - and two beef dishes, one of which is prime rib (which to most would be welcomed - but not by my wife). I still was not discouraged. I looked for a price. No prices were listed. There was a way to contact the restaurant manager by email so I clicked on that link and sent the manager an email asking what the dinner prices are and if three is an hibachi grill (which would resolve any selection problems for my wife). Shortly later, my email bounced back to me with a server message from the restaurant stating that they would not accept my email. Hmm. I use a standard email address when I contact restaurants - nothing that should be filtered out. If there was no way to email this restaurant or they were bouncing back emails - perhaps this is a sign.

I went back to some of the results that I had found on searches for this restaurant to see if somewhere I missed a price. I came across another customer review site that I had not come across before and found still more poor reviews of the place. One of them mentioned a price- around $20.00. Again, reviewers said, "Skip this place and go to Makkoli." Was somebody - everybody trying to tell me something?

I still spoke with my wife and told her what we would find on the buffet and asked her what she would eat. She is very good to me and said not to worry about her, she will find something to eat - but I know what she will and will not eat and to pay $20 a person for her not to eat or to eat very little was just not right. So I decided to look for someplace else new in the area.

I started to search restaurants in this area - buffet restaurants to be specific. After I eliminated results for reviews on THIS site and from my readers at other sites quoting or referring to my reviews of the restaurants that I have written about in the area, I came down to a very small handful of Chinese buffets. If I was willing to travel a distance further in the direction away from home there was a really nice looking Italian buffet, but this was just too far in the wrong direction and even an independent pizza buffet - again too far. There was one of the lobster buffets that I have written about but never gone to but the price is just too far above my current means. There was also a really nice looking Japanese buffet that got great reviews, but when I looked at their website found out that they are well over $30 for a meal which is a bit over my budget for a non-special occasion. So I started looking at those few Chinese buffets remaining on the list of possibilities. Each had so-so reviews. I am never sure if bad reviews are the result of someone with a chip on thier shoulder because of something that may have happened when they were at the restaurant that has really nothing to do with the actual quality of the restaurant or the food - or the review is on the level and not biased beyond being unhappy with the meal. When I see several this way from various customers I do take notice. The one most likely candidate had fair reviews and some not so good reviews - and many said - "Skip this place and go to Makkoli."

I decided that I must take everyone's advice and we were going to go to Makkoli. I have been to Makkoli several times. We both have always enjoyed Makkoli - and despite my great desire to find another buffet to share with you, we were not going to find one in that area.

I will tell you a little about that night at Makkoli. The restaurant is as good as it has been. There was a big crowd for a Friday night, but no waiting to get in. There is a large assortment of sushi and sashimi - including a number of unusual (at least buffet sushi unusual) fish. On the selection of prepared Japanese salads there was a fish that I have only had once before - jelly fish. I do not know if this was raw and marinated in the saled or cooked at all. It was gelatinous and cold so it may have been raw. I had it once many, many years ago in a Chinese buffet where it was deep and crispy fried. I did take a very tiny bit on my plate to try. It was very neutral in flavor and mildly chewy. I was not enjoying the texture or the lack of an identifiable taste so I only ate the one piece.

My wife had no problem finding things that she likes. We both started the meal with a bowl of Udon Noodle Soup - which is just wonderful. I thought all through the meal about going back at the end for another bowl, but as I wrote just recently, I found that if I did that, I would be going for "one udon soup too far" - AGAIN. No, this meal was more than filling and in my zest to try a bit of everything that I like I eventually found myself too full for anything else even to try another sampling of a favorite.

Now, I did have something that IF I wanted to have eaten more at this meal, I should not have had because of the quantity that you are giving. We both went up to the hibachi grill. I asked the chef for steak and vegetables and my wife asked for chicken and vegetables. He took out a whole steak - about a half inch thick and at least seven or eight inches long and four inches wide. This went on the grill all for me. He took out what was the equivalent of a full chicken breast or more and put that on the grill for my wife. She said to me, I hope that is not all for me. It was. With the vegetables added to the grill and then these portions put on plates for us - we each were given a dinner plate full and piled up. As a meal in itself fine. As a complement to all of the rest that we has eaten and were planning on eating, it was really too much. (I have to say, too, that the steak was very tough and not a good choice. It tasted great but was hard to chew. Her chicken was much better.)

All and all we had another great meal at Makkoli. In the year since we were there last the price has not gone up at all. The food is good and the meal is certainly more than one can eat.

It will be some time before we are in this area of New Jersey again - but my first choice - is Buffet Europa. If you are in the mood for Japanese - go to Makkoli.