Steak Wars

I like steak. I am not supposed to eat it, but I really like it. In my opinion the best steak is restaurant steak - for some reason, it has a different steak than any steak that can be made at home, inside on the stove or in the oven, or outside on a charcoal grill.

When I go to a buffet I seek out what steak they may have. Some like buffets for the crab legs. I like to try the steak. A good steak needs a flame, chargrill. Steak cooked on a flat grill - frying the steak - is no match for a steak that has been charred on an open flame. To my taste, the best steak is charred black on the outside, but inside it is red and juicy - not raw but red before it turns to pink. Some like their steak medium some like it burned through to the center. It is all a matter of taste, but to get to that taste takes some skill on the part of the chef. So what buffet has the best steak.

Looking at a single location buffet, the steak at the buffet at the Wild, Wild West Casino in Atlantic City,New Jersey is the best. The steak there is cooked to order on a chargrill with flames shooting high - right there behind the serving counter. The raw steaks are taken from a butchers case facing the diners and placed on the grill as you get up to the counter to give your order. The steaks are cooked just right and rival any steak in the best steak houses. This buffet limits each diner to one steak by a ticket given to you when you pay to enter, but you are given a whole steak.

But, unless you are in, near, or travel to Atlantic City, you want to know which of the chain buffets located across most of the US serves the best steak. Steak is popular at buffets. Old Country Buffet added steak to their buffet just a few years ago and they still do not serve it every night - no steak on Sundays at OCB. Unfortunately, as I am sure you have read here before, the steak at Old Country Buffet is terrible. They are not cooked to order and you get whatever has come out from the kitchen off the broiler and sits until it is well done. To be fair, some OCB's are getting grills but I have not been to one that has this and they seem to be few and far between. In looking at which buffet chain serves the best steak, I am not going to include Old Country Buffet. The two large chains that we will look at are Ryans and Golden Corral.

A year ago I would have told you Ryan's but I am not so sure any longer. This summer I dined at several Ryans and several Golden Corrals across the US Southeast. I had a chance to compare sometimes night to night. In fact the idea for this article came to me at that time. I will say that for the most part each chain is pretty consistent from location to location on the taste and quality of the steak. I cannot say this about the cooking of the steak, but we will get into that more later in this article.

Before parent company of Buffets, Inc. (the owners and operators of Old Country Buffet, Hometown Buffet, etc) bought Ryans about a year and a half ago, the steak at Ryans was the best. It had the best taste, was tender, and had (and still has) the best cooking. Since the buy out, the meat has changed. Rancher's Select Choice steak was introduced to Ryans at the same time that it was put into Old Country Buffet. This steak is often tough and is seasoned. I still go into Ryans expecting those great steaks of a year ago - they pretty much look the same, they are cooked the same, but biting into a piece I remember immediately that this is not the same steak. It has a bite to it- the seasoning- a little bit spicy and peppery. Tender? Sometimes, but not consistently now. The method that it is cooked does remain the best.

At Ryans there is a flame grill apart from the rest of the buffet servers. There is a window above the serving counter with just enough space to give your cooking preference and pass a plate through. Adjacent to the flame grill is a fry grill - sometimes used to keep the steaks hot. The steaks are cooked on the flame. The chef usually has several large steaks that have been cooked from rare to well and when you tell him/her how you would like the steak, he/she will cut into a steak and show it to you. You decide if it is cooked the way you like it or it needs to be cooked more - or another rarer piece needs to be found. The system works fairly well and there are not long lines to get the orders filled. I have had a few experiences where there were no rare or medium rare steaks and the cook has offered to cook one special for me - even coming to find me when it was ready. These have been the best of the Ryans steaks that I have had. Some cooks really understand the difference between rare and raw, rare and medium, medium rare and well done. Some do not. It is hard in any of the chain buffets to find a properly cooked rare steak - rare usually is interpreted as raw and is barely cooked outside, much less inside. To get rare, I now ask for medium rare - usually I get what I expect as properly cooked rare. At Ryans you are served a piece of steak - usually about an eighth to a quarter of the whole steak.

At Golden Corral there is a flame grill, smaller than at Ryans, set into the center of the main buffet server. There is also a fry grill next to the chargrill. There is a cook again behind a glass window. Here there are large, thick steaks cooked on the flame grill - usually. I have seen Golden Corral cooks close down the flame grill early in the evening and then cook the steaks on the fry grill. This is one of the problems at Golden Corral. Some need better management supervision of the grill area and some Golden Corral grill chefs want to "rule the roost" despite customer needs with a what you see is what you get attitude - if you ask for something I will say no. In fact with a better system for grilling their steaks and with grill chefs who were more motivated to please the customers, Golden Corral would have the best steaks of any buffet chain - hands down! The flavor and the cut of the meat is very good. The meat is tender and juicy. The "steak house" ad campaign that Golden Corral ran translated well to practice and the steaks are like those in a steak house. BUT - and this is a BIG BUT - the cooking and chefs need a lot of improvement. I want to say they are hit and miss, but the grill cooks have tended to be more miss than hit. I can remember really good ones in North Carolina and Virginia - not just this past trip but over the years. But I seem to remember a number of bad ones too. Here are some things I recall. A diner comes up and asks for medium rare. He is told there are none, come back in ten minutes. Ten minutes later he comes back and is told the same thing again. At two locations the chargrill was closed down at 7 pm - the restaurant is open for another three hours. The steaks were then fried on the fry grill. Not right! Another - I asked for medium rare. The cook cut a piece off that was more than well done and put it on my plate. I said, no, medium rare. He looked at the steak and said, medium rare and passed it over to me. (I was not going to argue - I was going to write about it instead!) Anyway, you get a piece of the large thick steak at Golden Corral - it is thick enough so that even a small piece is as much as larger pieces elsewhere.

So who has the best steaks -Ryans or Golden Corral?

Is the steak good at Ryans? It is very good - despite the spice. The cooking method and grill chefs, for the most part, are excellent.

Is the steak good at Golden Corral? It is excellent. The cooking grill chefs, however, are so inconsistent that it drops the experience from excellent to very good.

Do the steak wars end in a draw? (How disappointing that would be after reading all the way to here!) No, there is a winner (for the moment) and it is Golden Corral. The meat tastes better. When there is a good chef who serves you what you want, this thick steak is properly charred and crispy on the outside while still red/pink and juicy on the inside. It has been good that it has brought out a verbal, "hmmmm!"

This is how I have experienced these steaks and tasted them. If you disagree let us know what you think by leaving a comment. But if you do, you have to state clearly why - if you like something or dislike something be specific as to why.

One more thing -

Just after I wrote this article I went to OCB. I was passing up the steak and then I saw it - a piece (pre-cooked, pre-cut, and sitting under the heat lamp on the cutting board - of course) that looked like the "perfect" piece of steak. I could not believe what I was seeing. It was red-pink on the inside, it was crispy charred on the outside (not sure how they did it because there is no grill), and there were red clear juices sitting on the top. I took it. I brought it to my table and showed my wife. I said that I could not believe it - it looks like the perfect steak. How did it get here? Ahh, I put my fork in and started to cut a piece to eat and my plate moved back and forth with my knife. Still not cutting, I almost pulled the plate off the table as I tried to cut through the tough meat and side grizzle. Finally, I ripped as I forced the knife through. I put the piece into my mouth and then... tasteless. The rest was just as hard to cut, tough, and not really worth the effort. So - Golden Corral and Ryans has nothing to worry about from OCB steak!

Mixed Grill Favorites - New Feature at Old Country Buffet

There is a new feature at the Old Country Buffet - and I am sure Ryans too. Shrimp, Shrimp, Shrimp, Steak, Steak is gone! Thank goodness. The feature that has come in to replace it is called Mixed Grill Favorites.

Now, Mixed Grill on a menu usually means sausage, kidneys, and lamb. Here at Old Country Buffet there is nothing like that - perhaps, we should breath a sigh of relief! The new feature offers three new dishes and the same bad steak that Old Country Buffet has been serving for almost a year or more. The three new dishes are Grilled Pork and Applewood Bacon, BBQ Bacon Cheddar Chicken, and Rotisserie Chicken. While not mentioned on the sign touting this new feature, there is also are also grilled mixed vegetables called "Montreal Grilled Vegetables" for some unknown reason.

You may be surprised that I am going to rave over something that Old Country Buffet is serving but the Grilled Pork was excellent. It consisted of large strip chunks of pork that were char-grilled to a burnt, crusty exterior but were moist in the middle. The Applewood bacon was almost an afterthought. It is mixed into the serving tray, and perhaps gives the pork some flavor, but the bacon was tough and the pork was great without it. Each piece that I took was blackened, but there were some less done pieces in the serving tray. These may not have been as good, because, in my taste opinion, the charred outside lent to the good taste.

For me this and the "Montreal" grilled vegetables were the highlights of this feature. The vegetables were a mix of zucchini squash, mushrooms, peppers, and tomatoes grilled and served in a nice light "sauce" (which may have been nothing more than the juices of the vegetables).

The rest of the mixed grill features were just ok - if that. The BBQ Bacon Cheddar Chicken was just a boneless chicken breast with cheese melted over it and bacon added on top. There was no bbq taste or sauce. It had a mild spice taste and you are not missing anything if you pass it by. The Rotisserie Chicken has not come anywhere near a rotisserie. This is just baked chicken - a little charred on the outside with dry seasoning on the outside. It was not very good. There has been better baked chicken at OCB.

I really don't need to say anything about the steak - you have heard it from me before. This is the same "Rancher's Choice" steak that OCB over cooks, is tough, and not worth eating.

This feature at OCB is offered Monday through Saturday nights - six days a week. I am sure that at Ryan's which is owned by OCB's parent company the feature is the same as at OCB as it has been for months now. At Ryans the feature is usually offered seven nights a week. Also at Ryans I am sure that the steak is MUCH better.

There was a time when the featured items were served in addition to the regular buffet entrees for that particular menu night. Lately, the feature is replacing some of the better things that would be on the buffet if there was no feature.

The best thing about Mixed Grill Favorites is that Shrimp, Shrimp, Shrimp is gone. The next best thing is the grilled pork. If you go to Old Country Buffet during this feature, try the grilled pork!

Yoders - A Buffet In a Supermarket, New Holland, PA

I have known about Yoders Restaurant and Buffet in New Holland, Pennsylvania for many years. I have never been there before. Several years ago we looked inside and it appeared that the main entree on the buffet was fried chicken and did not go in to eat. Yoders is a rather unusual buffet restaurant as it is located inside a supermarket. A buffet in a supermarket - think of the possibilities! The entrance to the supermarket leads into a hallway - to the right leads to the supermarket and to the left leads to the restaurant.

This is a restaurant that offers both buffet and menu dining. The buffet is quite extensive and as we learned the Friday evening that we dined there the buffet is very good! When you enter through the door to the restaurant from the entrance hallway you walk past the cashier and are seated by a hostess. There are only booths in this restaurant. The room is large, but not enormous. The front three quarters of the room is the dining room and the rear of the room are where the buffet servers are located. There are five double-sided buffet servers, two single servers along the two side walls and the back wall is filled with a grill area. Every buffet server has a large, clear sign on top indicating what you will find there. At the very rear of the room was a door to a private dining room for parties. There are also banquet facilities available here.

The adult price of the dinner buffet is $11.99. Soft drinks are $1.49 and are refillable. There is a children's price. There is a higher price on Saturdays and two additional entrees are served on Saturdays. There are also lunch buffets and breakfast buffets. Each night's dinner is themed. Friday is Land and Sea (seafood and London Broil) and Saturday's the theme is Dutch Grill which offers baked sausage and other local Pennsylvania Dutch dishes.

There is a buffet server with two soups and bread. A buffet server with a salad bar is next to that. There are two buffet servers with hot food. There are two buffet servers with desserts. The soups offered this night were clam chowder (Friday) and vegetable pasta. We both tried the vegetable pasta soup and it was good. It was thick with vegetables and small shell macaroni. There was a nice assortment of bread and rolls on this server also.

The salad bar had three different greens and a large variety of salad toppings and dressings. There were a number of prepared salads - many prepared as the local Pennsylvania Dutch prepare them. One prepared salad popular here is called Pepper Cabbage. It is a finely chopped mixture of cabbage and green peppers with a sweet vinegar dressing. In some areas of the country this is called Chow Chow. In the PA Dutch area Chow Chow is a mixed vegetables in a sweet pickled dressing. This was on the salad bar also. Another local delicacy is apple butter on top of cottage cheese. These were on the salad bar also. Apple butter is a deep brown cooked down apple sauce - more tart than apple sauce but also nicely sweet. This area is known for mixing sweet and sour. At one time Seven Sweets and Seven Sours were spoken of in restaurants in this area - no one mentions this much any more but you surely can enjoy them from the salad bar at Yoders.

Entrees and vegetables have grown over the years to far more than the fried chicken that I saw when I looked in years back. The fried - rather "broasted" chicken was there, but there was so much more, They are known in this restaurant for their chicken, so I will speak about that first. Broasting is a combination of broiling and roasting in a special oven but the result is fried chicken (though supposedly healthier). The chicken was crispy and good. Large meaty pieces were in the server - mostly white meat. Some pieces were stuck together and I wound up with two pieces when I thought that I was taking one. It was ok because it was good. There were several local entrees on this buffet server along with the chicken. It is common in this area at buffets to serve roast beef sliced into thick slices and put into brown gravy on the server. This was on the server. There was ham loaf - meat loaf made with chopped ham and served with a pineapple sweet sauce on top. Later during the meal the ham loaf was gone and was replaced with ham balls - the same thing but made into meat balls rather than a loaf. We liked the ham balls better than the ham loaf but we are not certain why. There was also baked chicken.

The next buffet server was filled with seafood. There was fried fish, large fried shrimp, fried clams, baked fish, mussels, hot shrimp in a spicy red sauce, scalloped oysters, and more. There was seafood au gratin.

On the grill they were cooking and slicing London broil steak. There was also grilled salmon, stir fry shrimp, and corn fritters made on a griddle. The London broil was cooked on a flame grill. The London Broil was just fair - it had little taste and was tough. The first piece I had was well done and the next was rare - it did not make any difference. Actually, the well done piece because of the charred outside was better than the rare piece. This was the only disappointment. In front of the grill was a small server with cold shrimp and all of the usual seafood condiments.

There was a great assortment of vegetables and side dishes including some local specialties and some not usually found. One of the most unusual was baked oatmeal. This was terrific. It was mildly sweet. They also had potato filling. Filling is what they call "stuffing" in this area. This was made with riced potatoes and was excellent. There was also dried corn - a corn dish made like fresh corn with dried corn kernels. It is sweet and toasty in taste. There was fresh stewed tomatoes that was not made sweet as it is usually served - very good. There were hush puppies - fried corn meal balls. There was a sweet cooked apple dish. There was macaroni and cheese, noodles in butter sauce, and the corn fritters. The corn fritters were made like pancakes and were sized like pancakes as well. They had a soft inside that was full of corn. Of course, there were mashed potatoes, peas, broccoli, cauliflower, rice, carrots, and many standard vegetables.

If you still have room there were quite a few desserts. There was chocolate cake with white icing and there was chocolate cake with peanut butter icing. There were fruit pies and fruit crumb desserts. There was shoo fly pie - the locally originated pie with molasses and crumbs on top. There were sugar free pies. There was a full buffet server of puddings and fruit desserts. There was two types of tapioca pudding. There was a local pudding called cracker pudding - a pudding like rice pudding that uses saltine crackers - very good! And if you want more this is a soft serve machine and a sundae topping bar.

I think that you can tell that I enjoyed this meal. The server brings you your drink refills and clears the plates away and ours was great (as were the others that I could see). All of the staff were friendly. The restaurant was extremely clean. Restrooms were located outside the restaurant a little further down the hallway and were well maintained and clean.

At the grill you are given generous portions - more than you may want. This is a great restaurant and I am sorry that it took me so long to finally give it a try. I am looking forward to the next time that I eat there.

The restaurant is open from 6:00 AM to 8:00 PM. There is a small website that is linked at the side of this page, though the website gives a much more limited description of the buffets than they actually are. The restaurant is located at Yoders Supermarket, Route 23, New Holland, Pennsylvania. The phone number is (717) 354-4748. I have never seen discount coupons for Yoders as there are for some of the buffet restaurants in this area as found in the free tourist papers. There are pamphlets for the restaurant with a much better description than the website offers.

If you would like the experience of eating in a buffet that is located in a supermarket - or you would like to eat in a really great buffet - please do go to Yoders Restaurant and Buffet. (Do not confuse this with Yoders Restaurant in Sarasota, Florida - I do not believe there is any connection, though that is also an Amish food buffet.) This restaurant is in Pennsylvania in Lancaster County where the Amish and Mennonites live.

Since eating at Yoders, I keep thinking about going back - so it really must have been good!

Golden Corral - Colonie, New York

On a trip two hundred miles north to Albany, NY to visit a friend, I was surprised to find a Golden Corral in New York State. It is in a suburb of Albany called Colonie and, as I have discovered, is one of two in this region. The other is in Saratoga Springs about thirty five miles further north. These are the only two Golden Corral restaurants in New York State. We decided to see how it is and had dinner.

As I have written about Golden Corral in general in the past I will not go into the general details of Golden Corral, but I will focus on this particular location. The restaurant is very much like the other Golden Corral restaurants that I have tried. The dining rooms are actually a little nicer with the dining rooms partitioned into sections and the partitions pleasantly decorated as walls that would be in a home including framed windows looking between the dining rooms. It was very homey and nice.

I have been to a few Golden Corral restaurants recently on my trip South. This New York Golden Corral had more vegetable offerings on the hot buffet. It did have less salad offerings though. The recent feature on the salad bars at Golden Corral is something called Greenhouse Select and they had this in Albany, but its presentation was not as elaborate as a Golden Corral that I was at in North Carolina two weeks prior. The Greenhouse select are salad toppings of meats to create salads with steak or chicken slices. In the Golden Corral in North Carolina there were special salad plates to use for this feature and what seemed like more toppings. Here is was just mixed in to the salad bar. Golden Corrals also usually have a special section to create Caesar salads - the items were here, but they too were mixed into the other salads. There also seemed to be less prepared salads offered. One problem at this location is that the salad dressings are labeled on the glass over the dressings, BUT they did not correspond. I thought that I was taking Thousand Island Dressing and got Honey Mustard. The sign over the dish said Thousand Island - this seemed to hold true for the other dressings as well.

The grill was serving steaks, pork steaks, and carving a whole turkey. The pork steaks were very tasty. The Golden Corral says that there should be "slow roasted" sirloin at dinner meals, but this was not being served here.

The gentlemen working the grill did not seem to understand English well. My wife asked for some Turkey - he told her it was chicken - it was turkey. He had some difficulty understanding the terms for the doneness of steaks on the grill - and what he had prepared was all well done. Several dinners were told to come back in ten minutes for more steaks to cook to rare, medium rare, and medium well. When I went back after ten minutes a man in front of me asked for Medium Rare. He was told that there was none - still. He went away grumbling - and rightly so. I decided to ask anyway - and I too was told that there was no medium rare - so I asked what he had. He picked up a steak from the grill and cut into it - it was perfectly medium rare. I told him to give that one to me. There were several unhappy guests because this guy did not know what medium rare is or he did not understand what we were asking him for. There are two things that can make or break your dining experience at a Golden Corral - any Golden Corral. A good grill chef is one of them.

The other is your server. Because of the procedure followed at Golden Corral restaurants, you are given a plate when you pay when you enter and then your server brings you more clean plates. There are no dinner plates on the buffet. This is a remnant from the days when Golden Corral had table service in addition to the buffet. They prevented someone who ordered from the menu from going to the buffet and taking food by handing out the buffet dishes one by one. The menu is gone but the practice continues. Your server will both refill your drinks and give you clean plates - no going up to the buffet without a CLEAN plate. If you have a poor server you will wait a long time before and if you get another plate (or a soft drink refill). When have had some poor servers at Golden Corral that make you wish you had gone somewhere else to eat. I must say that our server in Colonie was EXCELLENT. We had more plates than we needed and she made sure our drinks were full. (What a surprise for a New York location!)

The restaurant was clean. As for the restrooms, my wife told me that the ladies room was well maintained, but I found the men's room to be needing maintenance.

If you are in eastern, upstate New York give the Golden Corral in Colonie a try. You will not find other Golden Corrals until you get to New Jersey and western PA. The address is 1901 Central Avenue in Colonie (this is Route 5). The phone number is (518)862-1520. The hours listed stated that closing is 9:00 pm every night - which is early for Golden Corral.

When you go to a buffet, tell them where you read about them!

I am breaking with the usual posting schedule and posting this extra brief article before I post the new buffet article.

When you dine at a buffet that you read about here, please tell the manager where you read about them - at The Art of the Buffet at buffets.blogspot.com. This way the buffet owners will start to get the idea that there is a place that is actually paying attention to their restaurant and letting others know about them. They may then come and see both the good and the not so good about their restaurant and others.

Golden Leaf Restaurant - Williamsburg, Virginia

The Golden Leaf Restaurant is a Chinese buffet located in Williamsburg, Virginia that we found looking through a free tourist magazine advertising businesses in the area. We decided to give it a try. The ad stated that it is located next to Ripley’s Believe It or Not. It is in a large building that is houses three businesses – this restaurant, a souvenir store that is actually part of this restaurant, and an Italian pizza restaurant (which was doing much more business than this buffet). The ad also stated that there are over one hundred items on the buffet every day. This a new recent – less than one year open.

We went into the restaurant to find a small, pleasantly decorated restaurant with two single buffet servers filling the middle with two small dining rooms on each side. We were shown to our table and our soft drink orders were taken. There were no prices visible anywhere – no sign of any kind near the cashier that was near the entrance door. We had a coupon for ten percent off from the tourist magazine. At the end of the meal we discovered that the adult price is $9.75. We asked about the other prices and learned that this is the price every day. Children under 3 are free and children to 10 are $5.95 and over ten are $6.95. We did not learn if there is a lower price at lunch. There may be. Soda with unlimited refills is $1.00 and is refillable. They also serve beer and wine – not refillable.

We went on a Wednesday night in the midst of a busy tourist area and this restaurant was almost empty. From 6pm to 7:30pm there were maybe five tables filled the entire time. Other restaurants including the pizza place next door were crowded judging by the parking lots that we drove past.

We went up to start with soup. There were the three usual, basic Chinese restaurant soups – wonton soup, egg drop soup, and hot and sour soup. There was just one wonton left in the wonton soup tray with plenty of broth left. I took the single wonton while my wife decided to move on to something else to start and come back for wonton soup when it was refilled. I also took a bit of the hot and sour soup to taste. The broth was light and pleasant – the wontons were light noodles with a very light meat filling. The soup was ok - the wontons could have been better. The hot and sour soup was very much on the hot spicy side. If you like your hot and sour real hot and spicy then you will like this soup.

The ads talked about the various types of sushi that was served and I went for sushi next. There were just two types of artificial crab meat rolls – one with the seaweed wrapped around the outside and one with the seaweed wrapped around the inside. There was also a cold steamed shrimp laid over a lump of rice. The ad had shown a whole assortment of rolls that were not on the server. The crab rolls were crunchy and a bit sweet – not bad, but I was expecting sushi and this was not what I had in mind. There were also raw muscles and cold steamed shrimp. The shrimp were nicely sized and properly cold served over a thick bed of ice. I took some of the thick cocktail sauce that was in a small bowl next to the shrimp. The shrimp were good. The cocktail sauce was too thick and heavy on the tomato with an odd seasoning that I did not expect in the taste. It was ok.

There was a small salad bar that was just lettuce with dressings and very few toppings. It was somewhat lost in the cold dessert server and could easily be missed unless you went looking for salad.

The next things that I tried were the two types of dumplings that they had. Both were the same – one pan fried and one steamed. There was what I thought was the usual dumpling sauce. After I covered my dumplings and got back to the table I discovered that the dumpling sauce was full of bits of hot red peppers and pepper oil. The sauce was very spicy and hot and not what I have encountered in other restaurants. Again, if you love hot then you will like this sauce. The dumplings, both types, were good. They were light noodles and tasty filling.

The egg rolls were good. They were much better than the average Chinese buffet egg rolls. The filling was good and the outside was crispy. There were spring rolls. There was crab Rangoon – little pockets of dough fried with a mixture of crab and cream cheese inside. There was barbecued chicken on a stick that was covered in the sweet red sauce that seems to be the favorite of Chinese buffets everywhere. There were spare ribs but they were in a very wet brown sauce and I did not try them for that reason.

It was time to try the entrees and there were not many. There are hot, steamed king crab leg clusters of a nice size, but if you take these from the buffet server you will be charged $5.00 more on your meal price. There was a baked crab dish with a yellow cheese baked on top. This was very good and similar to some of the local crab dishes served in some of the seafood restaurants in the Chesapeake area. There were four or five chicken dishes – the majority of them spicy. There was General Tso Chicken and Sesame Chicken – both the same but the sesame chicken is not spicy. There was black pepper chicken that was mildly spicy. Missing were the usual beef and peppers and chicken and broccoli. There was a shrimp dish of shrimp tossed with fake crab legs in a light buttery sauce. These shrimp were very good. There was egg foo young with the sauce on the side. There were boneless fried chicken pieces with sweet and sour sauce on the side. There was broiled chicken on the bone and there were fried shrimp. There was a Mongolian beef dish that had beef in a dark sauce, but the thin sliced beef was too chewy. There was a dish of shrimp with walnuts that had a thick white sweet, mayonnaise based sauce. There were Chinese string beans, French fries, and chunks of potatoes. There was lo mein and fried rice. It does not sound like it here but the entrees were actually sparse compared to many Chinese buffets. It was a bit difficult to find something and then go back and try something else. Don’t get me wrong, I was not hungry when I left but I kept looking for something to take that I really wanted to try - and wound up taking more of the shrimp and baked crab. There was also pizza that despite looking like Chinese buffet pizza was pretty good.

Dessert was less than usually found but there were a number of nice choices. There was a try of chocolate chip cookies, one tray of the usual Little Debbie type cake – a different chocolate cake than is usually seen, small cream puffs, pudding, jello, melon, watermelon, orange wedges, and soft serve ice cream. There were two hot desserts mixed into the hot buffet table. These were a hot apple filled pastry roll and a hot strawberry filled pastry roll. These were very good and the best dessert choice. The soft ice cream had a custard taste making this a bit different than the usual soft serve.

My wife counted the items on all of the buffet servers and came up with only seventy – not the hundred as advertised – and she was being generous in her count including condiments, sauces, and counting vanilla soft serve separate from the chocolate soft serve. Was there enough to eat – sure, but if you say 100 items there should be 100 items – and there was no more room on any server to put anything else out.

Service was very good. Young Chinese women came around to clear dishes from tables and refill sodas. The room was clean – table, floors, buffet server. There were knives out for the taking. Serving trays were quickly refilled as they got near empty and everything was kept stirred. The décor was simple and very pleasant. It was a light airy room. This is a nice quiet restaurant where dinner conversation is easy to hear. They have a take out menu and they will do take out buffet by the pound.

This would be a good small neighborhood Chinese buffet. Unfortunately, it is located in a prime tourist area where there are restaurants every hundred yards and in the way of other buffets there is strong competition and better choices in both Chinese buffets and standard American fare buffets. If this was located somewhere else I would say definitely go there – it is inexpensive and we had a pleasant dinner. The food is not GREAT but it is good. If this were near home I would go back – but here in Williamsburg it is competing with what is perhaps the best Chinese buffet that I have ever eaten in and that is Peking Buffet located just down the road from Golden Leaf. The meal there is a little more expensive but the food is better and it is far more extensive. (Look for my review in the archives.) The Golden Leaf is much better than the Shanghai Buffet also in this area – see my review in the archives and the comments that have been left about that restaurant.

But I want to be fair to this restaurant. It is nice. It is simple. It is a good value. I would recommend it – but not as a first Chinese buffet choice in this area. We both felt fine after eating here - no MSG headaches or sour stomachs. (Hey, that could be the most important recommendation for any restaurant!)

The Golden Leaf is located at 1665 Richmond Road, Williamsburg, VA 23185 in the same building with Chanellos Pizza. The telephone number is (757) 220-5862. We did not get the hours but they are open seven days a week. Call for the closing time if it is late. There are ten percent off coupons in the local tourist magazines that are free all over town and seniors over 65 get a ten percent discount all of the time. There is no website. If you want to try another Chinese buffet in the Williamsburg area this is one to try.

Hong Kong King Buffet, Winston-Salem, North Carolina

The last time that I was in Winston-Salem, North Carolina was about five years ago. At that time I found one of the very few western-themed buffet restaurants that was part of the Old Country Buffet family at that time (it no longer exists.) I knew that this buffet had gone out of business but was curious as to what may have taken its place. On this trip "South" I went back to the location and found the Hong Kong King Buffet. So what am doing eating in a Chinese buffet in North Carolina when I should be eating the local version of barbecue (shredded, slow cooked pork in a vinegar sauce)? Well, I could not resist seeing how an Old Country Buffet (even under another name) converted over to a Chinese buffet.

I must say it was interesting to see the entire OCB layout inside the restaurant. The usual OCB curtain-topped walls along the booths are now topped with glass partitions with Oriental designs etched into them. The pictures on the wall that were once western themed are now pictures of Hong Kong.

So how was the Hong Kong King Buffet? It was good and for the price of $8.99 per adult was exceptional in what is offered. Let me begin as I usually do in telling you about this buffet.

As I said this space once was an OCB and all of the booths, all of the tables, and some of the serving areas are the same. This is a really big restaurant. We went on a Wednesday evening at 7:00 pm and there were diners spread through all of the dining areas. Had this been a more conventionally sized restaurant for a Chinese buffet it would have appeared very busy, but because of the size and layout, it looked sparse (but wasn't). Now this is North Carolina - the home of most of the tobacco and cigarette companies and smoking is not so frowned upon in these here parts. So this restaurant has a smoking section - which for a buffet is very unusual. We asked for a non-smoking table only to find later on that we were sitting on the edge of the smoking section - and the smoking section is right at the edge of the buffet serving area - well, this is North Carolina.

This restaurant had six double sided buffet servers plus a Mongolian grill. There was also a server along one wall. Prices at this buffet are very reasonable - Dinner is $8.99 per adult and $6.99 for children ages 6 to 10. There is also a younger child price from age 3 to 5 at $4.99. Now, there are king crab legs on the buffet, BUT if you want these there is an additional $5.00 charge for all you care to eat. On their website there is a current weekend offer that adds unlimited lobster to that same $5.00 additional charge- which is not bad (I am not sure how they serve the lobster (whole or pieces).) There is a lunch menu for $6.99, $4.99, NS $2.99 , respectively. Now all of these prices are from Monday to Thursday for dinner and to Friday for lunch. Saturday AND Sunday lunch is $7.99, $4.99, and $3.99. Lunch ends at 3:45. Dinner prices on Friday to Sunday are adults $9.99, children 5 to 10 $6.99 and children 3 to 5 $4.99. The crab leg charge at dinners is always $5.00. There is a clear sign over the crab legs on the buffet table that if you take crab legs on your plate you will be charged $5.00. There is a ten percent discount for seniors over 65 at all times. Soft drinks are $1.50 with unlimited refills - all Pepsi products. Hours for this restaurant are from 11:00 am until 9:30 pm and !0:30 pm Friday and Saturday.

To start off there is an extensive salad bar with greens, dressings, and toppings, along with prepared salads. There were four soups - the usual wonton, egg drop, hot and sour, and an unusual vegetable seafood tomato based soup with a Chinese name that I have never encountered before. I tried the hot and soup soup and it was good - not too hot and spicy. My wife tried the wonton soup and the broth was very good but the wontons were just fair - when she first went for soup there were no more wontons in the broth in the server - it took about twenty minutes for more wontons to be brought out - she felt it was not worth the wait. There is sushi with a good assortment of raw fish on rice and raw fish rolls. The rolls looked as usual,but instead of avocado rolled with the tuna it was cucumber. Looked the same but not what I expected as I bit down and crunched the cucumber. There were steamers for dumplings but no dumplings. Instead there were steamed rolls and steamed cake in the steamers. There were no dumplings of any kind.

There was a broad assortment of entrees. Some of them very unusual if you are used to Northern US, Midwest, or Western US Chinese buffets. This buffet offered steamed crayfish and frogs legs made salt and pepper style. Crawfish down South are known as "bugs" and they look like a cross between tiny red lobsters and bugs. You eat them by biting off the heads and sucking out the meat in the body and tail. I find them very fishy and salty. They are not bad. It is more of a get used to how it looks and how you eat it than anything else. If you like 'em you can have all that you want here. I did not try the crawfish or the frogs legs here. I have had them elsewhere and yes, frogs legs do taste like chicken (so does rabbit). There was plenty to eat without them. There were crab halves (included in the regular buffet price). There was a lot of shrimp and seafood dishes. There were several fried fish dishes and there was a steamed white fish in a light sauce. There were several chicken dishes - many hot and spicy and the hot sauce was very evident when you looked in the serving pan. There were beef ribs and boneless pork spareribs (that looked over done). There was Peking Duck - mostly carved duck pieces but these looked much too greasy - perhaps sitting in the tray too long and the duck fat melting into the pan. There were fried scallops but these also were overdone and hard when I tried to eat one. There were some dishes that were very good. The shrimp with scallions was great. This is one of the House Specialties on the take out menu. There was a good chicken in peanut butter sauce - thin strips of lightly fried chicken with a liquid peanut sauce on the side to pour on as you wish.I have had peanut chicken before but this one was much better. Of course there was General Tso Chicken, chicken with broccoli, and pepper and beef. There were several American dishes including fried potatoes several ways. There was also pepperoni pizza.

If you could not find something that you like among the claimed 180 buffet items, there is also the Mongolian Grill. Here there was a large assortment of raw vegetables including three types of mushrooms including the black mushrooms that are usually in the most expensive Chinese dishes. There were several types of noodles to add including the hair thin rice noodles that make up Mai Fun dishes. Of course there is meat and here it included beef, chicken, pork, crab, and shrimp. You mix what you want on a plate and hand it to the chef at the large flat round grill. He asks what sauce you would like added and rather than put it on at the beginning as is done at all of the other Mongolian grills that I have been to, here they put it on after the mix has mostly cooked through. There is a sign on the counter explaining exactly what is in each sauce which is a great idea! The chef was very nice and accidentally dropped my mix on the counter as he took it from me - he appologized in limited Chinese English a million times and with no problem I made a new mixture which he took and excellently cooked- handing it to me still apologizing with me saying, "No problem."

If you still want dessert after all of this there was a great assortment of the usual Little Debbie type Chinese buffet cakes, puddings, fruit, jello, and soft serve ice cream.

Service was very good. The dirty dishes were removed quickly enough and soft drinks were refilled regularly. An interesting aside to the drink area is that it is the old OCB drink island - two sided, with all of the equipment from the former tenant. They do not want you to go up and get your own drinks - they will bring them to you - and they do.

The restaurant was clean and nicely decorated. Restrooms were fine. The atmosphere was very pleasant (except for the cigarette smoke - BUT THIS IS CAROLINA!)

When the check comes the tax is added to the individual amounts so they don't look like the prices listed - but they are with the sales tax (for our UK readers this is the VAT) The check came with a fortune cookie for each of us - these were commercially baked cookies with the plastic sealed wrapper around them - the fortunes inside however were a bit unusual - a little nasty actually (I guess to bring a smile). Mine said,"You laugh now, wait until you get home." Oh boy! Not what you want to read after a meal!!!

The owners advertising claims that this is the largest "international" buffet and grill in "town". On the website they say that they are from Hong Kong and that is why they called the restaurant the Hong Kong King Buffet. That normally would imply Cantonese cuisine, but there was a broad mix of Oriental cuisines served here.

Do I recommend this restaurant? Yes. Would I go back? Probably, though I might want to go looking for one of those North Carolina barbecue restaurants (no buffets like that unfortunately). If you live in this area give it a try.

The address is 1237 Silas Creek Parkway, Winston-Salem, North Carolina 27127. There is a website and that is listed on the side of this site. The phone number is 336-725-9788. The restaurant is located in a shopping center next door to an Office Depot store. (Exit 192 on I40)

One other thing- restaurants are inspected by health officials everywhere, but in North Carolina those health inspection reports are on the internet. If you search for this restaurant you will find the latest year's reports. Maybe you don't want to read these. This restaurant got a score of 94 out of 100 on its last report. This is good. The violations were not significant. I think that I would not want to see the reports on many of the restaurants that I enjoy.

Sweet Tomatoes / Souplantation

On my recent trip to North Carolina I was able to try a Sweet Tomatoes/Soup Plantation restaurant. On June 15, 2007 I wrote about the Souplantation chain. The furthest north the chain has restaurants is North Carolina. The chain spreads across the country to California, where they originated. The specialty at Sweet Tomatoes/Souplantation is salads, soups, and bakery!

The Cary, North Carolina location is a Sweet Tomatoes. The names Sweet Tomatoes and Soup Plantation seem to be interchangeable and dependent on the location. Regardless of which name the location has it is the same. In fact I thought that I was looking for a Souplantation in Cary based on the website located. I almost missed the restaurant driving around the shopping center that corresponded to the address when my wife spotted the Sweet Tomatoes sign and asked if that was what we were looking for. I certainly was!

We went on a very hot day – predicted to be 99 degrees and it felt hotter. We went for lunch on a Monday at around 12:45 pm. It was one of those days that you really do not feel like eating because of the heat – especially a large meal. Well, that did not discourage the Sweet Tomatoes patrons because the restaurant was almost full. This is a place for business people to have lunch as well as families and shoppers. The restaurant is large – perhaps about three quarters the size of an Old Country Buffet, Golden Corral, or Ryans.

Entering the restaurant we were a bit confused. As we entered we were faced with the beginning of the salad bar stretching out down the entrance with the cashiers at the other end. The salad bar had rails for trays along each side and each side was either the same or easily accessed the other side. An employee standing inside the door handed each person who entered a tray and directed them onto the line that went down the salad bar. There was a large sign to explain things but basically it said to take a tray, take a plate, and create your salad. We took plates and followed along the line wondering to each other how one would go back to the salad bar if the cashier is at the end and it is necessary to come through the line if you were to come back for more salad. I started wondering if this was really a buffet or all you care to eat restaurant – but the signs inside all did say buffet and all you can eat. We went along and took salad.

There were salad greens to take at the beginning and several special prepared green salads that followed, I took two of these special salads – the Caesar and a Chinese chicken salad called Wonton Chicken Happiness Salad. I also took a prepared noodle salad that had the name tuna in it but no tuna listed on the ingredients. I had decided that I was not going to fill up on the tossed salad. Many were filling more than one plate full of salad and the many, many toppings and dressings that were offered. If you can think of a salad topping they had it. They had small cups of chicken to top salads but there was a sign under the cups stating that the chicken cost $1.25 extra for one small serving. This struck me as odd but my wife speculates that they do this so that someone does not make a meal of chicken (though if you take the chicken noodle soup – which I will say more about later – you could eat all the chicken you desired. As we got toward the end we were approaching the two cashiers – one on each side of the salad bar right on the bar. Just before you reach the cashier you are asked for your drink order. You are given glasses with ice. If you would like just water at no charge you are given a blue colored glass. All other glasses are clear. We paid for our lunches and my wife asked the cashier what to do if one wants more salad. We were told that you just come back through with your paid receipt. Fair enough!

Price for adult lunch is $7.29. Adult dinner is $8.69. Children’s prices at all times are $4.49 for age six to twelve and $1.49 for age three to five. Under age three is free. Drinks are $1.79 for all at all times. There is an extra charge for salad bar chicken at $1.25 and they were also selling bags of thirteen cookies for $1.69. While cookies are not on the dessert bar there were plenty of other dessert choices.

We sat down and discovered that on each table as part of the little advertising platform was a card to signal that the table is occupied. This is great and comical! It said “See you next thyme” on the back to signal that you have left the table. We set the card and went for drinks. The soft drink bar is extensive and there are signs encouraging you to mix the drinks to create your own. There were fruit juices, coke soda products, “sweet” tea, and “unsweet” ice tea, lemonade, etc. This was one of the best soft drink bars that I have ever seen in a buffet. We returned to our table with our drinks and saw that everyone around us took everything off their trays and put them on the side of the table. Soon someone came to pick them up.

The salad was good. The Chinese chicken salad was exceptional. I would swear that I was eating a Chinese entrée from the taste. It was greens with herbs, a light oil dressing, bits of fried wonton noodles (which are also on the salad bar to add to any salad), and pieces of chicken. It was wonderful! The noodle salad with tuna in the name did not taste like tuna but was very good. If there was not so much more to try I would have been back for more but because this was lunch, and because it was so hot outside, and I would be driving to my next stop four hours away, I decided to make this a tasting lunch and not one where I fill up on everything that I like. (The tasting lunch filled me to the brim!)

After the salad we headed up to the hot buffet bars which lined the wall at the front end of the side of the restaurant. There were seven soups to take. We discovered after we sat down that the chain is having an international feature week from the beginning of August to the end of September. We were there during the second feature which was Mexican. We had just missed Italian. To come will be Greek and then Asian. There is a little folder brochure that is available to take that says passport on the outside and has the features for each of these special weeks. Mexican is good but not on a hot day when you are going to be traveling in a car for five hours with little chance to stop. There were many soups that I would have tried had this visit been under different circumstances. What I did try was the chicken noodle and the cream of mushroom. I also had some of the vegetable soup that my wife took. Everything is clearly marked every where in this restaurant which is really good. You not only know what each item is but also what it is made with. If you are not sure about something there is sign explaining the whole recipe. Every thing that is vegetarian is marked that way. The chicken noodle soup was called big chunk chicken noodle and that was not an exaggeration. There were large pieces of white meat chicken – enough to eat a whole breast of chicken or more along with thick dough noodles. The broth was light. The soup was good. The cream of mushroom soup was thick and hearty. It had large pieces of mushrooms in a thick brown cream soup. This too was good. The vegetable soup had plenty of vegetables in a light tomato based broth – this was a thin broth unlike many vegetable soups. The other soups that were offered were spicy and part of the Mexican theme. They were Albondigas Locas soup, Posole soup with pork, a chile, and a chicken soup with lime that was spiced with chilies.

Moving along the hot bar there was a baked potato bar that included both baked potatoes and baked sweet potatoes, each wrapped in foil. There were little bowls to put the potato in and there were hot and cold toppings. There was melted cheese and a light bean chili.

Following the potatoes there were two pizzas and a Greek style focaccia bread. The pizza was thick and loaded with cheese. One pizza was four cheese pizza and the other went along with the Mexican feature. This pizza had olives, peppers, chunks of tomatoes, cilantro, cheese, etc on top. It did have a mildly spicy taste. The cheese pizza was very good and if you like pan pizza or what is known as Sicilian style pizza you will love this. Moist, thick, and nicely seasoned – all making this a great item. Near the pizza there were fresh baked breads and muffins. This day there were corn muffins, blueberry muffins, double chocolate muffins, crusty bread, and others.

If you are still looking for something more, they have it. The hot bar ends with a pasta bar. Here were two prepared pasta dishes. There was fettuccine Alfredo and Macaroni and Cheese. There was also a hot bean dish (part of the Mexican feature) called (obviously) Hand Crafted Mexican Beans. It seems that they always have two pastas and then a bean of grain dish. When my picky eater wife saw the selections at the pasta bar she was disappointed. She likes things plain or basic and is avoiding high fat items. Behind the counter were trays of plain pasta and servers of sauces. I told her to ask for some plain pasta. The lady behind the counter was creating the pasta dishes out on the bar using these items and large skillets – right there at the counter. My wife asked for plain pasta and there was no problem! The lady scooped up some plain pasta and put it immediately into one of the skillets with some water to heat it. In moments she served my wife plain pasta and asked if she was sure she did not want some kind of sauce. My wife got a big bowl of pasta – more than she really wanted – but she was happy and her request was treated as if it happens all of the time, which given the kids eating here probably does happen all of the time, and all done with a smile. I tried the Fettuccine Alfredo and was a little disappointed. It was very bland and needed salt and pepper. With all of the spices in the Mexican themed dishes I expected this to be better than it was. It was nicely cooked but it should have been prepared with a little more salt and some pepper. I rarely add salt to anything but this pasta needed it.

All done – no, save room for dessert. There is soft serve frozen yogurt and a sundae bar with toppings. There was fresh fruit including grapes, cantaloupe, honeydew melon, watermelon, sugar free chocolate mousse, and jello. Remember those double chocolate muffins on the bread bar? Those made a wonderful dessert – if you have room to eat it. They were rich and chocolaty. Really good, but I really had no more room. I had set out to just have a taste but I was full! (What I do for my readers!)

It was time to turn that little card over to the side that said, “See you next thyme!” and leave. We had a great lunch and this would have made an equally good and filling dinner. We really did not need to know how to get back to the salad bar because we had so much without a return trip, but had we wanted to it would have been no problem! Despite the change in price from lunch to dinner I believe that the menu remains the same all day.

Service was very good. Dishes were cleared regularly from the table. You get your own drinks and refills. The room, the tables, the buffet bars, the floors, and everything was clean. The room was very pleasantly decorated. There was no smoking in this restaurant (even though this is North Carolina). There was a choice of booths or tables spread through out the restaurant with the serving bars to the front end of the dining room.

I only wish there was one of these restaurants near to where I live in the northeast. I had a real surprise one evening watching a re-run of an episode of The Gilmore Girls. This show takes place in State of Connecticut. In the dialog of this episode the “girls” are talking about this great restaurant that they had just been to in a town nearby. They spoke of all you can eat salad, pasta, and soup! My ears picked up as I had been only half paying attention. Then they named it by name – Souplantation! A Souplantation in Connecticut! Not exactly in my backyard – unless you have a boat to cross the Long Island Sound and then you can reach Connecticut in 25 miles but a two to three hour drive taking the land route! I had to check the Souplantation website to see what I had missed. No luck! This was just a bit of Hollywood. Obviously the show is filmed in California and some Hollywood writer must have just discovered Souplantation – and just had to send the Gilmore Girls there even if the nearest one to them is almost 1800 miles away! Ah well!

Sweet Tomatoes/Souplantation is a must try! I highly recommend it assuming that they are all like the one that I had the pleasure to try. If any of our readers have been to another location please share your experience in our comments. If you live in North Carolina there is also a location in Raleigh. The chain has a website with menus (they change regularly) and a location finder and it is listed on the side of this page.

Fire Mountain - Ryans Alter Ego

Ryans Buffet chain has several locations named Fire Mountain. They are scattered all over - some in the same state and can be found listed as Ryans with Fire Mountain included in the name. I am not sure why. There may have been another buffet chain that Ryans took over some time ago - or there was a conflict of some kind in using the Ryans name at that location. I have heard that Ryans is changing these Fire Mountain locations over to the Ryans name, but not all have been changed over yet. Never the less, I have always wanted to try a Fire Mountain just to see if there was any difference. I finally got and took the opportunity.

Searching for a buffet in the Hershey, Pennsylvania area (yes, the town where the chocolate comes from) I could only find Chinese buffets. I was looking for something different and knew that there is a Ryans in the Carlisle, PA area just about thirty miles away. Finding a hot spot we fired up the laptop and checked the Ryans site for the address. Yes, there was a Ryans listed in Mechanicsburg, PA just outside of Carlisle. We plugged the address into the GPS and off we went. As we arrived in the general locale we started looking for the Ryans' sign. My wife thought that she saw it up ahead but when we got close we did not see a sign that said Ryans but, rather, a sign that said Fire Mountain.

The outside of the restaurant was basically the same as Ryans. We entered and the lobby area and cashiers were basically the same, but as we got into the dining room there was a definite difference. Instead of the usual Ryans layout, there were two dining rooms, one on each side of the entrance. The buffet servers were differently arranged and split between both sides - cold and desserts on one side and hot on the other - with the grill in the middle. Another immediate difference was that we were told to seat ourselves - something that we have never been told in the many Ryans that we have been in. The decor was basically the same and at first glance the food was basically the same. Oh, and there were signs all over for "Steak, Steak, Shrimp, Shrimp, Shrimp" with Fire Mountain and the Ryans name small at the bottom. So, the Old Country Buffet owners of this corporation had spread their influence here- and, sadly, were featuring the "why bother?" feature. Here the feature is seven nights a week - at OCB it is only six nights.

We sat ourselves and the server came over to collect our receipt, see what soft drinks we ordered, and ask if we would like a basket of the same rolls that are served on the buffet table - just like at Ryans.

The layout of the buffet servers was different - as I said, but it was also smaller. Where at Ryans there are servers that are three trays deep and double-sized, here (at this location at least) the servers were two trays deep and single-sized. Hmm, less serving space - less to serve? Actually, yes. As we began to select entrees and sides we noticed that many of the items that are standard on the buffet at other Ryans (and we have been to these at all different nights of the week) were missing. Where the taco bar at Ryans is always next to the grill - here it was on an end of one of the hot servers taking space that would have been filled with more food items at Ryans. There is usually a baked potato bar with toppings - none here (there were baked potatoes and you could certainly find toppings at the salad bar - but there was a definite difference. I rarely have a problem finding a large selection to choose from of meats and prepared hot dishes, but here at Fire Mountain, while there was a generous assortment, it was not Ryans assortment given the missing items. A minor example - usually there are French fries - here none. Usually, there are garlic mashed potatoes - here just regular mashed potatoes. Usually, at the grill there is smoked sausage - not here. All that was on the grill was steak. Now, the steak was up to Ryans standard and very good. Both pieces that I had were properly cooked and very tasty. There is usually a noodles dish - or several, here none, with the exception of spaghetti.

The salad bar and soups were the same and there was the same good assortment as is found at Ryans.

The bakery/dessert area had less as well. Ryans usually has two different chocolate cakes - here none. There were several cakes, hot desserts, cookies, fruit, soft serve and the same candy toppings that Ryans puts next to the ice cream section. There are more cakes and pies at Ryans.

This all seemed to be a mini-Ryans or a pseudo-Ryans. It was good, but it needed more on the hot buffet. So is the difference between the two names a difference of what is offered - or how much is offered. The price seemed the same - though this varies by Ryans locations - though this restaurant may have been a dollar less. I would rather pay the extra dollar and get the larger assortment.

As to the layout of the restaurant, my wife wondered if this had once been a Golden Corral because the dining room layout was very similar, The grill area was distinctly Ryans, though, and I feel that this was Ryans or Fire Mountain built. Looking at a Golden Corral since dining at this Fire Mountain, I am still not sure.

There are not many Fire Mountain restaurants - and they are listed interchangably with Ryans on the same Ryans website. We were in South Carolina and found a Fire Mountain listed and went there only to find that it is now named Ryans -and it was very much like other Ryans that we have been to. If you have a choice head for Ryans. If Fire Mountain is what there is where you are at the moment then it is the next best thing - just a smaller good thing.

SOUPER! SALAD!

One of our readers asked me if I had ever heard of this restaurant chain. I had not, but the question came at a very opportune time as when I searched the chain on the Internet I discovered a location in Spartanburg, South Carolina. Now while South Carolina is about 1500 miles from my home, I happened to be on the road heading for that very city to visit two nearby Revolutionary War historic battlefield sites. On Saturday night in Spartanburg we decided that we would give Souper! Salad! a try, and we are VERY GLAD that we did.

This is a chain of restaurants located in the Southeast Untied States and the Western United States from Texas to Las Vegas, Nevada. Souper! Salad! features just what the name states - soup and salad served on an all you care to eat buffet. In addition to the soup and salad, there is pizza, pasta, baked potatoes, breads, and dessert. This is very similar to Soup Plantations.

The Spartanburg, SC location is in a shopping center. It is a relatively small restaurant filling the space of three store fronts. The restaurant has large windows that look out onto the parking lot. You enter at the cash register and pay as you go in. This is an EXTREMELY REASONABLE restaurant. The adult price at all times is $6.29. The children's price from ages 5 to 12 is $2.99 and children to age 4 are free. The soft drink price is high at $1.69 with children's drinks for $0.99. Regular soft drinks are refillable. There are "special" flavored lemonades that cost $1.99 and are not refillable.

After you pay you come right to the beginning of the salad bar which is a long double sided cold buffet server that runs most of the length of the restaurant. You take a tray, your silverware, and napkins and start to assemble your salad - if you wish to start with that. There were two different salad greens plus a "featured" mixed salad. This night the featured mixed salad was a mango cranberry salad which was very good. There is every imaginable topping and dressing for your tossed salad and when I got to the croutons and dry toppings there were even small cookies to put on the salad. That was a first for me to see. You then come to several prepared salads that change by the day. There was California chicken salad, a pasta seafood salad, a fetticine pasta salad, tuna salad, a special pasta and tuna salad, edame (soy beans) salad, mustard potato salad and a few others. At the end of this bar was the dessert bar, which we will get to later.

As you pass through the salad bar you are into the dining room for the first time and you seat yourself at tables and booths. We were there on a Saturday night and the restaurant was not crowded but there were a number of people and families dining. I suspect that this is most crowded at lunch time when the shopping center is busy. The atmosphere in the restaurant is informal and the decor is very pleasant. The room was bright and clean. We chose a booth and sat down with our salads. A few moments later a waitress came over and asked what we ordered to drink. She brought large, full drink glasses to our table. Looking around most people had their receipts out on their tables to signal that the table was still occupied - but no one said to do this. We did (as we have had our table cleaned and reset in mid-meal when we went up to the server several times in other buffets recently - this was NOT a problem here!).

After our salad we went up to try the soups. There are five soups served and these also change every day. This night there was chicken noodle, vegetable beef, Santa Fe chicken soup, tomato basil, and double baked potato soup. I am a SOUP LOVER! I had to try each one. All of the soups were good, but I liked the double baked potato soup the best. It was thick and seasoned just right with pieces of potato and bits of potato skins in this hearty soup. The Santa Fe chicken was thick and spicy - it had a mild chili flavor. The tomato basil was a semi-thick soup with chunks of tomato. This had a bit of an acid taste - but it was good. The vegetable beef was a thin broth with vegetables and tiny meatballs. The chicken soup was good but it had too many herbs that overpowered the broth. The noodles were not the thick dumpling like noodles but more like pasta noodles. All of the soups are made from scratch at the restaurant.

So there you have the soup of the Souper! and the salad of the "Salad" but that is not all! At the rear of the restaurant is a wall of hot spots including the soup bar. There is pasta that changes by the day to either ziti or spagetti and two sauces of meat marinara and alfredo. As an Italian-American on both sides of my family I grew up with very high expectations of tomato sauces. I can be very critical of tomato sauce - called "gravy"in my family. Well, I usually have low expectations of tomato sauce in most buffets, but I must say that the meaty marinara sauce here is very good. It is not acidy and it is not sweet. It is not overloaded with meat or greasy. For a buffet restaurant it passed my test with a B+. Following the pasta on the server are two types of pizza - cheese and pepperoni. The pizza was odd compared to most buffet pizzas (and most pizzas). The pizza is more like cheese and sauce on a cracker. The crust is as thinner than a cracker, flat, and cooked hard and crispy. The taste was pleasant - the cheese and tomato sauce were standard but it was like eating a pizza cracker. I would not hold this against the restaurant but if you are looking for "real" pizza you are going to be disappointed. If you think of this as a unique pizza-like treat you will be more satisfied. Further along on the hot server are whole baked potatoes wrapped in foil. There are several toppings for the potatoes including hot cheese, hot chili, cold cheese, bacon, sour cream, butter, and chives. There is also everything on the salad bar to put on your potato if you wish. It did not seem like it from the descriptions that I read of this restaurant but there is a lot of filling food here. I went in thinking that just eating salad and soup for dinner I would be hungry - but I was stuffed when I walked out!

As if all of this is not enough there is fresh baked breads which also change by the day. There were garlic bread sticks, cheese biscuits, corn bread, and wonderful blueberry bread. The blueberry bread looked like a pan of corn bread but it had pure blueberry taste in every bite!

Had enough? You did not save room for dessert? There is lots of good things for dessert. There were the fixing to make a strawberry cream dessert - a try of cake to top with strawberries in sauce and whipped cream. There were peaches in syrup. There was fruit salad. There was pudding. There were fresh grapes and oranges plus cantelope, watermelon, and honeydue melon. And, of course, there is the ice cream sundae bar - soft serve vanilla ice cream with toppings and cones.

Those who wish to eat vegetarian can easily do so here as all vegetarian dishes are clearly labeled as such. Labeling was excellent all around - there was no guessing. The prepared salads and the soups were not only labeled but the ingredients were clearly listed below the name on each label. No guessing and no surprises.

The service was excellent. Your server comes and takes dirty plates away - and there are a lot of plate changes here and just about every item gets its own plate - salad plates, soup bowls, pasta plates, bread plates, dessert plates. The server also refills your drinks and there was no waiting for a refill.

Tables when empty are cleaned quickly and this restaurant was very clean - tables, seats, walls, and floors. The room was bright and restrooms were clean and well supplied.

This is a great restaurant for families. The food is inexpensive (actually, cheaper than eating at home) and there is something for everyone unless you have someone who wants lots of meat. There were several families enjoying the restaurant. There are signs saying that children under 12 must be accompanied at the food servers - which is great. On Sunday there is a family special and all kids over 5 are $1.99.

All of the food was good. The experience was nice and very pleasant. The staff were friendly and welcoming. I would highly recommend this particular restaurant and if it is a good example of the others I would highly recommend this chain. There is a website that is linked at the side of this page. The website will give you the locations and each location has a way to see the menu for any particular day on the calendar. As I have said many dishes change by the day and there are many, many dishes listed on the website for each restaurant to put on the menu. If you are lucky enough to be in a state with a Souper!Salad! give it a try for dinner or lunch. You should be as satisfied as I am. If you have been to one of these restaurants leave a comment and tell us about your experience.

Changes at Ryans

We were recently at a Ryans in Virginia and just at a Ryans in South Carolina and noticed several changes that are definitely Old Country Buffet ownership influences. I had hoped that the influence would go the other way and the superior chain of Ryans would influence their new owner's, not quite up to par chain, Old Country Buffet. But it seems to be going the opposite way.

There have been some changes at the salad bar and not for the better. In the past the Ceasar salad at Ryans was a make it yourself salad. There was Romaine lettuce, dressing to top it with, cheese, and croûtons. Now, the Caesar salad is pre-made - just like at OCB, premixed and tossed with dressing (actually too much dressing in this case). Also on the salad bar they have now added the Greek salad that is served at OCB. Just the same.

As was mentioned in a previous article, the special features at Ryans are just the same as OCB - they had the rancher steak, riblets, and ribs - with the exact same sign on the table promoting it and now there is the same Steak Steak Shrimp Shrimp Shrimp. I did have an opportunity this time to taste the Rancher Steak at Ryans - which is also served at OCB. What a difference! The steak at Ryans is very good! The Rancher Steak at OCB is tough, over-cooked, greasy, and generally one to avoid. Steak is still served at Ryans seven days a week - not the six days at OCB. With the end of the barbecue feature, Ryans has taken on Steak, Steak, Shrimp, Shrimp, Shrimp, the why bother feature from OCB. Here at least the steak is decent, but again, all of these so called "feature" items are on the buffet anyway.

A new addition at Ryans is carvings. There was a REAL turkey being carved in the Ryans in Virginia and a turkey breast in South Carolina. In Virginia it was not the turkey breast of unknown origin at OCB, but a whole turkey. It was nicely cooked. This was the only positive OCB influence evident (though there is little if any positive influence that OCB could have over Ryans).

Ryans once had great labeling on their buffet servers. You used to know exactly what you were taking. The signs were clear and usually in place. Now, there are few labels on items - just like OCB.

The general public does not know that there is any connection between these two chains. All they will know is that things are not exactly the same at Ryans - and some of these things are not for the better. I still like Ryans - perhaps it is still the best of the chain buffets. (I have to visit a Golden Corral again to make a new comparison.) I just wish OCB would leave well enough alone.

That all said I want to give some recognition to the young man who was the grill chef at the Ryans in Spartanburg, South Carolina located on Route 29 named Ken. When I went up for some steak Ken told me that there was nothing that was medium rare but if I came back in six minutes he would cook one for me. He did. Later in the evening I went back for another piece and as he saw me coming he told me that if I came back in eight minutes he would have cooked a medium rare for me. And again, he did. I did not mind the wait. As we were having desert he came around the dining room to see if anyone wanted more steak - he approached our table with a smile and asked me if I wanted another one. I told him that he was great and that the steaks were excellent! So here is another outstanding buffet employee that I have come across in my buffet adventures!

HAPPY ANNIVERSARY TO US!

This is it! Our two year anniversary of this site! We have grown quite a bit in our US and international readership. We average 1500 readers a week. I would love to multiply that by ten but I am satisfied! Plus we show up toward the top of most search engine searches for buffets.

Thanks to all of you for keeping coming back. Keep reading! Lots of great articles to come!!!

What Employees Should Not Say...

There are things in business that should not be done in front of the public and that holds for buffet restaurants as well. Recently I observed three episodes in three different buffet restaurants of things that should not have taken place in front of the customers. They all involved conversation involving managers or employees. Now, I am sure that there are a lot of things that happen in all restaurants that the public should not see (I have heard some stories.) but there are things that the public should not hear or unavoidably overhear.

The first story takes place in a Ryans. In one of the sections there are two servers seemingly working together. The usual course in Ryans is that each table has one server who brings drinks, clears away dirty plates, etc. This night at our table two servers introduced themselves working together. One is an experienced employee who has been there for at least the several years that I have gone to this particular Ryans. The other must have been a new employee who was training with this experience server - that is how it appeared, anyway. The trainee is a young lady and the experienced employee is a man (who in my experience is always a bit gruff and annoyed - which is also not a good thing to communicate to the customers in manner and service). The young lady came and introduced herself, very politely, and was very pleasant. About twenty minutes into our meal, as I am walking back to my table, the man is talking to a supervisor - loudly - and saying that he does not want to ever work with this young lady again. He complained that she was "taking" his tips and was not sharing tips equally. He actually then said that she claimed that one customer handed the tip to her and told her that it was for her. He took exception to this with the supervisor. The conversation was loud and clear to anyone nearby, including our table and anyone at the serving bars. The supervisor was pacifying him - but NEVER once said, "Let's take this conversation into the back where no one will hear."

Shortly later, after the discussion had ended, a manager came out and called the young lady over to him - again, in the dining room in front of customers. There in front of everyone he confronted her and then, as all could hear, he told her to leave and not come back. He fired her in front of everyone. Not only is that humiliating to her but also a bit embarrassing for all the customers who listened to it and then watched her leave through the exit crying. What a relaxing meal! I sure hope that there had been other problems with her than this one employee's complaint. That, thankfully, we will never know.

The next story took place in my very own neighborhood's Old Country Buffet (you know the one that I have said is probably the worst OCB in the country). This is actually two stories in one night involving the same Restaurant Manager. We start out on the line to pay on the way in. As the family in front of us get to the cash register the manager comes out from his office and walks up to the cashier. There is some problem with an over-ring and she needs him to help her fix it. He looks at the receipt and listens to her story (in broken English) and then he starts yelling at her about what she did wrong and what does she want him to do about it. She remains calm and meekly tells him again what happened. He begins yelling again. In the meantime there are customers now waiting on line out the door. She has the sense to ring up the family ahead of us standing and waiting to pay. They move on into the dining room and we move up to the register. Now the yelling - him to her- starts again. The same things go back and forth for another five minutes - with all on line listening to every word - and the line getting longer and longer. He finally starts yelling in mockingly, pseudo-Spanish (she is Hispanic, he is not) and then he tells her that she must go into the dining and find the people who had the over ring and get their receipt back from them so that whatever needed to be done finally by him would be done. Off she went to look, and then he had the mind to look up at us and allow us to pay for our meals.

Later that same evening, while we were at our table, this same restaurant manager came over to the soft serve ice cream machine, that needed to be refilled. There was a line of people waiting for ice cream. A few of them impatiently asked what was wrong with the machine and would there be ice cream. His direct answer to them was, "I am just the manager, I am not the technician!" He did this again later on when the machine again needed refilling. "I am JUST the manager, I am NOT the technician!" Well, it does not take a technician to pour ice cream mix into the machine. It does take a manager to apologize for the delay and leave with the customer smiling. This OCB goes through a lot of managers. None but the first one really ever got it right. That first one knew how to keep customers satisfied and did a pretty good job of running the restaurant (probably because he was trained at the home office). An example of what to do - one night, a very long time ago, the pizza ran out and did not come out for quite some time. This original manager spoke to a table who were complaining about the lack of pizza. When the pizza did come out to the buffet table, he made sure another whole pizza was brought to this customer's table. That is how a manager should react.

My final "opps, that shouldn't have been said in front of the customers story" I actually have told in an article before - just a few weeks ago, but it is worth repeating. This took place at the Pennsylvania buffet that I have advised the readers not to go to. There when there were several problems with the food that was being served, the server told the table of customers - who were telling her that there were problems, "I am just the waitress, I don't cook it!" Yes, well that may be true, but that is not something that you say to the customers.

I have a fourth story that is not mine and I am going to relate here word for word as it was posted on this site as a comment -

"I had a very bad experience in Old Country Buffet in Levittown today. It was 2:00 pm on a Sunday afternoon and the restaurant was very crowded.When I went up to take some food, I noticed that there were several empty serving trays.I asked every employee who walked by, to please bring out food.They looked past me as if they did'nt see me. When I went to the manager, Roberto, he told me that they don't speak English. I said this is an American restaurant, and maybe they should have a few associates who do speak English. Roberto got very nasty and abusive and told me that this is a Spanish speaking restaurant and if I didn't like it,too bad.They don't mind taking Americans money, but we are really not welcomed there.I have never been treated so poorly by a manager.There were a few other customers who were also waiting for food to be brought out, and they heard what he said to me.Everyone standing there was horrified. One couple said they wanted their money back and everyone said they would never come back again.If the manager has no respect for the customers, then the employees won't either. This is the worst restaurant I ever ate in.Then I made the mistake of going into the bathroom. It was filthy, and there were 2 backed up toilets. The smell was unbelievable.There were no paper towels and no soap. This restaurant should be sited by the Board of Health.As far as Roberto goes, he should be fired. He is a terrible representative of this restaurant. If they really don't want Americans in their restaurant, they should reconsider OCB as a business."

• This reader should be outraged! And this manager should be fired! Ths is a second service manager for the Levittown, NY OCB. The other manager is the subject of the ice cream machine incident above. Let me tell you a little bit about the community of Levittown, NY. This is the famous town created when the soldiers came home from World War II so that they could buy affordable housing. The make up of the community is basically the same now as it was then. This is far from being a Spanish community. Recently we have had a few "anonymous" comments from someone who is presenting him/herself to be from Buffets, Inc., the corporate owner of OCB. If there is someone who is reading this from Buffets, Inc. you need to know that you have a serious problem in management and operation in the Levittown, NY OCB - and now it is not just me saying so!

A note to all buffet managers (and employees)- if you have something critical to say to an employee, take the employee into your office. It is bad form to discipline an employee in front of anyone - another employee OR your customers!

Got any stories you have witnessed? Share them with us in a comment.

Old Town Buffet - A Small Buffet Chain in PA and NJ

I found this small buffet chain from a comment made to one of my articles. I had listed the Old Town Buffet as one of the various name incarnations of the Old Country Buffet corporate run restaurants and was corrected that no, this was not one of their restaurants. Hmm. I thought that I had seen this name somewhere, but had no idea where. I did a search and low and behold - there is a chain of four restaurants located in Pennsylvania and New Jersey. The website called these buffets "international" and showed carvings and steaks being charbroiled on a grill in the middle of the restaurant. They also spoke about sushi. I had the feeling that this was a chain of Chinese buffets, but that was not what their website was describing. The feeling that I was getting looking at the photos and reading the description was an all around buffet.

Now, finding a buffet chain in New Jersey (other than OCB) was exciting. I am in New Jersey several times during the year on business related trips and have looked for buffets to try. I have not found any - other than one not so good Chinese buffet that I have written about - and usually we just head back to New York at the end of the day and eat locally near home. I have figured that other than the buffets in the casinos in Atlantic City there must be buffets in New Jersey. So now I have found a chain. There are actually two locations in the State of New Jersey and two locations in Pennsylvania. The two in New Jersey are not exactly near the areas that I travel to - but it was encouraging to see on this Internet site that there was something.

On this trip to eastern Pennsylvania I decided to find one of these restaurants. We drove one hour away from where we are staying (with gas at $3.00 per gallon) to eat at The Old Town Buffet in Abington, Pennsylvania. I am going to write this article with the assumption that one location of these four restaurants is the same as any other.

The Old Town Buffet, despite website descriptions, is just another Chinese buffet. It does have an extensive variety of foods, but when all is put together, this is a chain of Chinese buffets. So is it good? It is ok. Not great, not bad, better than some but not as good as many.

This particular restaurant is located in a shopping center. It is part of the ground floor of a Target store that occupies the floor above. The restaurant is under the store. The restaurant is large (not as large as Target) and is entered from a long hallway that runs along the side of the dining room. The door to the hall is from the parking lot and the hall is lined with an odd assortment of chairs and benches - including two bench seats from a van. The implication from this is that at times there is a significant wait to get into this restaurant and this is the seating area for those who are waiting. At the end of the hall, in the hall is a reception desk and this is where you are greeted and get your table. We went on a Thursday night and we got to the restaurant late for a weeknight at 8:00, though the restaurant hours every night are claimed to be to 10:30 pm. We were seated right away and the restaurant was not empty. Other diners came in after we were seated.

The prices are clearly displayed on a sign on the wall over the cashier, but as you come in and brought to your table you may not notice it there. There are lunch and dinner prices. Weekday dinner is $11.95, adult, and $6.25, children. On Friday to Sunday, dinner is $13.75, adult, and $7.25, children. Lunch is $7.45, adult, and $4.25, children - Monday to Friday. On Saturday lunch is $8.45, adult, and $4.95, children. Sunday lunch is $10.95, adult, and $6.25, children - until 3pm. All other lunch hours stop at 3:30pm. The restaurant opens at 11 am. All prices for all meals include soft drinks (making the price a bit more reasonable than it appears). They have very specific definitions of children - children are from 3 years to 10 years and if the child is over four foot ten inches tall, you must prove the child's age. There is also a great rule that children under ten are not to go to the buffet tables unescorted by an adult. (Actually, there were a few children up at the buffet who should have been with an adult and no one said anything.) The website claims that there is a senior discount for 55 and over. There does not seem to be any indication of this in the restaurant.

So, as I said, the restaurant is large inside. There are booths and tables surrounding a large buffet area in the middle and the back of the restaurant. There are the equivalent of six double sided, double buffet tables plus a large island in the middle with a Mongolian barbecue, sushi bar, carving station, and charbroil grill. Yes, everything on the website is here in some form or another. Four of the double double servers are in the middle and two very long servers are along the wall - together, the equivalent of seven servers. When you are seated a large wooden bowl is placed on your table for crab leg shells and inside the bowl are a stack of napkins plus several wet-naps.

The server along one wall has five soup choices - all the usual Chinese soups including seafood soup. There is also clam chowder. There were also two rice steamers here for white and fried rice but these were empty with these items in trays on another table. Across the room was a cold table that was three quarters filled with salads and cold seafood, including raw clams and steamed cocktail shrimp. There was greens and toppings with several dressings along with several prepared salads including chicken salad and a seafood salad. The remainder of the table had fruits and puddings for dessert. Behind this table along the back wall was another cold table full of the usual assortment of Chinese buffet "Little Debbie"-type cakes, cookies, and an ice cream soft serve machine.

Jumping back to the front of the serving area is a large grill island surounded on all sides with hot and cold servers. On the front end is the sushi bar. There was an interesting assortment of sushi - a variety of raw fish and some interesting rolls including an Alaskan Roll that was mashed raw salmon with crab rolled in rice and seaweed with sesame seeds on the outside. These were pretty good. Two sides of the island have the incredients for the Mongolian barbecue - all the usual meats and raw vegetables including shrimp and noodles. There were two sauces to put on the mixture - one hot and spicy and the other mild. There was also chopped garlic to add. I began to spoon the sauce on and the bowl was taken from me for the grill chef to put it on. The grill is a round grill about a yard in diameter - smaller than some, but more than adequate (unless there is a crowd waiting). The grill chef did a good job and moved the mix of ingredients around the grill in a circle as it cooks. The raw mix is handed to the chef in metal or wood bowls and then when cooked are placed into a clean dinner plate. On the other side of the grill is the carving station which offered turkey breast, a very over done roast beef and a tray of spare ribs that were coated in that sweet red sauce that Chinese buffets like to pour ober their spare ribs. There were also trays of raw "New York' steaks, raw salmon steaks, and shrimp on skewers. You select these and give them to the grill chef to be charbroiled. The steak was far from "New York" steaks - they were more like beef round slice to less than half an inch thick. For some reason the steak did not char on the grill and barely browned. There was a layer of fat on the edge which would not cut with the steak when eating. There were no salmon steaks when we arrived and there were no salmon steaks when we left. There were large shrimp in the shell to be grilled.

On the hot buffet tables there was a wide assortment of Chinese appetizers to American side dishes. There were three types of potatoes - mashed, french fries, and potato wedges cooked in butter. There was corn on the cob. There was macaroni and cheese and there was a baked seafood dish covered in cheese. There were crab legs - just single legs and not clusters. There was also hot rock crab - the large hard-shell crabs that seemed baked. To round out the shell fish there were steamed crawfish. There was broiled salmon. There were several Chinese chicken dishes and seafood dishes.

It all sounds great and plentiful - plentiful, yes - tasty - well, it varied. Nothing was bad. BUT nothing stood out as terrific. I did not find anything that I would say that particularly stood out and that I could say I really, really liked of all of the hot foods. I tried the Mongolian barbecue and made a dish of noodles, cabbage, two types of mushrooms, beansprouts , shrimp and beef. It was all good but the beef -which despite the seasoned sauce was bland. The best thing that I had was the soft serve ice cream - which my wife agreed was the best thing that she had in the entire meal. It was creamy and tasty. If only the entrees were equally tasty.

Now, I did "eat my full" and I was more than satisfied after the meal. I just wish that it was better. Would I go back again? Only if I was in the locale of one of the four restaurants in the chain - it was not worth the 120 to 140 mile round trip from and back to my hotel. (Some buffets would be worth the trip!)

Something else that is very important to note - this restaurant hours every night are posted to 10:30 pm. At 9:00 pm with a good number of diners still in the restaurant they started to clean the restaurant to get ready to close. The tile floors in the service areas were washed with ammonia and bleach with an odor so strong that the smell came to our table and I was gagging. The Mongolian grill was washed down at 9:25 with no announcement asking if anyone cared for more. Essentially the restaurant was closing an hour earlier than posted. As we were leaving someone came to the door and asked if they were opened. He was told that he could come in but only what was still out would be available to him. If you post a 10:30 closing and you actually close an hour earlier then it should be posted that the last seating is X time. They do not do this.

The service was good. Plates were cleared from the tables quickly and drinks were offered without asking. At one point my soda glass was empty and I thought that the server was ignoring me as I tried to get his attention to let him know I wanted more. When I finally caught his eye as he was walking across the dining room he actually had another soda for me in his hand - before I asked. The restaurant was clean. The floors were clean. The room was pleasantly decorated. The logo for this restaurant is OTB and is on the servers shirts. (OTB - OCB?)

There are four locations - Abington, PA; Philadelphia, PA; Morristown, NJ; and Eatontown, NJ (near Monmouth). A fifth location is coming soon to New Brunswick, NJ. If you are near one of these towns or traveling through NEAR BY then try Old Town Buffet. It is a lot of different food for a reasonable price. You will not come out saying that it was the best buffet that you have ever eaten at, but you will be satisfied with the amount you are offered. If you are looking for great taste, keep going. There is a website for the chain and that is listed at the side of the page. If you have been to one of these Old Town Buffets, please share your opinion with us in the comments.