Cici's Pizza Buffets Moves NorthEast

I have written several articles about Cici's Pizza Buffet. I had my first and up until now only opportunity to eat in this famous chain a year ago in Maryland. At the time the Hagerstown, Maryland location was the furthest north east that Cici's had opened. Now to my very pleasant surprise Cici's has opened in Lancaster, Pennsylvania. There are now 11 locations in PA - all but this one in the western portion of the state.

I had heard several months ago that a Cici's was about to open in the Allentown/Lehigh Valley area of Pennsylvania - an area near the New Jersey border. This was causing some exuberance from those that I heard about it from but at the moment there is no mention of it on the Cici's website. On my recent arrival in Lancaster, however, we passed a familiar shopping center to see that since we were there in December, there is now a Cici's! Of course, we had to work a meal in there during the course of this trip.

For those of you who may not be familiar with Cici's and don't want to look back to last April and May to see what I wrote about it - and about what the corporate offices wrote back to me - I will give you a fresh look at Cici's. Cici's is a buffet chain located across the US that offers Salad, Pasta, Pizza, and Dessert - all you care to eat for one SMALL price. Now, I have to give an aside here from my "fresh" description to say that one year ago the price at Cici's was $4.49 per person. Now the price - at least at this new location is $5.49 per person. This is still a bargain - but a one dollar jump is quite a lot. I do not know if this "new, higher" price applies to all locations or this one. I was quite to surprised to see the jump. On the Cici's website it says "All you can eat for under $5*". Note the * - at the bottom of the page it says prices vary by location - so I guess I found one of the above $5 locations. How many others are there? The most recent Cici's television ads no longer mention a price. They just say "at an incredibly low price." Has Cici's now hooked us and will start raising the prices? I hope not. Unlimited soda still remains at $1.59 and the children's price remains at $2.99. These are the prices and they are the same all day and every day.

The Lancaster Cici's was exactly like the Hagerstown Cici's inside. You enter the same way, the counter and dining rooms are identical. When I was at Hagerstown they did not take charge cards - here they did. I was told by corporate after my Hagerstown visit that that had just been a temporary situation in Hagerstown. For Cici's newbies, you pay as you enter and you are given a plastic cup for your soft drink. No hot drinks here so be ready for soda or ice tea. You pick up a tray if you want one and move along a long counter to pick up your selections. You seat yourself and serve your drinks yourself from the soda fountain.

The first area is a salad bar with lettuce, toppings, cold vegetables, and a few prepared salads like pasta salad. You next come to a server with chicken pasta soup and then a tray of pasta follows with two sauces - tomato sauce and alfredo sauce. You next encounter a long row of pizzas. The pizza's are quite different from what you will usually find. Their signature pizza is Mac and Cheese Pizza. They also have the likes of Taco pizza, Barbecue Chicken Pizza, Barbecue Pizza, spinach pizza, white pizza, jalapeños pepper pizza, and many others. As was true of my first Cici's experience, the pizza's are not labeled as to what they are. I am told that this is because new and different pizzas are constantly brought out and take the place of something else. They could not keep up with labeling. I was also told not to be shy and ask one of the many people setting out pizzas what anyone is. And, indeed, on this visit I asked and was promptly told with a smile. One thing that was happening in Lancaster - perhaps because they are so knew and still doing things the way things are supposed to be done was when a pizza was put out it was loudly announced by name. Some pizzas - the taco pizza for one had a little song that several employees performed- "Ole!" Each pizza is about 12 inches in diameter and is cut into ten or so small slices - these are not large NY style pies that you fold and eat. Each piece is big enough so that you can enjoy a number of slices and take as many of the many selections that you would like to try. Each pizza is fresh and kept hot. There is cheesy garlic toast as well.

Once you have had your fill of pizza there are three desserts - an apple crumb pizza, hot cinnamon buns, and chocolate brownies. Wash it all down with Coke products, "sweet tea" and unsweet iced tea.

So how was the new Lancaster location? Good. The staff were extremely friendly, greeting everyone as they entered and left. The bus staff were very polite. The counters and the tables were kept very clean. The staff kept stirring the pasta and the sauces, mixing the salads to stay fresh, and continually put out pizzas.

My wife had some criticisms - which I will share - but these are with the chain in general and not specific to this location. I have been told several things about Cici's by readers which I will share here. If you do not see a pizza out that you would like, ask for it and it will be made and you will be brought slices. I witnessed this at Lancaster. I was also told that if you would like something special you should ask for it and if they have the ingredients they will make it just for you. My wife's feelings about this are these - and she kept commenting this to me through out the meal. "How does anyone know this and how do they know what the pizzas are to ask for one?" She feels that somewhere on the counter or on the wall there should be a list of all of the pizzas. In this way if you see a pizza on the list that you would like to try you can ask for it. She says that it all should not be a secret. She, of course, is right. I could understand that there could be chaos with everyone reading the list and asking for something different - but if it is truly the case that you can ask for something that you do not see, then everyone should know what to ask for - and that they may ask.

Now, she wanted something special - a vegetable pizza without cheese, but she would not ask for it and did not want me to ask for it. They do have "zesty" vegetable cheese pizza, so all the ingredients are right there - and pizzas are made in a matter of minutes. But there is nothing indicating that you can just up and ask for your own combination - and her concern was that she only want a slice or two, so what would happen if they brought her an entire pizza. If, indeed, all of this request stuff is true, then it should not be a secret and there should be some sign about it. When we entered the cashier asked if I had ever been to Cici's before and would I like to know all about it. Interested in hearing what a new person is told, I told her to give me the pitch - all she told me (very friendly) was the prices and that you get all the salad, pasta, pizza, and dessert that you want - and that soda was extra. No mention about special requests.

I have had more positive comments about Cicis to my articles than any other buffet. Everyone loves these buffets. They are great for kids - there is a game room in the back, pleasant classic rock music playing, and two large screen television sets at the ceiling. Adults love them. Kids love them.

If you are on a diet and can resist the pizza and be happy with the small salad bar and pasta then you too will enjoy this buffet - but it is really hard to resist. If you do not eat cheese for any reason you are in the same dilemma, and perhaps should seek out someplace else. But if you do not care about carbs or your cholesterol this is heaven. (I ate many and too much of things that I should not eat - but love.)

I come to this area of Pennsylvania a number of times a year and I am very happy that Cici's has come to Lancaster -and is moving north east. (BUT I am not sure that I want one in NY because most chains are changed for the worse when they come to NY.) I could also never maintain my health with a Cici's too close by.

Cici's Lancaster is located at 2405 Covered Bridge Road in Lancaster.Pennsylvania which is on Route 30 in the shopping center with Target. Cici's has a website for all of its chain and that link is at the side of this page. There is a location finder on the website with links to maps. The Lancaster phone number is 717-392-2740.

Enjoy pizza? Enjoy a filling and good meal for little money? Enjoy Cici's Pizza Buffet!

Arments Family Restaurant and Buffet, Adamstown, Pennsylvania

I have written about several buffet restaurants located in the Lancaster area of Pennsylvania that are located in or adjacent to supermarkets. Arments Family Restaurant and Buffet fits into that same category, though the restaurant is located in a separate building - behind the supermarket. The supermarket is Weavers Market - a large local chain. When I first learned about this restaurant - about six months ago - the restaurant's connection to the supermarket seemed to be only one of proximity. Now, the restaurant shares the supermarket's website and the restaurant's banquet room is advertised on the supermarket's roadside billboards.

Arments is a family restaurant. In many parts of the country there are diners. In other parts there are family restaurants. In some parts there are both. The family restaurant is just as the name states - a nice place that you can bring your family with a home-like atmosphere. The dining room of Arments was designed around a buffet serving area in the center - a small buffet serving area.

We went to Arments on a Friday night. We arrived at 6:30 pm and the restaurant was busy. An hour later it was almost empty. Despite its location on the fringe of a tourist area this is a restaurant for locals. In the height of tourist season this may be different - but in early Spring everyone here appeared to be local. The restaurant is open until 8:00 pm Monday to Saturday. Closed on Sunday- as are most local restaurants in this area. The dinner buffet is served from 4:00 pm to 7:30 pm. As the waitress explained, no one may order the buffet after 7:30 pm. If y0u have ordered before that time the buffet remains open until everyone in the restaurant who has ordered the buffet has left. From 11:30 am until 4:00 pm a Brunch Buffet is served. From 6 am until 10:30 a Breakfast Buffet is served. I do not know what makes the Brunch Buffet different from the Breakfast Buffet - but note that there is no Lunch Buffet. Prices are on the high side for dinner and about average at the other meals. Breakfast Buffet is $5.99. Brunch Buffet is $7.99. Dinner varies by night. Friday, Saturday, and Monday nights are $13.99. Other nights are $11.99. I did not see any evidence of children's prices, but everyone can save $1 if you have the Breakfast Buffet from 6 am to 7 am - if you want to eat a buffet that early. There is a children's menu to order from with excellent prices. Drinks are separately priced at $1.35 for soft drinks. The menu does not say refillable - but I was pleasantly surprised when the waitress offered to refill our drinks. Pepsi products are served.

The entrance to the restaurant leads you to the left to the banquet room or to the right to the restaurant. Going through a glass inside door you enter right into the dining room. It appeared a bit awkward at first as we we nose to nose with a waitress and the table of diners that she was serving. There was a sign right there that said to wait to be seated and a hostess rushed over to us and brought us to a table.

The dining room is very pleasant and nicely decorated with a modern touch and lots of flower arrangements (artificial flowers that were quite nice). There are booths and tables but everything seemed to seat only four and a large family was seated at two tables across from each other with the aisle in between. You are handed a menu with an extensive selection of items - and the menu lists the dinner buffet - with no price. This apparently because of the change in price by night. Friday night is seafood. Saturday is prime rib. Monday is steak. Tuesday is Pennsylvania Dutch. Wednesday is Italian and Thursday is barbecue.

We are at the restaurant on seafood night. Now, those of you who have read these articles know that my good wife does not like fish. In the seafood category all that she will eat is shrimp. This has never been a problem when we go to buffets on seafood night because there are always some meat choices on the buffet. In this region there is always fried chicken. NOT HERE. Everything on the buffet was seafood. Thankfully, there was fried shrimp. Now, she could have gone up to the buffet, seen this, and go to the waitress and order from the menu - but she is a "trooper" and stuck with the shrimp.

The buffet is in the center of the dining room and is a single, double-sided buffet server. Half of this server is the salad and soup bar and the remainder is the buffet. Offerings on the buffet were few.

I will start as I always do and tell you about the soup choices. There were just two soups. On this Friday night there was seafood chowder - a specialty of this restaurant according to the menu. The other soup was chili. Where I live chili is an entree. Everywhere else in the country it is a soup. I tried the seafood chowder. It was cream-based and thick. It was full of potatoes and you could taste and see the fish including shrimp. IT was very good.

The small salad bar offerings included lettuce, tomatoes, toppings, and a small variety of prepared salads including a pasta salad with sliced pepperoni, local macaroni salad with chopped egg, and other salad items. There were also cold, steamed, spiced shrimp.

The hot side of the server had seven entrees (as I said, on this night all fish) and two vegetables and garlic mashed potatoes. The entrees included tiny steamed clams, baked tilapia, coconut grouper, chipped pollack, pasta in seafood cream sauce, fried shrimp, and crab cakes. I tried a bit of each - just so that I may tell you about them. Each was good - but everything was salty. The crab cakes were full of crab meat - they were made flat (almost looking like the seafood patties at OCB but much, much better). Had these crab cakes been more of a lump than flat it would have been better - they were pan fried and a little overcooked. They were too salty to take more than one. The coconut grouper was grouper fried in a batter that was full of coconut flakes. It was crispy and interesting. The chipped pollock was just baked pollack. I am not sure what was chipped. I looked to see if it was chopped and reformed, but it was not. The seafood pasta was good, but the seafood must have been mixed well into the sauce because you could mildly taste the fish but you could not see it.

The two vegetables were canned string beans and stewed tomatoes. Both were good. The garlic mashed potatoes had the potato skin mashed in so you know that it was made with real potatoes and not dried flakes or canned.

When it came to dessert, at first, we thought that all that was offered were brownies and cookies, which sat above the salad bar with a tray of bread rolls, but then we noticed that there wsa a counter at the rear wall - with stools in front that singles might eat at. On that counter there were dessert items. There were pieces of chocolate cake and several slices of different pies - all on little plastic plates and wrapped in plastic wrap. There was a chocolate fountain flowing with melted chocolate and fresh strawberries to dip in. There was a cone made up of little cream puffs. There was also a bowl of chocolate covered pretzels. At this point in the evening once one of the desserts was taken it was not replaced. I think I dissppointed the man behind me who let out a groan when I took the last piece of blueberry pie. My wife had the last piece of chocolate cake.

The service was excellent. The waitress was very friendly and spoke with us about the buffet prices on each night and the various menus (no signs about this). The restaurant was very clean - the dining room, the buffet server, and the restrooms. Spills on the buffet counter were cleaned up immediately. Dishes were taken away from the table immediately. The waitress did come over an offer drink refills. Items on the buffet were continually refilled and were well maintained. Everything was moist and appetizing.

This is unlike most other buffets that I have been too. Many will be disappointed here at the limited offerings - at the price that it is offered. The food, however, was very good. I also observed some of the menu items on other tables and they looked good with decent sized portions. You can add the soup and salad bar to entrees on the menu for $2.50.

I am rarely in and out of a buffet in less than 90 minutes to two hours. We were finished with dinner here within one hour. I was not hungry when I left. Had there been a greater variety I may have selected my choices differently spreading them out for a longer meal.

I am not NOT recommending Arments Family Restaurant and Buffet. I might try it again on a different night to see what is offered - there cannot be more items offered as there is no other serving room on the server. I do have to say that in this area there are other buffet restaurants that are better in what is offered and in value.

Arments Family Restaurant and Buffet is located at the junction of Rt. 272 and Rt. 897 BEHIND Weavers Market in Adamstown, PA 19501. The phone number is 717-484-1500. There is a web page on the Weavers Market website and that is listed on the side of this article.

New Grand Buffet, Islandia, New York

I must begin by saying that I ate at this buffet restaurant twice before I published this article. I had some concerns after my first meal there. I discovered, shortly thereafter, that I had a cold coming in and my taste buds were being affected. I had come to certain conclusions about this restaurant after that first meal that I could not trust if I was not tasting things correctly. About six weeks later we went back. This article is a combination of my experience during those two visits. I am glad that I went back because my original article would have been unfair to this restaurant.

I first learned about this Chinese buffet from an email from a reader who kindly shared a few buffets for me to try. This buffet is a distance from me, but close to my sister-in-law. I mentioned the name to my brother-in-law and he told me that they have been to this restaurant numerous times. I asked him how it was and his answer was "Just OK", but he added that it is my 17 year old nephew's favorite restaurant. With that I was somewhat encouraged - somewhat.

I had to head out east on Long Island so I got directions to this restaurant and made plans to end my day there (twice). The New China Grand Buffet is in Islandia, New York. It is located in mid-Suffolk County on Long Island. The restaurant is situated at the end of a very large, strip mall shopping center that includes a Wal-Mart at the opposite end. The restaurant exterior is very stylized architecturally.

We went on a Thursday night, coincidently, and arrived about 6:30 pm both times - which is usual dinner time for a mid-week evening. We were seated right away and noticed that the restaurant was quite busy for a mid-weeknight on both occassions. The interior of the restaurant consists of several dining rooms that angle off the center of the restaurant which holds the buffet servers. Each of the dining rooms has a different and pleasing decor - though not exactly what you might expect in a Chinese or Oriental restaurant. As we were dining, my wife suggested that the restaurant may have been another type of restaurant once before, because the decor of the dining room that we were in was cabin, wood - rustic including a canoe sitting upside down on rafters along one wall. I know that this restaurant has been the New Grand Buffet since at least 2003, but it is very possible that it once was a barbecue or steak house. The various dining rooms had tables and booths. Some rooms had tables for four. The smallest table in the first room that we ate in was for eight. On the second time around we were seated in another dining room and this had tables for four. The second room that we were in was bright and airy. The first room was, according to my wife, more elegant.

On the first visit, this was the first buffet that I have gone to where it was obvious that children pay by height - as per the recent article that I wrote here about a controversy over this same idea. Since then we have encountered others - all Chinese buffets. Adult prices every day are $12.99 for dinner and $7.50 for lunch. Children's prices are $6.99 for dinner for children between two and a half feet tall and four and a half feet tall. Over four and a half feet (seems to be the magic height - see my other article) pay adult price. Children under two and a half feet eat free. Children pay $3.99 for lunch - same height rules. Two signs in the lobby were very clear about children's pricing - though I did not see any ruler on a wall to measure. As with most Chinese buffets you pay when you leave. Soda is unlimited and you pay $1.25 per person extra for soda. Soda are Coke products. They also have a wine and beer license (in NY this is separate from a liquor license) and they serve bottles of wine and beer. There is a wine list on every table along with a beer selection. There were signs on the wall for Sangria. Prices here are high compared to other local buffets for weeknights, but as this is the price seven nights per week, the price is good for weekends.

There were two long, double-sided buffet tables, a long, single-sided cold buffet table, a single-sided dessert buffet table, a single-sided hot server with barbecued items, and a long single-sided server in front of a round Mongolian barbecue griddle. As usual, I started with soup. There were four soups to choose from - the usual three Chinese standards - wonton soup, egg drop soup, and hot and sour soup. There was also French onion soup. I tried the wonton. The wontons sit next to the hot broth in a serving tray in hot water. You select your wontons and put them into the broth - standard, really, but I mention this because it has a bearing on what I must tell you next. The wontons tasted like water. Now, you may say, "Water has no taste." Exactly - the wontons had no taste and they were waterlogged. On my first visit this was an indication of the lack of taste that things seemed to have - and what lead me to the second visit. On the second visit the wontons were still the same. The broth ,however, was flavorful (on my second visit). The wontons were big and doughy. They looked great, but they were bland. On our first visit I asked my wife, "do the wontons have no taste or is it me?" She agreed and without my saying so, she told me that they tasted like water. I decided to taste the Hot and Sour Soup. It was good but it was not very spicy. I prefer it mild and it was the better soup choice.

Ok, so maybe they can't make a good wonton. Eat on.

From here on I will base my opinion on my second visit because things got better. I next went for the sushi. There were a few choices, all either salmon, vegetable, or California Rolls. I took salmon on rice, a salmon roll with a squirt of pink sauce on top, and what I thought was a spicy salmon role but turned out not to be (not sure what it was!). The salmon on rice was standard, the salmon roll was a basic salmon roll but the sauce on top was the sauce usually put on spicy salmon or tuna rolls and was spicy. The other roll was just a shmear (NY term for minor spread) of some chopped up fish on rice and rolled in seaweed. It had the taste of seafood salad - but I am not certain as to what it was. It was not bad. I also took some cold peal and eat shrimp with cocktail sauce. The shrimp were nice and large.

Next came the dumplings - there were fried dumplings, steamed shrimp dumplings, and dim sum. The dim sum was very dark. The meat was very deep brown in what seemed to be soy sauce. On our first visit, I was not sure that I would take it, but my wife tried it first and said that it ok - and certainly did not taste like how it looked. I tried some and it was ok - just ok. The shrimp dumplings on our first visit were dry in the steamer and stuck to the bottom. They were tough and dried out - and the inside had no appearance resemblance to shrimp, but rather, perhaps, chopped shrimp paste. A new tray of shrimp dumplings were brought out later in the evening and to be fair, I took another one to try again. The new ones were moist and not dried out. They were still tough and bland. On our second visit these same shrimp dumplings were labeled "Vegetable Dumplings" but they were the same shrimp dumplings - this time with larger pieces of shrimp to be found. Now, the incorrect labeling of these dumplings as vegetable and not shrimp could be quite dangerous to anyone who has a shell fish allegy. The fried dumplings were the best of the selection and were standard in taste and consistency.

I moved next to the small barbecue selection that was coming off a grill in the back - this consisted of sliced chicken meat grilled on a stick and sliced beef grilled the same way. Each was nicely charred and looked promising. The chicken was fine and the beef was a bit chewy - but it was sliced thin and well-cooked and that is to be expected.

I like to look for dishes that I have not seen before and here there was a tray of something that they called Coconut Chicken. I have had Coconut Shrimp so I assumed that this would be something similar. There were small rectangles of chicken wrapped in a very thin dough membrane. Inside, when I took a bite, there was no coconut to be found or tasted, but rather tiny bits of broccoli and a sliver of chicken in s moist cream like substance. Perhaps it should have been called Chicken and Broccoli Pie rather than Coconut Chicken. It was not bad.

There was Chicken and Broccoli and my wife tried it reluctantly, because in the server it was very dark and sitting in a thick black soy sauce based sauce. She need not have been concerned though because it was bland. She observed that many entrees were over-sauced (perhaps to give them flavor) but nothing tasted as flavorful as it looked. Many dishes were heavy on soy sauce though they did not taste of it - but it did put a lot of salt into the dish. I tried a stuffed mushroom that was sitting in a red oil in the tray. It dripped this red oil as I cut into it and I figured that this must be spicy chili based oil. I looked right but there was no chili taste. It was fine, but not spicy as it looked. There were pieces of cut up broiled chicken in the skin. I did not try this on either visit. It looked good.

Another different entree was Basil Beef. This was slices of beef with tiny corn on the cob and mushrooms in a brown sauce with a bit of basil added. This all looked good and it did have flavor.

I tried some of the standard Chinese buffet items. The egg roll was oily and had too much wrapping and little filling. There were large Chinese spareribs - covered in the sticky, red sweet sauce that Chinese Buffets find a need to add. The spare rib that I took was meaty. We both tried a shrimp ball - a small ball of fried shrimp and filler. It looked right. It had little flavor and had the consistency of a solid rubber ball (during both visits). We also both tried the lo mein noodles and the fried rice and they were standard. There were several of the usual dishes that generally are very spicy. They were tasty but they were not very spicy. For me that was fine. If you like your General Tso's Chicken extra hot you will be disappointed.

If you like seafood there were several dishes to be found. There were hot mussels, there was salt and pepper shrimp, there was broiled salmon, there was stuffed flounder, and there was fried fish pieces that had bones. They also had a broiled stone crab claw in ginger sauce. There was one nut cracker on every table. I did try the stuffed flounder and the fried fish. The stuffed flounder was a very thin slice of flounder rolled around a stuffing mixture. It was good. The fried fish was ok, but as warned on the sign above the tray, it was fried fish with bones and the bones were small and plentiful. It was not worth the effort to pick out all of the bones or retrieve them from my mouth before I swallowed them. The best dish dish that I had - and one that should be tried, if you come here, is Pepper Shrimp. On our first visit this was called salt and pepper shrimp. On our second visit it was just Pepper Shrimp. It still had some salt but not crusted as salt and pepper shrimp is. These shrimp were very good and very flavorful. These shrimp are cooked and seasoned in the shell - as salt and pepper shrimp are also. They are not easy to eat - unless you pick up each one in its seasonings and peel them. I have heard that these are to be eaten shell and all. I don't know - I can't bring myself to eat shrimp shells. I cut into them and peel them with my fork and knife. The taste was worth the effort. If anyone out there knows, tell me if you are supposed to eat them shell, tiny legs, and all.

Many people at this restaurant seem to be here for the crab legs - and this restaurant was busy the whole time that we were there. I must say that the crab legs were probably the best of any of the local Chinese buffets at this price range. They were individual legs or small clusters - not whole clusters. They were large legs. They were cooked just right and not over steamed so that they drip with water. These were moist but properly dry on the shell. The shells were not water logged and snapped open easily. Most legs had the cluster tops still attached and these were full of crab meat. Most of the tables had dishes full of crab legs. It was no wonder. For $12.99 for the full buffet, you can enjoy a meal of crab legs if you like nothing else.

This restaurant also has a Mongolian Barbecue. You select your meat, vegetables, and noodles, cover them with sauce and give them to a chef to cook in front of you on a large, round griddle. With this I was more hopeful. There were three meats - beef, chicken, and pork. Usually at Mongolian grills these meats are frozen and kept frozen so that they stay fresh as they sit out on the server. Here the meats were not frozen and I was a little uncertain about taking the chicken or pork for that reason. The beef was still slightly frozen and I took that. There was also shrimp and these, happily, were sitting on ice. There was a nice assortment of vegetables to choose from and to my delight there was something that I had not seen on a Mongolian BBQ server before - dry, rice noodles that you took up in a large dry clump and placed on top of your meat and vegetables. They also had lo mein noodles to add. The sauces are labeled on th side of the counter and not as you look at them when you come to them at the end of the server. At first I thought that you had to guess, and then I saw the signs. I choose brown sauce and Oriental wine. The chef stepped up to the counter and greeted me with a polite, "How are you?" I relied, "Fine, thank you!" (This was my first visit - I did not get the greeting on my second visit.) I handed the dish to the chef and he put it on the grill moving it around the circular grill with a large stick. Then he took a tea pot and poured water on top. He moved the food some more and then he poured more water - and again, and again... and again! He let the food sit and cook for awhile and then scooped it into a plate and handed it to me. I returned to the table and waited for my wife to join me. As I left the grill, I heard the chef greet her with the same "How are you?" - even on our second trip. The seasoning at the Mongolian Grill is up to you and you can make yours as spicy as you would like. This grill could be the central focus of your meal here and will satisfy most tastes.

Dessert is the usual Chinese buffet selection of "Little Debbie-style" cakes. The cold server did have an assortment of puddings and fruit including fresh orange wedges. There was a soft serve ice cream machine.

The service was fine. On our first visit there was one person in our dining room and she got around to cleaning away plates on a fairly regular basis. On our second visit there were several servers in our dining room and dishes were cleared away as soon as you left the table to get more. The staff were pleasant but quite. On our first visit, barely three words were spoken to us by the staff from the time that we entered until we left. Oh -that is not counting the "How are you?" from the BBQ chef. The staff were very pleasant and when you could got their attention they brought you whatever you needed. On both visits, no one came to offer us refills on the soda, but the soda fountain was out on the side of the buffet servers and we took our glasses up to the machine and refilled them with no comment from any of the staff.

Trays on the buffet were filled regularly. I did witness one employee who took some chicken in sauce that had earlier fallen onto the counter, pick it up with the serving spoon, and return it to the serving tray. This is probably a lot more common in many buffets than one might like - but perhaps that piece should not have been returned to the tray.

The buffet area was clean. Some of the dishes were coming from the dishwasher with some food spots and some were chipped on the bottoms or slightly on the sides. The tables and the floors were clean. The walls - well, here is an oddity. In that first dining room that we were in - the elegant one - the walls were covered in a beige, close pile carpet. Many of the walls - mid-height and toward top were stained with broad grey/black marks. I am not certain how this would be, and it was not an intentional design. It looked like this was a stained floor carpet that was put up on the walls. It was subtle - we tried to see if it was just shadows from the lighting - but no these definately were not shadows. Each booth in that room had a lamp connected to the wall with a small lamp shade. The shades were dingy and the lamps under the shades were dusty. My wife checked out the Ladies Room and she reports that it was ok but the floors were not cleaned well at the edges. The second dining room that we ate in was much better in its condition and had I only been in this room I would never have known about the condition of the other room.

To conclude my first meal I opened my fortune cookie. It said "You may be hungry soon: order a takeout now." Not exactly what you should read after eating at a buffet. Ha. Ha.

After my second visit - and I am very happy that I went back - I can say that this buffet is good. It is not great - though the crab legs were very good - as was that Pepper Shrimp. I would have no problem taking friends here. And my nephew does recommend it. The location is 704 Veteran's Highway in Islandia, New York. It is just south of US 495 at exit 57 in the Islandia Shopping Center. The phone number is (631) 582-3888. There is no website. The hours are from 11 am to 10 pm, Monday through Thursday, 11 am to 11 pm, Friday and Saturday, and 12 Noon to 10 pm on Sundays.

Give it a try!

The Sad Need for Another New Rule

Ah, the rules. If you have read this site you know about the rules. The Rules of Buffet Dining. So far we have had 26 of them. Look out because here comes 27!

This rule is very necessary. I have witnessed the need for this rule and one of our readers, Brett - our friend from Erie, PA, also witnessed the need for this rule and shared what he saw with me.

Rule #27 is a two part rule. I will state the rule and then go into the sightings that have led to it.

#27 - Do not put anything back into a serving tray that has dropped onto the serving counter - and never put anything back into a serving tray (whether from the counter or your dish) with your fingers.

Now, we already have Rule #9 that says, "If you put it on your plate, leave it there. Never return food to the serving tray." And we have Rule #24 that says, "Never put your hands into a serving tray. " With these clearly stated, would you not feel that picking food up from the counter with your fingers and dropping it back into the middle of the serving tray is a "No, NO!" Evidently not. Of course, perhaps we are preaching to the choir and all of you experienced and considerate buffet goers would never do this - but there is an awful lot of people out that who have not read the rules - and would not care if they did.

I witnessed a child do it. Brett witnessed an adult. I saw a child take a shrimp that had dropped from his plate onto the counter, pick it up and then drop it into the serving tray. Brett told me that he saw an adult woman do the same thing with macaroni and cheese. Some mac and cheese spilled onto the counter and the woman picked it up with her hands and plopped it back into the serving tray. In this instance, the staff saw this and sprung into action, pulling that tray and immediately replacing it with a fresh one. (Again, the wonderful Erie, PA OCB)

Yuck! So now we have Rule 27. I hate to think what Rule 28 might be!

Just in case you don't know Rules 1 to 26, here they are (again) -

1. All you can eat is not a challenge. It is an offer!

2. There is no limit to the number of times that you can go up and get food.

3. Take your food in courses - as you would be served if ordering from a menu.

4.Everyone must pay!

5. No food is permitted to be taken out of the restaurant.

6. Take only what you will eat - do not waste food.

7.For a more social meal, it is polite to wait for the others at the table to finish their plates and then go up together to get more.

8. Take a clean plate every time that you go up to the buffet tables.

9. If you put it on your plate, leave it there. Never return food to the serving tray.

10. Never eat at the buffet tables!

11. Children under 12 should not be going up to the buffet tables alone.

12. The buffet table is not a cafeteria line.

13. Tip the server.

14. Never take a serving piece from one item and use it for another item.

15. Never place your dirty plates on someone else's table.

16. Never use your silverware to serve yourself from the buffet trays.

17. Once you have gotten what you want, don't stand around the buffet tables. Move on back to your table.

18. Children should remain seated through the meal.

19. Do not fill community plates for the "table". Each should take their own plate of what they wish to eat.

20. If you cough or sneeze into your hand, please do not use that hand to pick up the serving utensils.

21. In th buffet, as in any restaurant, children (and adults) should use their inside voices.

22. Don't talk on your cell phone while you are getting your food at the buffet tables.

23. Never bring an animal into the buffet.

24. Never put your hands into a serving tray.

25. Tell your children not to put their hands into a serving tray - and make sure that they do not!

26. Do not carry on a conversation throughout dinner with the people at the tables around you.

We should print them on a card and hand the cards out at restaurants. (If you do, please just credit "The Art of the Buffet" as the source with this web url. - Thanks!)

A Good Old Country Buffet

A number of those who read my articles think that I do not like Old Country Buffet. That is not true. I have been to a number of Old Country Buffets that I have enjoyed. Unfortunately - for me - my local OCB is not good and it is this location that gets much of my attention. I have recently been contacted by a reader who had a great experience at an Old Country Buffet and he has given me permission to pass his experience along to all of you.

Before I begin his tale, I would like to make some OCB news known. It is not relevant to the review of this restaurant but it is important to know about OCB. The parent company of Old Country Buffets (and Hometown Buffets, Ryans, and Fire Mountain) has filed Chapter 11 for bankruptcy. It is just about a year or so since the take over by this company of the Ryans restaurants group and now has filed bankruptcy. I am told that the move has been to avoid debts to its creditors and that the chains will not go out of business. I have been told that some local restaurants have held back on payment to vendors and creditors. It has also been said that over 50 restaurants will be closed in the reorganization. I am told that some have closed already. I have been told that effects have already been seen on changes in middle management and restaurant management. Locations that do good business will remain open. All of this is hearsay and I do not claim these statements as fact - with the exception of the fact that Buffets, Inc. has filed for bankruptcy. Some readers have spoken to their local restaurants and have told me that those restaurants are expected to remain in business because they do good busines for the company. All Old Country Buffets are company owned. The Hometown Buffet restaurants are franchised.

Now, let me let one of our readers, Brett, tell you about a great experience that he had at an Old Country Buffet in Erie, Pennsylvania -

"We normally buffet for lunch (opposite for you) but tonight I found myself at OCB around 8:15pm for dinner.

I was expecting to pay the $12.49 for dinner as I had seen on the blog as  the new weekend price, but it was only $10.59, the normal dinner price,which was a pleasant surprise. 

Throughout the evening, items were constantly replenished with the same item, with nothing running out. There was lots of seafood, and the fried 
popcorn shrimp were nothing short of delicious. 

Tonight at the grill they had steak, plus the usual carved ham, beef roast, and the BBQ beef ribs. The grill chef, who constantly grills steak and cuts and serves them to order a la Golden Corral, was (as always) 
attentive with the carved items.

The steak I had was medium rare, thick, and juicy. I enjoy the spices of the Ranchers Select steak, and the Erie OCB steak always pleases.

They also had a feature I had never seen, which was the standard baked fish with a breadcrumb crust on top - very tasty.

Even as I departed at 9:15, everything was still hot and fresh. Half-sized batches of items began appearing, which I appreciate as it avoids 
unnecessary waste. But, as always, the food was fresh and tasty, and the staff was great. Without a doubt, this is one of the, if not the best OCB out there."


Not too long after Brett went back to the Erie OCB and had this to say - 

"Ended up going back to OCB tonight on my way home from work. I do not 
remember the last time I visited OCB on a Sunday, it has been several 
years, and I have never visited the Erie OCB on a Sunday. I remember 
the Sunday horrors of the Hometown Buffet back in Ohio I used to 
frequent, but the Erie location has blown me away so many times with 
excellence, I figured I was safe.

Sure enough - the Erie PA OCB still delivers on an overflowing Sunday 
dinner crowd! Not once was any item empty, save for one of the soups 
which was replenished within 5 minutes. Contrary to your location, 
our OCB serves steak on Sunday evenings, as well as several specials 
from the week. Not sure if it was leftovers or if they purposely do 
it for Sundays, but there were specials from several weeknights 
available this evening."

As I told Brett, I am envious. I would love to try an OCB with a grill out on the serving floor. My local OCB recently got a grill but it is in the kitchen and nothing is cooked to order. The steak still comes out over done and then is plopped inside a steamer tray in the server, covered, to continue to cook. I am not near Erie, but if I ever get there I will certainly give this OCB a try. I recall a comment from a reader that there is an OCB in or near Alexandria, VA or Fairfax, VA with a grill in the serving area. I am going to find that OCB. (If anyone has the exact location, comment or email me.)

So you see, there are good OCBs. I have always like the OCB in Fredericksburg, Va. I was at a nice OCB near Monmouth, New Jersey. I know that there are many of them that are good. IN Erie there is a very good one!

KAM CHINA BUFFET, Somerset, New Jersey

I was back in New Jersey and had to make the decision to return for a second trip to Makkoli (see two weeks ago) or go to a buffet that I have never been to. I opted for the latter, just so that I could tell you about someplace new. As I had mentioned in my article about Makkoli I go to New Jersey on business for the day every so often and have looked - I guess not too well - for buffet restaurants to try and had little luck in finding them. A few readers helped out with suggestions and the one who also suggested Makkoli (Hi Al!) also told me about this restaurant, Kam China Buffet. He did say that he had never tried it, but it was just three miles from where I spent the day so I was hoping that it was going to be a good find - and it is!

Kam China Buffet is located in Somerset, New Jersey. It is in a outdoor strip mall shopping center - The Somerset Village Shopping Center. The restaurant is large taking up about four store fronts. It is odd though because on the Saturday night that I went there I thought at first that the restaurant was half the size than it actually is. How can that be? Half of the restaurant was dark - and from the outside it did not look like there was anything but an empty store next door to Kam China Buffet. Once inside, about halfway through the meal, I realized that next to one of the buffet servers in the front of the restaurant there was an entire other dining room - empty of customers and dark. Entering the restaurant there is a dining room partioned with low partitions from the buffet serving area. This dining room is about one third the size of the room with the remainder of the room as serving area. This dining room is primarily booths with a few tables at the rear. The second dining room, which was closed, doubled the size of the entire restaurant. We came on a Saturday night at about 7:00 pm which on a Saturday should be prime dinner time. The restaurant was not crowded but the open dining room was busy. While we were dining there was a continual turn over of tables so they were doing business - just not enough to fill the two dining rooms of the restaurant - which after dining there seems strange to me because this was quite a find.

Price is very reasonable. Dinner all nights is $10.99 for adults. Children at dinner are charged by height (since that news story and my article I am finding this more and more). Children under 4' 6" are charged $5.95 at dinner. Children between 4' 6" and 5' are $8.95. There is also a senior citizens discount (age 65) pay $9.95. (My wife is 5' 1", if she was one foot taller I could have said she was my kid and saved a few bucks - not really.) Lunch prices are lower with adults paying $6.95. Children's prices are $4.50 and $5.50 respectively. Seniors at lunch pay $6.50. Unlimited sodas are $1.00 at all times. Coke products are served. As I say, prices are great. The restaurant is open for lunch from 11:30 am to 3:30 pm and dinner from 4:00 pm to 9:30 pm, Sunday to Thursday, and to 10:30 pm on Friday and Saturday.

The buffet servers fill the two thirds of the restaurant half. There were two long double sided buffet servers - one hot and one cold. There was a single length double sided hot server and there were two more long single sided servers along walls. Lots of food will be found here.

As always, we start with soup and there were four soups offered - the three standard Chinese restaurant soups - wonton, egg drop, and hot and sour - and also chicken noodle soup which was chicken broth with elbow macaroni and vegetables. The soup was good. The wontons were served from a steamer next to the broth and were large and full of meat. They were tasty. Also on this buffet server was a steamer of dim sum.

One section of the cold server was a salad bar and this was greens with a variety of salad toppings. There were also several prepared salads as well. If you like ice cold shellfish raw on the half shell you will be very happy here. There were very nice looking raw oysters and raw clams - all looking very fresh and moist sitting high on ice just as they should be. There were also large cocktail shrimp in the shell. They were nicely iced and the cocktail sauce that was served on the side had a nice spiced zing. There were two types of sushi rolls - the usual California Rolls and Shrimp Tempura Rolls (which I had never seen before until two weeks ago when I went to Makkoli in New Jersey (maybe they are a NJ thing?)). Both were good, but the tempura rolls were very good. Some are a section of fried shrimp tempura wrapped in seaweed and then rolled in rice and some were the section with the tail sticking up out of the roll like a little handle. I really enjoyed the tempura rolls and went back for more.

On the hot bars there were two types of dumplings - the steamed dim sum and lightly fried pork dumplings. The pork pork dumplings were good. The dim sum was a little darker than it should be on the top and looked a bit strange, but "picky" wife tried it anyway and says that it tasted very good.

They also had the usual assortment of Chinese appetizers. Egg rolls, spring rolls. cheese fried wontons, spare ribs, boneless spareribs, large fried butterfly shrimp, and many others were there to be found. The spare ribs were much better than the average Chinese buffet spare ribs - as were the boneless spare ribs. Both were not drowning in the overly sweet red sugar sauce that most Chinese buffets server their spare ribs in. These were very much like the spare ribs that I remember having in Chinese restaurants when I was a kid - nicely broiled and red on the edges from the cooking with charmarks on the top. They were meaty and tasted good. I must say that these are not the best Chinese buffet spare ribs that I have ever had (one day I may write an article just about those), but they were up there. The egg rolls were a cut above the usual Chinese buffet egg rolls as well. They were on the small side, but they were full of vegetables and not doughy as many Chinese buffet egg rolls are.

If you are out for King Crab Legs you will find them here. Yes, for the $10.99 dinner price with no extra charge! They are served hot and as individual legs, not clusters. The trays were refilled as needed. Nut crackers were brought to your table if you needed them. Of course, the required melted butter was there and kept hot.

There were a number of good Chinese meat dishes and vegetable dishes served on the hot servers. There was a very good fish in a lemon butter sauce - probably flounder with no bones. There were a number of shrimp dishes including more fried shrimp, unbreaded stirfried shrimp in the shell, a seafood combination - which had excellent shrimp in it along with other seafood and vegetables, beef with peppers, chicken with broccoli, a Mandarin chicken which was large pieces of stir fried chicken with scallions, pieces of broiled chicken cut up on the bone, egg foo young (minus the sauce for some reason), salt and pepper squid, nice stuffed shrimp, stir fried sting beans, mushrooms in oyster sauce (no oysters are in oyster sauce), fried rice, vegetable lo mien, and a number of other dishes. If you kids do not like Chinese food there was chicken nuggets, French fries, and macaroni and cheese.

So, after all of this you still expect dessert for $10.99? Of course you do! There was a nice selection for dessert - not overwhelming but fine. There was just one type of "Little Debbie" style cake. There were two types of sugar, light, crisp pasteries, macarons, several types of puddings, several types of fresh fruit including cut up apples that were bright red on the skin side and nicely white on the inside, two kinds of melon, and orange wedges, jello, a few dessert mixtures of cream and fruit, and soft serve ice cream. Plenty to keep everyone happy.

Service was very good. Plates were cleared regularly from the table. We were asked if we would like soda refills several times. The buffet serving trays were well tended and were refilled even before they were empty with the remainder of the tray before taken way. The restaurant was clean. The carpeted floor in the dining room showed the wear of the day, but was not dirty. Both the men's and ladies' rooms were clean, but both needed repair maintenance to really look nice. There was nothing not functioning properly and, as I say, they were clean.

About an hour into the meal - we do not rush through a meal and as you know, we do not fill plates to the brim but finish normal servings on our plates and go back for more (why do so many not know this and fill plates until they are an overflowing mixture from salad to dessert? - yes, I have seen this so many times). So, anyway, about half way through the meal and maybe our fourth plate (but not dessert) the server came and put the check and two fortune cookies on our table. She smiled and I smiled back. We were clearly still eating. This has happened a few times before - always in Chinese buffets - and we have wondered if this is a signal that we are supposed to be done. Perhaps we have overstayed our welcome? I have just learned to ignore this and keep on getting up to get more and continue eating. The server came by several times and looked to see if there was any money or credit card down with the check and when she saw there wasn't said nothing and kept on going about her business. She came and cleared our plates when we got up and even came over and asked if we would like another refill of soda. So perhaps this wasn't a signal but just a way to not forget to leave the check for us. I don't know but they were not unpleasant about it and in the end it meant nothing to my enjoyment of the meal. I have seen dinners in other buffets get vocally upset about this and get offensive with the staff. There really is no reason for the reaction - unless someone actually came over to say that it was time to be finished. I have never seen that happen. Here all of the staff smiled and did their jobs very pleasantly. I even tipped a little more than I would have for a buffet meal.

The restaurant is just three miles away from the Garden State Expo Center - a large exhibition center for trade shows, conventions, hobby shows, etc. This is where business takes me a few times each year. If you are there for any reason and are looking for a nice restaurant very nearby this is the one to try.

I recommend Kam China Buffet. If you are traveling through, live in the area, or at the Expo Center try it. You cannot beat it for the money and you are getting a good meal of a lot more than you might expect.

Kam China Buffet is located at 900 Easton Avenue, Somerset, New Jersey. This is south of US Route 287 at exit 10. It is in the Somerset Village Shopping Center - if you miss the entrance traveling south make the immediately next right down a street and there is a side entrance just a short way down. Exit from this side entrance also so that you can turn at the traffic light back onto the road.

Enjoy - now I have two great restaurants to go to when I am in the area of New Jersey. Oh yes, and the restaurant that I wrote about one year ago in New Jersey - another Chinese buffet that was not good at all - has since closed. I wonder if I had anything to do with that after I wrote about it.

The KING of Buffet Foods

I am often asked if a certain buffet includes lobster on the buffet. Lobster is a great attraction, but you are only going to find all that you care to eat lobster at very high priced buffets. There was a time a few years ago that it was possible to find it on a buffet priced under $30 per adult, but not any longer. A few higher prices Asian buffets still put lobster out with the meat in the shell cut up in ginger sauce. When you find this there is generally a swarm of dinners hovering over the empty tray waiting for it to be refilled - and then when it does come out it is emptied as quickly as it was filled. Often it is just not worth the hassle.

With the scarcity of lobster at affordable buffets, what is the "King" of buffet foods? King Crab Legs! Giant crab legs. Legs so large that if you saw the crab that was once attached, alive, and coming toward you, you would run screaming as far as you could get! But, put cut those legs off that crab, steam them, and pile them high on a buffet table and you will see people run toward them and not away!

King crab legs is the lobster-lover's buffet appeasement. I once heard someone say that the only reason people like to eat lobster is to have an excuse to dip something lavishly into melted butter and then eat it. How true! King crab legs provide the same opportunity. The meat is lobster-like, though less nutty in taste. You get the excuse to use a nutcracker to break the shells, and you get the melted butter - which is mostly what you are tasting when you eat the lobster anyway.

Many affordable priced buffets include crab legs. Some charge an additional cost to the meal. Some provide them in addition to the buffet in a limited quantity. Many that have then just include them in the price of the dinner. The crab legs are often served hot but I have been to buffets were they are also served cold on ice.

What is served will vary as well from buffet to buffet. The more expensive buffets will serve clusters of crab legs - this is several legs and the claw connected at a joint at the top. Some buffets will just serve individual legs, broken apart from the clusters. Even though you may take as many as you want, you do better with the clusters.

Crab legs are cooked by steaming them. Properly steamed the crab leg becomes reddish orange and cream color. The crabs just need to be put in a steamer, steamed, and served. In some parts of the US - particularly in the Chesapeake area of Maryland and Virginia, the crab is covered with a salty, spiced seasoning originally made by the Old Bay Company and then steamed. This gives the crab a unique flavor known to this region. It is quite good. The same spice is used on many seafoods. It is especially good on shrimp.

The King crab leg consists of three sections - the joint at the top where the leg connected to the body of the crab, the upper leg, and the lower leg. There is a joint between the upper and lower leg. If you have a cluster you will have several three legs plus a claw leg connected at the joint. In the Chesapeake region people love this stuff and put it on everything!

Eating a king crab leg has a technique all its own. I was first shown how to eat a crab leg by a waiter who took pity on watching me struggle to get the crab meat out of the shell. Just cracking open the shell at any spot along the leg just leads to frustration. Most buffets that are serving crab legs will have nut crackers available for you to use. If they are not out on the buffet table near the crab legs or on your table already, just ask. What you will not find at most buffets - even seafood buffets - are the little two prong forks used for eating shellfish. For some reason they just do not provide these -and these would be a great help when eating crab legs. Perhaps they think that they will be taken because they are so small. I don't know why but you never get one - even if you ask, they don't have them (if they even know what you are talking about). I once bought my own to bring.

So - I said that there is a technique for eating crab legs. Ok, I shall pass along the secret. First - put aside the nut cracker. You do not need it until you get to the claw. We will start with clusters - the individual legs will be obvious in a moment or so. Take the cluster and hold it at the top and pull the large claw leg down and off. You will rip it from the joint at the top of the cluster. Put it aside for now. Next, do the same for the next leg - which is the longest leg on the cluster. As you rip the leg away from the joint you will probably pull a nice lump of crab meat away with it from the joint. It is sort of a crab lolly pop now. Dip that lump of meat, still attached to the top of the leg into your butter sauce or red cocktail sauce or nothing at all as the crab meat tastes good with nothing on it at all and eat it. Hmmm! That was good and that was easy. You are now really ready for more, but you are going to have to do a little work to get the rest of the crab meat from that leg. You still do not need the nut cracker - you will just mess things up with it so leave it be. You are holding an upper leg that is connected at a joint to a lower leg with a small section in between. Gently break the joint at the top of that mid-section and pull the lower leg and the mid-section straight out from the upper leg. It will be easy to break and when you pull it away you will take two thin, stiff strands of cartilage with the lower leg out of the upper leg. Put the lower leg aside. Take the upper leg in both hands and hold it so that the shell is flat. Go to the end with the joint that just connected the lower leg. Break that joint end off with a snap. Turn the leg around and do the same thing at the top, breaking that joint end off with a snap. You should be left with the whole upper leg in the shell with the ends broken off. Sometimes the ends are difficult to break off - especially if the legs were cooked as single legs or if the crab legs have been sitting too long and the sell has become soft (and tough). Now comes the tricky part. Hold that leg flat in both hands with the orange red side facing you and with a snap break it in half length-wise. Try not to rip it. It needs to break. As you break it pull the top half of shell away and you will slide it off of the crab meat that is inside the leg. Grab a hold of that meat and gently slide it out of the bottom half of the shell. There you have it! Another succulent piece of pure crab meat!

In the lower leg you are not going to find much meat but there is some there. Snap that mid-section off and you will reveal a small triangle of crab meat. Just gently snap the lower leg in half and pull the top of the shell away. You will be rewarded with a thin strip of crab meat (sometimes).

Repeat this same process with the rest of the legs. After you have eaten the meat from the smallest leg you will still find meat in the claw leg and in the top joint. Break the joint apart. It consists of chambers and inside those chambers you will find crab meat to pick through. You may already have taken the majority of the meat out of the top when you broke the legs off, but there is always some meat left there. I have saved the claw leg for last because it requires the most work. You will need the nut cracker now. Take the leg in your hands and break the claw off the leg. It snaps right off using your fingers. Take hold of the upper jaw and break that off by pulling straight up. Now, take the nut cracker and break the claw shell. Just crack - it is not a vise. If you squeeze it apart you are going to wind up with broken shell mixed into a mush of crab. Crack the claw shell and break the shell away from the meat. There is a lump of meat inside - inside that meat is a thin cartilage. Don't eat that. Pull it away with the front of the lower jaw. The rest of the claw leg is the toughest part of the crab legs. You need to crack this with the nut cracker and pick out the meat from the shells. This part is sometimes so much trouble that with the ability to just get another crab leg or cluster I just don't bother with it.

From my years of enjoying king crab legs at buffets I have learned a few things -

1. Clusters are better than single legs because the single legs often sit in the serving tray in the water that has condensed from the steam and they become water logged which effects the taste and softens the shell to the point that it is difficult to break without ripping it. Single legs when cooked are cooked with the top cluster section cut up. The crab tends to overcook this way.

2. Crab legs are best when when they are hot because the meat will separate from the shell easier. As the crab leg cools the shell contracts and traps the meat inside. It will no longer pull easily out of the shell and will often rip in half leaving the meat inside the lower half of the shell difficult to get out (at least without a cocktail fork). As a result do not take too many crab legs or clusters at one time. They will cool off too quickly. Take two clusters or a few single legs and then go back for more hot ones! Please don't be lured by temptation as you look at the uninformed crab eaters pile clusters on their plate. Eat them hot and you will actually get to eat them and not leave the meat in the shell. Remember - it is a buffet. You can go up and get more any time that you like.

3. When crab legs are served cold on ice, expect a long struggle to get the meat out of the shell. Why? Read number 2 just above.

4. Crab leg meat added to other dishes is usually not real crab meat. There is a fish that tastes like crab and this is processed to look like king crab leg meat. If it is not in the shell, it is probably not real crab.

Crab legs are going to get your hands dirty. Your hands will be slippery with butter sauce. The hot, steamy crab juices will drip all over your hands leaving them with that "just out to sea" odor. You will often find wet naps where ever crab legs are served. If not, a quick trip to the rest room will wash the odors of your wonderful king crab feast away.

So now I am ready to go and eat some crab legs! Local Chinese buffets near me include them on the buffets so I do not have far to search. Yumm!

Makkoli Seafood Buffet, East Brunswick, New Jersey

I am always looking for buffet restaurants in New Jersey. On occasion business takes us to the Garden State and we usually drive around looking for a buffet for dinner, find nothing, and head back home. The one buffet that I had found in the area that we usually are in I wrote about a year ago - and it was not good. (Take a look in the archives and I am sure that you will find it.)

One of my readers contacted me and told me about a buffet near his home in New Jersey called Makkoli. He told me that he likes to go there for the sushi. I have not gone to buffets that are primarily sushi because, as some of you know, I have a wife who is a very picky eater - and she does not like seafood beyond shrimp. She especially will not eat raw fish. I enjoy sushi but I will not subject her to a dinner of food that she hates. And the sushi buffets that I am aware of charge a great deal of money for their meals - both at lunch and dinner, weekdays and weekends. So my first reaction to my reader - Art - was just what I have told you. He emailed me back to say that there is more at Makkoli than sushi and seafood. He also shared that the weekend price is $19.95 for dinner, which while high, is not as high as other sushi buffets that I know of. I went to look at their website - most of which is under construction - and saw a picture of a Japanese Hibachi chef cooking at an Hibachi grill. We were all set. My wife could eat Hibachi and whatever else there might be and I could try a sushi buffet. We just had to wait for another trip to New Jersey, which just so happened to come quickly.

Let me say that finding Makkoli was a bit of an adventure. One that included some yelling and swearing. I am sure that anyone who lives in this area of New Jersey would have no problem finding it right off, but for this traveler from another State, well, it was... let's just say an adventure. We wound up passing this restaurant twice without seeing it and we had GPS to assist us. One thing that you need to know about New Jersey is that there are no left turns in New Jersey and every large road is a divided highway with no way to cross to the other side. Every few miles there are right turn arounds that will head you across or get you in the opposite direction - but not knowing the roads and driving at night these are noted by signs that are not lit and usually hidden behind a tree. Each time the GPS said that we were there (we routed ourselves to the address), we would look to where the restaurant was supposed to be and all we could see was a dark field - actually somewhat of a pit. Back and forth we drove and then finally pulled into a shopping center and telephoned the restaurant. We were just a mile or so from the location and with their directions of what to look for and what to turn at we finally arrived. That dark pit that we had been seeing was actually the parking lot a bit lower than the road.

Makkoli Seafood Buffet is a Japanese buffet. The restaurant is located in small shopping center strip mall and takes up the length of about four store fronts. On entering the restaurant it is very bright and modern. There is a dining room along the front wall and then another dining room filling the rest of the space with tables all around the buffet area. The price of dinner at Makkoli is $18.99 from Monday to Thursday and $19.99 from Friday to Sunday. Lunch prices are $11.99 and $13.99. Children under three and one half feet tall eat free. Children from that height to four and one half feet are half price. Soda for all is $1.50 and is refillable. They serve Coke products. Hours on Monday to Thursdays and Sunday are to 9:00 pm and Friday and Saturday until 10:00 pm. You must be seated one half hour before closing.

We went for dinner on a Friday night. The restaurant was busy but we did not have to wait to get a table. We were seated and asked for our soft drink order. We then proceeded to the buffet server. There is a four-sided, large serving buffet in the middle of the dining room. Next to that on one wall is a single sided buffet server. Along the longest wall there is a counter that includes the Hibachi grill, soups, entrees, and appetizers.

We started with soup - as we always do. There were three Japanese soups - seafood soup, miso soup, and udon noodle soup. Below the label for the noodle soup were a list of the ingredients - tofu skins, noodles, seaweed, and scallions. We had picked up empty bowls and looked over the soup choices and headed for the udon noodle soup. Behind the soup tureen there were a few bowls with ingredients in them - but no broth. The broth was in the tureen. We figured out that we were supposed to take one of those bowls and fill it with broth creating the soup. Next to all of this there was a station where noodles would be boiled and the ingredients mixed for this soup. No one was there at the time - there was a chef there later creating these bowls for the soup. Slight confusion but we quickly had our soup (two advanced college degrees should be able to figure a simple thing like this out). The udon noodle soup was excellent. I enjoyed just about everything at this restaurant but I really enjoyed this soup. I almost went back for another bowl at the end of the meal but I was so full - and I had two hours to drive home - that I did not dare.

I moved on to the salad and sushi next and my wife headed for the hot appetizers. There are four sushi chefs working inside the rectangular serving area. On one long side are Japanese salads including salmon skin salad, tofu salad, mushroom salad, chopped lettuce, raw edame beans, and others. There were also plates of sashimi - lumps of raw fish with no rice. There was salmon, tuna, and red snapper. Along a short side were raw oysters and clams on the half shell and cocktail shrimp. A tub of red cocktail sauce was on the side along with fresh lemon wedges. I looked at the oysters - sitting on ice, but they looked dry looking so I skipped those. The clams looked fresher and moister. The shrimp looked great. I was looking for the out of the ordinary so I skipped the shell fish and tried some of the salads and took some sashimi. The mushroom salad was very good - I even made my wife try some. It was large black mushroom slices in a mildly sweet sauce. The tofu salad was squares of tofu with a white dressing on top. Also good. The sashimi - I took salmon and tuna and this was very fresh.

There is silverware available all over the restaurant near the clean plates including forks, knives, and soup spoons. At every table there are chopsticks placed on your napkin, Many here eat with chopsticks. I do - but soon tire of the effort and switch back and forth with utensils.

I went next for sushi. I am not an adventurous sushi eater. I tend to the basics of tuna and salmon. Here there is sushi for everyone - the adventurous and the timid. There was every kind of raw fish - white tuna, red tuna, salmon, red snapper, eel, ocotpus, squid, yellowtail, and more. I tried a few fish that I have never had an opportunity to try before - I still avoided the octopus, squid, and eel. All of these were on rice. Then there were the rolls and those were plentiful and different (at least to me). There was a lobster sushi roll. There was a tempura sushi roll - pieces of fried tempura wrapped in rice and seaweed. All of the fish was fresh. All was kept over ice on plates. The chefs keep an eye on each serving plate and refilled them with freshly made sushi continually as they emptied. Everything was well labeled - as was all of the food at this restaurant. All that I tried were good. If you like sushi beyond what you find in the usual Asian buffet, you will love this. And if you are a timid sushi eater you will be happy too. Be alert to the two signs on the glass above the sushi. Each says that you are not to "waste" the rice with the sushi and if you do you will be charged extra. Meaning - take sushi, eat all of the rice. Do not just eat the fish. If you do, you will be paying extra. I have heard from readers that some Asian buffets have had managers or serving staff come over to them when the left the rice aside and told them that they could not do that or that they would be charged extra for doing that. I have never encountered this - and I am one who usually leaves some of the rice aside so that I will not fill up on it. At least here there are clear signs that are unavoidably seen. No denying and no reason for issue- which is ok. I ate all of my rice.

All along my wife was happy with the hot entrees, appetizers, and side dishes. I tried these next. On one wall is a counter with space behind for serving staff and hot serving trays in the front. The hot foods are found here. Next to the soup are steamed crab shumai (dumplings). These were good. There are two tubs of liquid dipping sauce near by. One was a hot pepper sauce. The other was a sharp vinegar. Neither was dumpling sauce, but perhaps that is Chinese and not Japanese. Watch out for that hot pepper sauce! Along the counter there was Japanese fried rice - made on a grill and not the brown style Chinese fried rice, there were noodles that looked like Chinese lo mein noodles, but are much lighter, there were pan fried Japanese dumplings - verylight, and on and on. There was vegetable tempura. There was shrimp tempura - long shrimp in a light but thick fried batter - excellent. There was grilled shrimp on a stick - with the heads on. There were baked scallops - a real scallop shell (think the Shell Oil sign) filled with chopped scallop with a mayonaise based sauce baked together on the shell. There was a baked mussel that looked similar, if not the same. There was steamed flounder in ginger. There was chicken terriaki and beef terriaki. There were half crabs. There was broiled duck, several other chicken dishes, and other beef dishes. They had excellent spare ribs - Chinese sytle without that terrible red sweet sauce. These were charbroiled with just enough crisp. They were cut into small pieces, each a few inches long. There were also Spring rolls. Oh yes, everyone's favorite, there were king crab legs - individual legs, not clusters. The crab legs were refilled as soon as the tray went low. Everything was continually kept fresh and refilled. There was plenty here for the seafood lover and the meat eater.

If you had not had enough already, there was another big part of the meal to come. A section of the counter was an hibachi grill. This is not a Mongolian BBQ - you do not mix your own vegetables and meat. This is a real hibachi grill just like in the hibachi Japanese restaurants - you know the ones that you see in the movies where the chef throws the knife around to cut the food on the grill. You get it all here -except the show - there is no knife throwing, but there is a chef cooking each hibachi dish to your order. You have your choice of shrimp, chicken, and steak with mixed vegetables. The portion that the chef cooks for you fills a plate. My wife had the chicken. I intended to have the steak but I saw the shrimp being cooked for the person before me and I could not resist. The grilled shrimp were great. The vegetables mixed in were nicely seasoned. My wife's chicken was good. The steak looked really good too!

At this point I was full and satisfied - but I had this urge to go back and try some more great things. I resisted the temptation. But wait - dessert. Along the other short side of the rectangle was cold fresh fruit, jello, and canned oriental fruits. Opposite this was a another buffet server against the wall with - oriental buffet "Little Debbie" type cakes and an ice cream freezer chest along side with barrels of hard ice cream for you to scoop yourself. Good ice cream The usual oriental buffet cakes. Dessert was not spectacular, but with all the rest it did not really need to be.

Service was good. Plates were taken away as soon as you empty them. You are served your soda in a very large plastic glass and it took most of the meal to drink it - but when it was near the bottom the server came over and offered to bring more. The entire restaurant was very clean including the rest rooms.

I have said before that you can often tell that a restaurant serving the cuisine of a particular country - Chinese, Japanese, Italian, Greek , etc. is good when you see people of that nationality dining there. This Japanese restaurant had a good number of Japanese and Asian people eating at it. They all seemed to be enjoying it and this tells me that there is some authenticity to the cooking.

My wife noticed that this was a restaurant where people lingered and did not just eat and leave - and the restaurant did not seem to have any problem with this. Many of the people who were well into their meals when we first sat down were still sitting and talking after we had finished. Another thing observed at the table behind us of a large group of friends is that the restaurant does not have a problem if you bring your own bottle of liquor. That table not only had wine on the table but they also had scotch. The restaurant provided the glasses. The restaurant does not serve liquor so it was clear that the people brought it in with them.

Putting it all together - Excellent! It was worth the effort to find this gem. For what I had I did not so much mind that the bill for the two of us with soda and sales tax with $50. If you are local to this restaurant it may not be an every week restaurant - unless you are better off than I, but it certainly is a special occasion dinner or a splurge! I will be back in the area in a few weeks and I have a tough decision to find a new buffet to tell you about or head back for more at this one!

Makkoli Seafood Buffet is located in the Village Green Shopping Center at 415 Route 18 South in East Brunswick, NJ. To avoid riding in circles as I did - when coming south on Route 18 after you pass US 1, look for the Circuit City on the right and then continue two more traffic lights. You will see a U Haul lot (large sign) and you then make the immediate next turn into the shopping center. Travel though that strip of stores and around into the back where you will come upon another strip of stores and parking lot. Straight ahead is Makkoli. The phone number in case you get lost is (732) 967 - 8900 or for free - 877 - 625 - 5654. There is a website which is linked at the side of this page.

If you are in New Jersey, this is a definite go to!

Return to Asian Buffet, Hicksville, NY

I first wrote about Asian Buffet in Hicksville, New York in September 2005. I have mentioned in a few other articles since then. We have not dined there for quite a while because, frankly, it is priced too high. Friday to Sunday dinner there is $15.99. Weekday dinner is $13.99. These prices are high for a Chinese buffet that is not really out of the ordinary.

On a recent Saturday night we could not think of where else to have dinner in the local area, and after a lot of procrastination, decided to bite the bullet and pay the extra $2.00 each at Asian Buffet. When one lives on a fixed budget, a few dollars extra here and there get to be significant. This restaurant used to place discount coupons in the newspaper, but there have not been any in quite some time.

We got there and were seated promptly. The restaurant was busy but not crowded. On past visits, since prices increased, this restaurant has never been as full as it could be. In fact, on this visit we were surprised to see the number of cars that we saw in the parking lot when we arrived. We were seated in a booth - I should have remembered that the seat cushions in the booths in this restaurant were compressed to a minimum long ago, and, if you are short, sitting in a booth is like a three year old sitting at the "grown ups" table. Your chin is not far from the table top. I pushed over to the inside of the bench where the cushion provided a little more lift. To lessen the total cost of dinner we did not order sodas and were satisfied with ice water.

What struck us as were went up to the buffet servers is the variety of different dishes that this restaurant has to offer. There are many things found here that are not served at other Chinese buffets. Not fancy or expensive dishes, but different. Of course, the usuals are there as well so anyone who does not want to stray too far from chicken and broccoli, pepper steak, and General Tso Chicken will not be disappointed. There is a nice assortment of dumplings - less so than in the past, but still a nice selection.

On the weekend and the basis of reasoning for the $15.99 price is lobster in ginger sauce. Few buffets still offer lobster. The lobster on this night consisted on mostly claws and a few side pieces. There was no meat in the claw and just a few shreds of meat in the side pieces. Perhaps someone got all of the tail pieces, but the tray remained the same the whole time that we were there and there was nothing but claws in the tray. The sauce is tasty but basically what you are eating is breaded coating and sauce with a hint of lobster taste. They also have crab legs, but these are pieces of legs, not whole legs and certainly not clusters.

But, I really want to get back to the different dishes that I sampled and not the shortcomings and price. I have had salt and pepper shrimp and salt and pepper crab, but I have never seen salt and pepper spare ribs before. Salt and pepper spare ribs are three inch pieces of spare ribs with the bones that are coated in a crust with salt and pepper. These must have then been fried, but they are not greasy as one might expect. They were very good. Another dish based on spare ribs was spare ribs in black bean sauce. This was very small pieces of spare ribs in a thick sauce with black beans. The tips and bone are there but the meat and sauce was terrific. Another interesting and tasty dish was a dish of chopped pork spooned on top of a cube of moist, pudding-like tofu. It must have been steamed, though the meat was well cooked. It had a very thin sauce that was mildly sweet and also had a ginger taste, much like the ginger sauce found on steamed fish.

Steamed fish is a special dish not often found at Chinese buffets and when it is the fish is generally full of bones. Here there was steamed flounder fillet in ginger sauce. No bones. The fish was moist and the sauce was tasty. There were a few tiny bones that were left behind, so eat carefully, but for the most part there were no bones.

On the cold server there were several different dishes that I did not try including dried tofu (which I have had before) and, also, slices of cold beef. Back on the hot server there was scallion pancakes - very good, but a bit oily. Not different, but better than the usual are the regular spare ribs. These are coated in what I have termed "over-sweet red sauce" often abundantly put on Chinese buffet spare ribs, but here the sauce does not overwhelm the ribs and they are cooked to a charred outside. For buffet spare ribs they were ok - most are not.

Despite the price I did enjoy the meal. With the tax and tip it still cost $40 for the two of us, which is about six dollars more than usual for a night at the Chinese buffet and that is without any sodas - but many are raising their prices and may soon catch up to this. For the variety of different this buffet is good. I would recommend it to anyone who does not mind the price. If they would start to run newspaper coupons again that would be good on the weekend, I might even come back more often.

As a matter of fact, after this return visit we were again in similar circumstances and we went back again - also a Saturday night. This second visit was as good and different as the first, but I will emphasize different. Many of the dishes that I describe in this article were not there on the second Saturday night. There were other out of the ordinary dishes offered - though I must say not as interesting as those I encountered first and described here.

On this second visit we also had an opportunity to observe another member of the "Lobster Grabbers" club. Search through the archives and read my article on the Lobster Grabbers. This new Lobster Grabber was an immense, older woman who emptied the lobster serving tray into two plates and took it to her table. At first we thought it was for both her and her companion - another immense, older woman, but as it turned out it was all for her. When more lobster was brought out she filled her plates again, leaving very little for everyone else in the restaurant. She ate lobster straight through the meal - even during dessert. They got their check and were eating dessert and suddenly she was up and back again with another dish of lobster. Cake and lobster I suppose is an interesting way to end a meal - of lobster. You see some of the oddest things and the most selfish people at buffet restaurants - especially when lobster is served.

Asian Buffet is located at 276 Old Country Road, Hicksville, New York. The phone number is (516) 433-6688. There is no website. For more detail read my original article from September 30, 2005.

TOP THREE CHAINS FOR 2007

I have already given you my two top buffet restaurants for 2007. I thought that you would find it interesting to see what the restaurant industry picks are. Restaurants and Institutions Magazine and website is the restaurant industries trade resource reporting on industry news, trends, and consumer opinions. In September 2007, based on extensive consumer survery, Restaurants and Institutions rated the buffet chains.

The top three chains for 2007 are -
Number 1 - Soup Plantation/Sweet Tomatoes
Number 2 - Golden Corral
and
Number 3 - Ryan's.

Restaurants and Institutions went into some detail on their findings. Soup Plantations appeals to consumers age 26 and under. Men rated the food quality higher than women. The ratings given by both men and women for food quality were the top in the category for all buffets. Golden Corral appeals to all age groups, but it is the choice of mature consumers' patronage. Menu variety gets a strong rating from men and also families with older children. Younger diners are more pleased with the restaurant's atmosphere than older diners. Ryan's received its highest scores from customers aged 26 and younger in the areas of intention to return, menu variety, and food quality. Families with young children rated Ryan's above average in value.

I have reported on all three chains and I must say that I do agree that all three are the top three - though I would have changed the order and rated Golden Corral as number, Ryan's as number two, and Soup Plantations number three - but as I am over 26 perhaps that is why I prefer Golden Corral to Soup Plantations.

Soup Plantations is an excellent buffet restaurant and you can read my review of it in my article on September 7, 2007. It is a soup and salad based buffet with that addition of pizza and pasta on the buffet servers. This was a great place for lunch and if you like salad and soup, it is great for dinner as well. It differs from the other two chains that it surpassed is that it offers no meat entrees nor does it offer a traditional meal menu. It is also the smaller chain of the three with only one hundred locations with no restaurant further north than North Carolina, but the restaurant does spread across the country to California where it originated. Everything was fresh, the restaurant was extremely accommodating, and the dining experience was memorable to the point that I look forward to returning when I make that long trip south some time in the hopefully near future.

Golden Corral has risen in my opinion since the take over of Ryan's by Buffets, Inc. and its transformation by its new owners to be more and more an Old Country Buffet clone. A few years back I would have picked Ryan's over Golden Corral, but not any longer. Golden Corral is a meat and potatoes buffet with a large variety of menu items. There is a charbroil steak grill with excellent steaks, but the steak is not the central focus. There are many other barbecue and dinner entrees featured.

Ryan's as I say was a one time favorite and I still enjoy it, though it is hard to ignor the changes that have taken place for the worse since the take over. The steak grill is the central focus at Ryan's with several meats being grilled alongside. There used to be more variety at Ryan's.

If we look toward a trend of healthier eating there is no wonder that Soup Plantations has been selected as number one. It is by far the menu with the healthiest of choices in the greatest variety. It may have been the location that I visited in North Carolina but it was jam-packed at lunch time, mid-week. The restaurant was full with workers and executives on their lunch hour, mothers with children, and shoppers. I have not seen other buffets this busy at lunchtime on a weekday (or weekend, for that matter).

So as a consumer who may or not have been included in the research study done by Restaurants and Institutions, does your opinion agree with their findings?

Pay by Height - Controversy at a Buffet

Whenever buffets make the news it is generally about an issue involving price. An article appeared in New York Newsday recently reporting an incident that took place at a sushi buffet on Long Island.

The buffet has a policy to charge children's prices based upon height. This seems rather unusual, but the buffet claims that it is a common practice in restaurants in New York City. Consumer bureaus and restaurants in Manhattan that were contacted by the newspaper stated that they had never heard of such a practice. I have never been to this buffet and seen the giraffe ruler at the entrance at which they have kids measure up for what mom and dad are going to pay for their meal.

The news story reports that an 11 year old came in with her parents and measured four feet, eight inches tall - two inches over the limit for children's prices. The child was to be charged the full $19.95 adult price for the weeknight dinner. (Just aside - this is a very expensive buffet and that is the reason that I have not patronized it.) The parents, upon hearing what it was going to cost for their skinny, but tall, little girl to eat, complained to the manager who gave them no satisfaction and then left - and, evidently, alerted the "media". The manager had referred the parent to speak with the owner - but the owner does not speak English.

The restaurant's policy - which is posted and not hidden -is that children three and a half feet to four and a half feet pay half the adult price, children under three and a half feet eat for free, and children over four and a half feet pay the full adult price. There is no state law that prohibits basing price on height and this is not a human rights violation - as the parent tried to pursue. It is the right of the restaurant to base their pricing as they see fit.

The story was picked up by the Dr. Phil Show and they would like the child to come on the show. I am not sure why - though I am sure one can spin this into a major tragedy - "Tall child denied her sushi dinner!" Oh yeah! The girl has not accepted the invitation to go on the show - yet.

The complaint by the parent was that the restaurant made an incorrect assumption that a child's height will determine how much they will eat. The newspaper sought an explanation from the restaurant but they will not comment. Another neighboring restaurant - East Buffet - which I have reviewed on this site - also has the same pay by height for children policy. They state that they started this two years ago. I had not noticed when I was last there and perhaps it is not as obvious. East Buffet would comment to the Press as to why they have this policy and from a business point of view it actually makes some sense. They state that when you base the price by age you put the employees and the restaurant in the position of guessing or taking the not always so reliable parent's word about how hold the child is. They state that many parents would insist that a child was much younger than the child obviously was. One incident involved a "child" who was six feet tall and the parents insisted that the child was ten years old. They claim that with the height system there is absolutely no question. The child is measured and the price is established as you enter - no question, no guessing, no confabulating. They did say that this policy is flexible and if a parent insists that their tall child is much younger than the height would imply they will adjust the price down.

A number of restaurants were asked for their reaction to a pay by height policy and they all said that they had never heard of such a thing, but that it would be bad for business.

I must say - on a personal note - that my six year old niece who eats little more than a bowl of rice and some jello and was charged $9 recently when I took her to a Chinese buffet would be better to be charged based upon her height as she is small for her age - and even at half price would have been better than the fixed children's price that I was charged for her meal. I can also see how a tall child could eat much less than a little "round" child. (Pay by weight - wouldn't that be a controversial idea!)

The "Pay by Height" policy for children does make sense as a practical and non-disputable way to determine the price. Other than East, for all of the buffets that I have been to, no place is doing this. Perhaps you have seen this done? Let us know and let us know what you think about this!