Charbroiled Steak at Shady Maple

Of course, we are back to talking about Shady Maple Smorgasbord in Lancaster, PA - the buffet that has been awarded best and top buffet from this site year after year. Just before the new year, Shady Maple announced that they were adding a char grill to the restaurant. I have mentioned this but a few weeks ago I got to try it and I will tell you all about it.

We were there on a Monday night - steak night - and I was eager to see how this new grill would be utilized. The types of steaks have not changed. They are still serving New York strip steaks and Delmonico steaks. I wondered if they would be only using this new grill for the steaks as there seemed to be talk of only one grill and there are three stations where steaks are cooked.  There is just one grill and the cooking station on the left of the entrance of the buffet serving area is the one with the char grill. All of the other stations still have the fry grill that they have always had in the past. If you go to that first grill (the one closest to the entrance to the dining room from the lobby) you will get a char grilled steak. If you go to any of the other grills you will have your steak cooked as Shady Maple has always done in the past on a fry grill top. Each grill was active with people getting steaks and I wondered if everyone realized that the steaks at the first grill were being cooked differently.

I wanted a char grilled steak and went right for that. Of the two steak cuts served, the Delmonico has always been my favorite. I find it has more flavor than the NY strip but it is a thicker cut steak and I decided that it would go better on the char grill than the thinner Delmonico. So I asked for a NY strip rare and that is what I got. It was cooked nicely. It could have been charred on the outside more but that is sometimes the price of ordering a rare steak - less cooked both inside and out. (My idea of a perfect steak is red on the inside and crispy charred on the outside and I have had steaks like this - even at some buffets.)  Right away I regretted not having the Delmonico just because I prefer it so much more.

I went back later for a second steak and this time I ordered the Delmonico. I enjoyed it much more than the NY strip but I knew that I would.

Now, does the char grill add very much to the steaks at Shady Maple? Well, I have liked the steaks fried on the grills of Shady Maple for many years. These charbroiled steaks come off the grill with less grease and a flame broiled taste so they were good. On occasion, Shady Maple will have different cuts of steak for special occasion dinners and I think that these thicker and fancier steaks might grill better and really put the new char grill to excellent use. The next steak night that I go to Shady Maple I will certainly go for the char grilled steaks rather than the fried steaks. I prefer charcoal cooking over frying (searing) when it comes to meats. But if the only steaks available were on the original grills I would not be disappointed. Which leads me to note - as the night got later and the grill stations were combined down to just one, the char grill was closed and the center grill with the fry grill top remained open, so all steaks then were cooked in the original Shady Maple manner. So if you go up for your steak late, you may not see a char grill choice at all.

Just a side note. It is remarkable when I talk about Lancaster County in any context sometimes with complete strangers and totally unrelated to food, I am asked if I know about Shady Maple. This restaurant seems to be known by so many as the must go to place to eat in Lancaster.

Shady Maple Smorgasbord is located at 129 Toddy Drive in East Earl, PA. Take Route 23 East from Lancaster or Route 322 South to get to the restaurant. (Put the name in your GPS and it will know it.) The phone numbers are 1-800-238-7363 and 717-354-8222. They are closed on Sundays and certain holidays. There is a website and it is listed at the side of this page.There is also a very active Facebook page!

Cactus Willies Steak Buffet and Bakery, Lancaster, PA

It has been a year since I have been at Cactus Willies Steak Buffet and Bakery in Lancaster, PA. This is becoming our Sunday night buffet in Lancaster as all of the usual buffets are closed on Sundays other than Millers Smorgasbord, Cici's Pizza Buffet, and Old Country Buffet. This is not a Pennsylvania Dutch foods buffet but it is part of a two location chain with the other location in Essex, Maryland.

Not much has changed in a year here. The prices are still good and the meal has a lot to offer though do not expect it to be on the same scale as Golden Corral which it is most similar to in layout inside.

I will focus this review on what stood out on this visit and there were two items that became the mainstay of our selections - one for my wife and one for me. Those to items were the barbecue ribs and the grilled chicken made on the char-grill. If you are a regular reader you know which of us had which. Let me say that I did start with the steak which has been good in the past was good on my last visit a year ago. The steak this time was not very good. The meat was grizzled and tough and while I asked the woman cooking and serving at the grill for a steak rare or medium rare, the piece that she had that was the closest was far from that and she did not offer to cook one for me. After that piece with no other steaks seeming to have gone onto the grill, I did not go back for another try at steak.

What caught my eye were the barbecue ribs. They looked good though they had a lot of red barbecue sauce on them. For most this is OK but for personal reasons, I prefer less sauce - but they were calling to me and I gave in. The ribs (as I have said in the past) were meaty and fell off the bone. They served my urge for "real" barbecue ribs very nicely, though I doubt that they had been cooked in a smoker. They tasted good, the meat was tender, and I could wipe away any sauce that I did not want. I should say that the sauce was good and not too sweet or with too much vinegar. The ribs were the size of baby back ribs (though I am not certain that this is what they were) and they were cut into pieces of three ribs. As I took some of the pieces up with the tongs onto my plate some of the bones fell away.

I did try a few other things that were on the buffet that night. I went back for a favorite of ours that we have only had here - turkey pot roast - and that was good. But those ribs, that was what I went back for and did have a few plates of them.

Now my wife is a picky eater and my readers know that. She eats "plain" - no sauces. She looked for carvings and there was not the usual ham or turkey. She did find grilled chicken breasts which she had spotted on one of our previous visits but had not tried. She took one and enjoyed it. She did have another. Had I wanted to look for something other than the ribs I was enjoying I would have tried the chicken also. (I stuck with the ribs.)

A little aside, and something that I have been doing more and more recently. Just because it is a buffet with choices of many items there is no reason why you cannot just choose one item that you like a lot and make a meal of it - an all you care to eat meal of that item. For me on this visit it was the ribs.

Will the ribs be as good the next time that we go? I hope so. As I have found here, things change and it depends on who is cooking and what is being cooked.

We do not get here often. We have been planning our Lancaster visits around weekdays and Saturdays when the regular buffets that we enjoy so much are open. When we need to be in Lancaster on a Sunday night, this is where we will come.

If you are looking for a buffet on a Sunday night, give it a try. I can't say everyone will like it and don't think you are walking into anything like the Lancaster buffets that I usually recommend. You will find enough to eat and we have both been fine there.

Cactus Willies is located in a strip mall not far from the city of Lancaster. It is located at the Regency Mall, 101 Rohrerstown Rd, Lancaster, Pennsylvania. This is a bit out of the way of the usual tourist areas. The phone number is (717) 390-7060. There is a website (for both locations) and that is linked at the side of this page.

China Buffet is now Yummi China Buffet - East Meadow, NY

I have written about China Buffet in East Meadow, New York a number of times. The last visit was not good as I wrote in this article. About two months ago we drove past the restaurant and it was closed. It appeared to be closed for good. Any time then that we past the restaurant it was dark.  A few weeks ago we drove by and the restaurant looked open again. We wondered what went on. There was no sign that said under new management or under new ownership. There had been no for sale or for lease sign in the window previously. It just appeared that it was back open as it was before.

One afternoon driving by we saw a new bright color awning over the door. The name on the awning read Yummi China Buffet. The name on the building was the same sign that it has always been that reads China Buffet. Interesting.

I looked for a website and found one for Yummi China Buffet at this same address. The website talked about Sushi and Buffet but there was no mention of any details about the buffet on the site. The site was very incomplete with not all of the pages working yet. The main focus of the website was to place orders on line for take out from the restaurant. There was a menu page and it showed overpriced takeout dishes (overpriced compared to other local Chinese take out restaurants - and in this area there are many).

I was intrigued. I decided that despite the bad experiences we encountered there during the past visits perhaps with this new name it has changed. We went on a Friday night.

We arrived a little after 7:00 pm and went in. The inside looked no different than it had before. There appeared to be the same worn and aged furnishings, booths, and tables that there always had been. The room was dark as it usually was - and there appeared to be few if any customers inside. A woman who looked familiar as one of the servers who has been here came up to us to seat us and before we went any further I asked my wife to look at the small printed sign that was at the front counter with the prices. It was small and I could not see it clearly from where I was standing. She said - "$19.99".  $19.99!!!!  There is no way that I was going to pay $19.99 for a Friday night dinner at a buffet that had no clear indications that it was any different than it had ever been other than the word "yummi" added to the name. I went up to the sign, myself, to see that the price is $19.99 every night for dinner! I looked at the woman waiting to seat us, shook my head, and turned around and walked out the door. We went to Chen's nearby with its extensive offerings with hibachi grill, sushi bar, etc., etc. for $11.99.

So this is a very short review. At this point, unless I find conclusive evidence that this restaurant has improved without my risking $40 plus tax and tip to find out, I continue not to recommend this buffet. I suspect that the lack of people inside on a Friday evening shows that my opinion here is shared. When we got to Chen's there was a five minute wait to get in and it was packed as always. And considering that International Buffet, which is close by to this buffet in the next town, is less than $20 on weeknights and just $5 more on weekends and offers an extensive buffet including lobster, that is a much better choice if you want a buffet that costs a lot but is worth the money. 

Back to Golden Corral, Hagerstown, Maryland

I was first at the Hagerstown, Maryland Golden Corral when it had first opened. I was impressed them with this Golden Corral, and I still am. We recently went back for dinner on a Friday night.

The restaurant is in the back of the Valley Mall parking lot in Hagerstown. This was one of the Golden Corrals that started putting out the plates in racks for customers to take without relying on a server to bring clean plates when needed. This was a big deal, as a poor server at a Golden Corral in the past could be a real problem to the progress of your meal if there are no clean plates being brought to you. The plates out and available has now come to all Golden Corrals. This location also had the Asian Wok food area that has now come to many other - but not all - Golden Corral restaurants.

Since the take over of Ryan's by Buffets, Inc., I consider the Golden Corral chain as the top national buffet chain. What is served tends to be of a better quality and the presentation is certainly more grand than Old Country Buffet and what Ryan's has now become. One of my top reasons is the char-grill at the buffet and steaks served to your order. You want rare, you get rare. You want well-done, you get well done - providing the grill chef knows what he is doing. The meat is tasty and the steak generally is tender. When Golden Corral is carving turkey, as they were doing on this night, they are carving an actual turkey on the bone, and not a plumped up, reconstituted turkey breast.

There was one noticeable difference on this visit and that was that the salad bar was somewhat abbreviated from what it is at other Golden Corrals that I have been to - and this was not as it was the last time I was at this location.  There were items on Golden Corral salad bars that my wife regularly takes, that were missing here - and no place for them to be. There was a good salad bar but it was not as complete as we expected it to be based on other Golden Corrals. It may be that they made room for the Chocolate Fountain which sits in this restaurant between the salad bar and the desserts along the same serving counter.

I was glad to see that the pan fried seafood that was the feature at Golden Corral restaurants for the past two summers is now gone. No more lines at the grill while one chef cooks one fry pan at a time for each customer waiting on line for fish cooked to order.

The feature that was current when we were there - and these features seem to change now at Golden Corral very frequently - was hot wings and they had several types of hot wings on the buffet with various sauces on them. This feature is called Wing Fest. There were barbecue wings, teriyaki wings, boneless wings, spicy garlic wings, Buffalo wings. While it lasts the feature is served every night of the week after 4 pm for dinner and on Sundays after 11 am.  I am not a fan of wings and I did not try them but there were many guests taking them and enjoying them.

The only thing I was not happy with on this trip were the barbecue spareribs. They had little meat on them and they were cooked to long which dried out the meat that was on them rather than making them fall off the bone tender. The over done meat had to be scraped off the bone, and along with the meat came shards of bone. I usually like Golden Corral's ribs. Those on this night were a disappointment.

Ribs aside, I had a good meal. I enjoyed the steak. I enjoyed the turkey. There was plenty to choose from and the food was good. Desserts are more extensive than at other chain buffets.

The restaurant is still well maintained and clean. Our server was very good. Management was also making announcements that children under 10 should not be up at the buffet alone - if only the parents of the children who were up there paid attention to the announcements and did as they should and accompany their children.

I recommend this Golden Corral. There are not many buffet choices in Hagerstown any longer and this was a much better meal than our meal at Ryan's the previous night. The address is 17635 Valley Mall Road, Hagerstown, Maryland 21740. The phone number is (301) 582-6209. There is a link to the chain's website at the side of this page. You will see whatever current feature they are offering on the webpage.

Back to Ryans Buffet in Hagerstown, Maryland

A year ago I was at Ryan's Buffet in Hagerstown, Maryland and things there were marginal in terms of the cleanliness of the dishes, and a few other things that you can read about here. I ended that article saying that if I got back there, I would try it again and recently, I was in Hagerstown. I was reluctant to go back but decided that maybe it did improve in a year's time. We went and for the most part it has improved.

Starting right off, the restaurant was cleaner and the dishes were clean - as were the tables, the dining room, and the serving area. This was what I was concerned about the most and there was no problem in this regard.

This Ryan's could easily be renamed Old Country Buffet and other than the grill in the serving area and the noodles in the chicken soup you would see no difference. This Ryan's has become the most like an OCB of the Ryan's that I have been to since the take over several years ago.

We went on a Thursday night - Family Night when all kids eat for 99 cents. Other than what was paid at the register, one would not have know it was Family Night by what was going on in the restaurant or by what was served on the buffet. There was nothing kid-oriented about the food that night and there were none of the  kid activities that have gone on at the OCBs I have been to on a Thursday night. Between you and me, this was just fine with me. The nicest thing was that there were no children running around the restaurant as if it were a playground - which I have experienced at OCBs on Thursday nights since this promotion started.

There were none of the foods that I have known Ryans for - regardless of the night - found here on this night. No chicken pot pie. No smoked sausage. There apparently had been chicken fried steak, but the sign remained but there was none to be found. There was a grill chef cooking steaks on a charcoal grill and you could ask for your steak to order - but he was not cooking anything special. He just cut open a steak that appeared to be as you wanted it, and offered it. Rare was more medium well with the first piece of steak I tried. The steak was tough and grizzled. The heavy pepper seasoning that is put on the steaks was overwhelming.  Later for lack of anything else, I tried another piece. This time the steak was closer to rare - and acceptable medium rare, but half the steak was fat - not fatty, but solid fat.Ryan's steak used to be so good. Sadly, it is now the same steak that Buffets, Inc. serves at all of their chain names and this steak is far from what they promote it to be.

The usual OCB menu was out and is fine if you are at an OCB, but at Ryan's, even after the takeover, I expect more of the Ryan's menu. As I say, other than good doughy noodles in the chicken soup, a salad bar that was a lot more extensive than an OCB salad bar, and a few layer cakes out for dessert, it was not Ryan's as it once was.

The service was good and the server was there to pick up plates and offer drink refills - unlike OCB you still get your drinks from your server at Ryan's.

All in all, the meal was fine.The important thing was that the restaurant is now clean. If we are in Hagerstown again, we may go back and next time I would not hesitate as I did this time because of last year's experience there. There are few buffets now in this area so there is not much of a choice as there had been years ago.

Return to Mountain Gate Family Restaurant, Thurmont, MD

We recently went back to the Mountain Gate Family Restaurant in Thurmont, Maryland for their buffet. This was our second visit to this location and as I wrote last week, the Pennsylvania location has closed. Our first visit to the Mountain Gate in Thurmont was one year ago and that article appears here.

We came again on a Saturday night at just about the same time - 6:30 pm for dinner. The restaurant was busy and there was a short wait of about five minutes to be seated. There is a small gift shop to walk around in while you wait.

We were seated in the large dining room which is in a room behind the buffet serving room. The dining room was busy but there was a very large group of teens from a bus tour or school group that filled most of the rear of the dining room. They were well behaved and this caused no concern. Our server came over and saw that the table that we were seated at had not been wiped down or reset from the last guests, so she told us to go up to the buffet while she cleaned and set the table for us. We went to the buffet and she set the table.

Reading my review from last year, I see that that everything then is just about the same now. The same impression that I had then - that there is less being served on this buffet from what there had always been at the Waynesboro, PA restaurant. There is one long buffet server with entrees and side dishes. There is another with salad. The desserts, breads, and soup go around part of two walls, and at the end there is a carving station. While we were there I discussed this with my wife, in case I was recalling the offerings at Waynesboro incorrectly. She felt as I did and commented to me that where there would have been two trays of different items in the space of one double tray with one item at the other location, here there was only the one item in the larger tray. This comes down to the same amount of food out but less variety. Because of this selection is limited.

I always start with soup and there were two soups out - one was a red crab soup and the other was cheese and broccoli soup. My wife does not eat either of these soups so she moved right on the the salad bar. I had the crab soup and it was excellent. I thought about going back for more of it but decided to move forward with the meal.

The salad bar had a variety of types of lettuce to choose from, a number of prepared salads, and a large variety of toppings for the lettuce. The chicken salad that was on the salad bar was exceptional. I made myself a salad with romaine lettuce and chose the ranch dressing. There was no Caesar dressing. Everything was there to make a Caesar salad BUT the dressing.  There had been a year ago. There was no ham salad as there had been last year. Too bad!

Getting to the entrees, there was not that great a choice. There was fried chicken, pork with sauerkraut, and what is called here - "slippery chicken". "Slippery chicken" is the chicken stew with dumplings dish that would be called "Chicken Bot Bie" in the PA Dutch areas. At the carving area there were three carvings - roast beef, turkey breast, and ham. On the end of the hot buffet server was a hot table with a clear cover over it with an opening in the front of the cover and inside was thinly sliced salt ham - what one would consider "Smithfield" ham in Virginia. Mixed in with the entrees were macaroni and cheese, carrots, string beans with ham, mashed potatoes, stuffing, and scalloped potatoes with cheese. There was no stewed tomatoes as there were last year. As before, there were turkey gravy and beef gravy.

I walked around the hot serving table several times to see if I was missing something to choose from. I wasn't. I did try an assortment of what they had but it was a small assortment. I had read on their website that they are known for their fried chicken so I had to try that. It was nice, but nothing special. The chicken was a bit dry and the pieces to take all were split backs. It was fine. I was drawn to the salt ham. This is something that I rarely get to have as it is rarely served in most places I dine at including at buffets in Virginia. I took some of this ham and it was - as anticipated - very good. It is an acquired taste if you do not often eat very salty things. The "Slippery Chicken" was good - perhaps more potato than dumplings, but good. The pork with sauerkraut was good. I had a slice of roast beef and put gravy over it. It was fine. The green beans and ham was good. The macaroni and cheese was excellent. My wife had the turkey breast and regular ham. She liked both. She also took some of the "Slippery Chicken" and liked that. She then made herself a vegetable plate not wanting to repeat what she already had and the rest were things she does not eat. It was all good. We had enough to eat. We did not have the variety we would have liked to have.

Now dessert. I will say this again - the Waynesboro, PA Mountain Gate had the best dessert buffet I have encountered - and that is saying A LOT. The Thurmont Mountain Gate does not come close. There were a variety of pies, a few types of slices of cake, and some hot and cold prepared desserts. I wanted to try a dessert. There were some half donuts on the side in a covered serving dish. There were two halves left. I went to take one of those and felt through the serving tongs that it was hard. I passed on that. I decided to take a small scoop of bread pudding. My wife likes bread pudding. This was was more custard that bread and she decided she would not have any of the desserts and took a slice of cinnamon bread for dessert. The bread pudding was very good and very much the consistency and taste of a very thick egg custard. The cinnamon bread that my wife took was dry and she said the baked breads were very disappointing.  Gone forever is that wonderful dessert buffet that only was in Waynesboro!

Service was very good. The server cleared plates away fairly promptly - more promptly once the large teen group had left. Drink refills were offered several times and brought right away. 

The food was good. Some was excellent. I liked the food. I recommend the food.  Choices are more limited than they should be compared to other buffets and compared to their former location. This was a Saturday night. I expect that a buffet will offer the most and best of their dishes on a Saturday at dinner.

The location is very much out of the way - unless you are local to this area. To get here when I am in Maryland I have to drive out of my way to go here. What is odd is that the closed PA location was closer and easier to get to from the Hagerstown area of Maryland than this is. Do not be fooled by the shorter route through the mountainous Catoctin Mountain Park. Anything but a small car will be on the edge of cliff drops driving through that park to the town of Thurmont. Once again this year my GPS wanted to take us through this and we routed the trip ourselves with a map.

Should you go? - If you are near here, you should go. You will like the food. You know what the choices are from reading here and if that is fine with you, try it.

Mountain Gate Restaurant in Waynesboro, PA CLOSED

A year ago I returned to the Mountain Gate Restaurant in Waynesboro, Pennsylvania after being away for about four years. As I wrote after that visit, the Mountain Gate Restaurant there never disappoints. We were able to arrange a trip to that area again about a week ago and I looked forward to returning again. About a week before the trip I check the website of the restaurant to see if there were any changes. Everything looked good to go. A few days before the trip I went to the website again, and did not see the Waynesboro location of the restaurant listed any longer. The Thurmont, Maryland location was the only one listed. This was strange as it was listed just a week before.

I started doing some searching to find out what was going on and came across a news article that the Mountain Gate in Waynesboro was closing in the second to the last week in April. I was shocked! The article explained that the owners of the Mountain Gate Restaurants had decided that the operation of the two restaurant locations and a conference center that they also own was too much and that as they were spread too thin, the operation was going to suffer. The decision was to close the Waynesboro restaurant. The property has been leased to someone who will be opening an Asian restaurant - apparently not a buffet - in the building that now formerly was the Mountain Gate, Waynesboro.

The Thurmont restaurant will continue to be open for business as always. I had visited that location also last year and was not as impressed with it as I have always been with the Waynesboro restaurant. In addition, the two restaurants are not really close to each other so being near Waynesboro means being a distance from Thurmont. 

So gone is the Mountain Gate Restaurant in Waynesboro, PA. Gone is the overwhelmingly great dessert buffet that was included in the buffet meal. Some time ago, I wrote that this was the best dessert buffet that I had come across at any buffet. Now, it is just a pleasant memory. A lot of good buffets are closing. The economy is bad, but these are buffets that always seemed to be busy.

I was so set to go to Mountain Gate during this trip, that I did make the trip to Thurmont. You can read about that visit next week.

Festival Buffet at Foxwoods Casino, CT - Hmmm...

The Festival Buffet at the Foxwoods Casino and Resort in Mashantucket, CT is one of our picks for top buffets in 2012. I have been to this buffet many times over a number of years and was there twice in 2012. It was just my birthday and each year on my birthday we will travel within a certain radius to a buffet that I very much enjoy. In past years this has included Shady Maple, a now closed buffet at one of the casino's in Atlantic City, NJ, and the Festival Buffet at Foxwoods. This year it was between Shady Maple (where my meal would have been free on my birthday) or Foxwoods. I decided on Foxwoods for several reasons - one, I have been looking forward to going back, two, I was recently at Shady Maple, and three, the expense in tolls and mileage is a lot less. We make a day of it, do some things I like to do in the area and then go on to dinner.

I particularly like this buffet when they have the "enhanced" menu on the weekend but my birthday was on a Thursday so that was the day we were going. The basic difference in the buffet menu is that for an increase in price of two dollars they include steak and crab leg clusters. The rest of the buffet is pretty much the same.  We arrived at the buffet at 7 pm and there was no line to get in. The dining room was busy but not overwhelmingly so. We were sat at a table near the buffet. I was anticipating a great dinner.

The server came over to the table and very pleasantly asked what we would have for beverages. I ordered an unsweetened ice tea and my wife, a diet soda. We went up for soup. There were four soups  - two thin and two cream  - and all were good choices. I choose the New England Clam Chowder over the Tomato and Cheddar soup. As it has been in the past the soup was nicely thick and creamy and you could see and taste the fresh clams in the soup. So far so good. When we came back to the table our drinks had arrived. I always take a sip first before I add any artificial sweetener, just in case there was a mistake made and the tea was sweetened to start with. Good thing because this glass of ice tea was sweetened. My wife sipped her diet soda and said it tasted too sweet. I tried it and it was not diet. We looked for the server. She was around but ignoring our table. She even went by twice tending to other tables but never looked in our direction and never acknowledged either of our attempts to get her over. At one point she was standing on the side having what appeared to be a meeting with someone in authority. Never the less, it was until we finished our salads that she actually saw the dishes stacking up on our table and came over to get them - and that was when she was told that the drinks were wrong. She insisted that the soda was correct and was uncertain about the ice tea. She picked up the glasses and went off to get us new drinks. When they came back, this time they were correct. It happens - and with an attentive table server it is no problem at all - he/she comes over as they should to pick up plates or see that all is well, you tell them of the problem, and they whisk away the glasses and bring new ones. But this can't happen if the server does not come by. I had medication to take and I am swallowing pills with clam chowder with the potatoes wanting to go down with the pills. She only minorly got better for the rest of the meal. The servers we have experienced here in the past have always been good.

As I mentioned we had salad. The salad bar items were fine, but the signs over the dressings that were attached to the glass sneeze guard above looked like someone had shuffled them randomly before sticking them on. All of the dressings on the signs were down there but which was which? Obviously, the colors are a give away from some, but the three white dressings - Ranch, Blue Cheese, and Caesar were anyone's guess. I guessed wrong. I had a Caesar salad with Ranch dressing.

I will not go into the details of the food items on the vast buffet. You can read about this buffet in the article naming it a Top Buffet of 2012. I expect items to change from visit to visit and in many sections they do. I went around to all of the sections and looked at what there was before I started selecting. My wife later commented that she thought that there was less out than usual - and it did appear that this was so. Not a lot less, but less.  I went over first to the barbecue section which is separated from the other sections by a wall and a door into a side dining room where the barbecue section can be found. There were barbecue ribs and pulled beef barbecue. There was also baked chicken and fried chicken. The same fried chicken was repeated on another section.  I choose the ribs and some of the beef barbecue to try it. The beef barbecue was strings of beef in a nice pulled sytle barbecue sauce. I had a hard time finding ribs in the half full tray of ribs. Most looked burnt and dry. I found one nice looking rib with a lot of meat on it, and I took a smaller rib that had lost its bone that was the better of the overdone looking ribs. The nice looking rib was very nice. The other was tough and chewy and not worth trying to bite through. Later when I went back to look the rib tray was just as I had left it - no more had been put out - I had hoped of finding another good one.

Many of the entrees that were being served in various sections were very oily. Even the fried cod - batter dipped pieces of cod that has always been good before was sitting in grease in the pan. As regular readers know, I take a little and try it and if I really like it, the item becomes one of the things I will go back for more of. One dish was a beef in a wine sauce with mushrooms. The beef was chewy but the sauce was nice. Another dish was sliced pork sorentino- slices of pork loin in an oily onion sauce. That was tough and way too full of oil. In the Italian section there was small plates of individual chicken parmigiana - these small ceramic plates were sitting on a hot metal warming plate that was so hot that picking up one of the small plates of chicken I burned my finger as it brushed the metal below. Also in the Italian section there was sausage and peppers in tomato sauce. The sausage was also tough - it is not easy to make sausage tough. I will also mention the Asian section. Most dishes there were spicy. There was something that I decided I would try a little of - thin noodles with squid. I do not like squid or octopus and I do not eat it. This goes way back for me to when I was a child - and both were popular dishes served on Christmas Eve by my family. Popular with everyone except me. Anyway, I was intrigued by thin Asian noodles with squid so I took a spoon of it. There was no visible squid. The noodles were a very, very dark brown. I suspect that this was made with squid ink and not pieces of squid. I did try it - more than one bite. I was bitter and otherwise not all that worthwhile to keep eating - and my reaction to the taste had nothing to do with my aversion to squid. Perhaps someone who has had noodles with squid would have thought this was very good, but it did not seem like something to waste the carbs eating. I also took an ear of corn from the barbecue section. This was a small half ear of corn and in the serving tray the corn was sitting in a white liquid which I believed to be milk to give the corn some sweetness or it could have been liquid butter like substance. Whatever it was, the corn kernals on the cob were mushy and off color - a whitish brown. I believe it was the corn that gave me stomach distress shortly after the meal...

I tried other things - the fried clams were as they always have been and good. The carved beef - Prime Rib? - was tender and tasty. The two pasta dishes - one in an Carbonara sauce and the other in tomato sauce were just OK. The meal was not living up to my expectations of a great birthday buffet. (And it has in the past.)

It was my birthday and I was going to have something for dessert. I was not going to over do it but something small. We both went up to look. There were a few hot desserts - bread pudding and a cobbler. There was apple pie. There was coconut cream cake. I like cupcakes and they had mini chocolate and mini vanilla cupcakes - both with a large pink swirl of frosting. I took one of the chocolate ones. I also eyes some chocolate chip cookies that looked good. I took one of those. My wife went over to take the bread pudding but there was no serving spoon. There was a woman behind the bakery counter and my wife pointed this out to her. The woman bent down to a bucket on the floor and pulled out a serving spoon that was not exactly clean. She took a cloth and wiped it off and handed it to my wife. The woman then took her gloved hand - the same one that was just in this bucket of dish water and put her hand into the tray of bread pudding and pushed what was in the back of the tray forward. My wife gave me a disgusted look and put the serving spoon down into the tray and walked away. My wife did stop by the salad bar to take some fresh melon. When she got back to the table and tasted it, the liquid it was in was sugar syrup. She did not eat it. I scraped the frosting off the top of my cupcake. It came off in one lump and the lump rolled on the plate. It was almost solid and it was not supposed to be. The cupcake was dry and overdone- and had little taste of chocolate. The chocolate chip cookie was full of chips but was hard to bite into - and not worth finishing.

This was not a meal or service that I expect from a Top Buffet. Was this a one time off night or has this buffet gone downhill since I was here last. Perhaps, it has.  At some point I am sure I will go back and see again, but not very soon. It is likely that the award we gave this buffet for 2012 will be the last it receives. And we looked for the certificate - so far every buffet that has received an award certificate from us has posted it prominently. Not here. The certificate was no where to be seen. My wife said maybe it is on the wall in the "office". More likely it went into the trash. Maybe that is better as no one should see that certificate after my experiencing the meal on this particular night. Well, I had a fun day for my birthday despite the dinner - but I should have headed south to Pennsylvania instead of north to Connecticut and had a really great birthday meal and any one of several "Top Buffets" there!

Return to the Easter Smorgasbord at IKEA

We have now gone full circle in the year and attended all of the Ikea store restaurant special one night seasonal smorgasbord dinners with the exception of the All You Can Eat Crayfish dinner in August. In mid-March we dined at the pre-Easter smorgasbord for the second year in a row. One thing that strikes us is the number of Swedish-Americans who are present dining at these meals - and enjoying every bit of it and talk of how well it compares to Swedish restaurants that they have been to in the United States, and even to the same foods that they have had in Sweden - and cooked at home by their grandmothers. When ever people of a culture that is the same as a restaurant dine there and praise the food - no matter whether it is a buffet or a menu restaurant, that indicates to me very positive things about the food. We are not Swedish so we only know that it tastes good to us - it is great to learn on the spot that it tastes right to the Swedish people who are eating it there also. And all this happens in a furniture store's cafeteria restaurant. These dinners require advanced purchase tickets and there are two seatings - one from 4 pm to 6 pm and the other from 7 pm to 9 pm. This dinner sold out weeks before. We had our tickets purchased in advance at the time of the Christmas dinner and we had the second (and our preferred) seating. There as a long line to get in at 6:30 when we arrived. The line got longer as it approached 7 pm and they started seating at 6:50 pm.

The menu at each dinner is very similar to each other with some seasonal variations. This Easter Smorgasbord was slightly different from the one we enjoyed last year. For one thing the cold shrimp that was missing last year was there in quantity this year. These were whole boiled shrimp with head on. They were not large shrimp but cocktail shrimp size. They were served with red cocktail sauce on the side. Many American diners do not like to see their food that natural and shun shrimp with the heads on. My wife who will only eat shrimp and no other seafood will not eat shrimp with the head on - even though all you need do is pinch the head easily off and what remains is the same peel and eat shrimp you get everywhere else. Many who enjoy shrimp with the head on will tell you to suck out the head as it is the best and tastiest part.  This year there was also one hearing variety missing from the three served last year. There was a hearing in cream sauce and a marinated hearing in a mustardy sweeter sauce. There was not the hearing in wine sauce as there was last year. There was also no steamed mixed hot vegetables but there was a large green tossed salad instead. There is so much else that these are not really missed. Also different from last year, the ham was served cold rather than carved hot.

Similar to last year the offerings duplicated on two long buffet tables set up down the middle of the dinning room were:

Assorted Herring
Hardboiled eggs with mayo and shrimp
Hardboiled eggs with herring roe or tångkorn
Shrimp with cocktail sauce
Marinated Salmon with Mustard Sauce
Smoked Salmon with Horseradish Sauce
Poached Salmon
Swedish Cheese
Tossed green salad
Cucumber salad
Red Beet Salad
Breads: Crispbread, several sliced breads,  Dinner rolls
Swedish Meatballs with gravy
Boiled potatoes w/dill
Lingonberries
Swedish Ham with Mustard
Pinskov (sausages)
Gratäng Jansson
Fresh fruit
Assorted Swedish desserts and cookies
Fountain Beverages, Hot beverages

I have now come to find favorites and while I will try things I have not tried before, I concentrate my meal on those favorites. For me those are the herrings, the grave lax and smoked salmon, the poached salmon, and the Pinskov which are small sausages similar in texture and slightly similar in taste to hot dogs. I have said this in other articles. I do not like to eat cooked salmon. I enjoy raw salmon sushi and I love smoked salmon. I do not like the texture or taste of cooked salmon. I do, however, like the poached salmon that I have had here. On this dinner there were three, large, whole salmon put out on their own table.












Desserts were a bit different. There were large squares of yellow cake on a platter with a large tray each of lingonberry jam and strawberry jam next to it. There was also a large cold tray of vanilla pudding. Along with these were cookies with a chocolate filling inside an open heart and cookies with a jelly filling inside an open heart. There were also cans of whipped cream to top what you wished. I don't often take dessert, but I tried each and each was very good.  On each table there were bottles of a malt soda beverage (non-alcoholic) and at the counter there were individual cups of the same festive holiday beverage.




I left feeling overly full. There are foods here that I only get when I am at one of these, and I tend to overindulge.

What is remarkable for a restaurant that is not normally a buffet is that this little cafeteria restaurant and staff replace emptying platters immediately, are all over the dinning room taking empty dishes away from tables almost immediately, and keep the whole place spotless - and everyone has a smile and those smiles do not look just put on. Management comes around the dining room greeting and chatting with the guests. There are staff watching the buffet tables continually from beginning to end and there is never a platter empty. Toward the end of the night there is only one buffet table still open but that table is as full as it was at 7:00 pm! The food that is supposed to be hot is hot. The food that is supposed to be cold is cold. I know many full time buffets that cannot even come close to getting it this right.

During the evening there was a line at the cashier to purchase tickets for the next special smorgasbord dinner on June 15 - the mid-summer smorgasbord! This full dinner costs $12.99 per adult and $5.00 per child - now, get a free family card (available instantly at kiosks all over the store) and you only pay $9.99 per adult and $2.50 per child! Incredible! You can't buy lox (smoked salmon) in a store for less than that and here you have that and all the rest for all you care to eat.

These dinners are highly recommended and they happen at every Ikea location on the same nights. The next one is June 15 but do not wait until then to buy your tickets. Go to the Ikea restaurant and buy them at the cash register for the restaurant. And get that Family Card before you do!

Still the Worst Old Country Buffet

All the way back in 2006, I wrote about the worst Old Country Buffet, the OCB located in Levittown, New York. Since then, and have had comments emailed to me and posted on various OCB articles here agreeing with this assessment of this particular OCB. I have been back many times - generally when I am not able to get to the another OCB that is about twenty miles from here. There have been better times there - management at this location seems to change regularly. How this OCB operates is very dependent upon the manager there at the time and the employees. Of course, management and employees can make or break any restaurant - and particularly a buffet restaurant. When there has been more diligent managers things get better. When there have been different employees combined with better managers things get better - and there have been times here that that combination has made this location fairly good. But for some reason, good managers don't remain here very long - perhaps they get as frustrated as some of the customers get, and they are soon gone.

Things have been downward here again, and so many of the same things that made this the worst Old Country Buffet before are at the same down point now. This is based on not just one visit but a number of disappointing visits. I have been to Old Country Buffets in a number of States. All have been far better than this one. Now, there had to be something keeping me going back there other than convenience and for about a year or so that has been the Thursday night feature which had been - at least up until now - a few of the old favorites at Old Country Buffet. Long gone are the Barbecue Beef Ribs, but they have had - particularly here, barbecue smoked sausage and country fried steak. Both certainly not the most healthy things one can consume but as an infrequent indulgence these can be a forgivable sin. These are dishes not generally found in restaurants in this area, and for this indulgence I have been drawn to this OCB on some Thursday nights.

Over the past several months, the smoked sausage has been an on again and off again item on the buffet on Thursday nights. At one point we called and asked if it was on the buffet that night. What we were told was that it runs out early. Fair enough, but an item that runs out early because of popularity should be stocked in greater quantity. The night we called we were told that it was there on the buffet. We actually rushed on over. When we got there the tray was still half full - until a manager went up to the buffet and filled his plate with the remaining sausage and then sat down to have his dinner. Hmm. Another found no smoked sausage and another visit after that found another half full tray - and with no manager in sight, I made sure to get a portion before it was gone - but this should not be like this. The country fried steak and white gravy had been there on each visit - until this last visit, when that was gone also - and on an evening when it had been snowing through the day and the restaurant was far from crowded. But what gets put out instead here when something runs out. Well, meat dishes are replaced with potatoes or rolls. Rarely does an equivalent meat dish come out to take its place.

Now, this is not about not finding two particular dishes. This about a lot more than that. In that first article, cleanliness, the failure to refill empty trays of food items, and table staff who do not do their jobs were the key problems here. These all still exist - perhaps worse. Food trays go down to a few scraps or completely empty and sit empty for more than an hour. On one night the string beans - simple dish to prepare and replace - were empty on arrival. At the time we were ready to leave a new tray finally came out - barely cooked and almost raw. On another visit, an hour and a half before closing the carved turkey was gone - and never came back out - and no other carving replaced it. On one night there were scraps of pork ribs in the tray. Over an hour later more finally came out. Then there are the items that because of an attempt to get them out - or lack of it - come out undercooked or overcooked. Chicken needs to be cooked through - broiled chicken has come out undercooked. On the opposite end - fried chicken has come out so well done that it was impossible to bite or cut through. On one night, corn dogs were served one shade of brown lighter than black - and shriveled. And you ask who is watching all of this? Who is making sure that the food that comes out and assures that more food does come out, comes out properly cooked and promptly. There are managers - if they are around, but this all seems to be left up to the few employees who are responsible for things like carving, the Mongolian Stir-Fry, and tending to the soft serve machine. It is very evident here that there is not enough staff - and some of those who are here just seem to go through the motions. On more than one night, we have had empty dishes pile high on our table - and this is not just happening on our table. When we eat at a buffet, we do not pile one plate so high that you can not see what is there at the bottom. We both take small portions and then go back for more of what we want. We might go up five or more times during a meal and take another plate of small portions. At all of the buffets that I will recommend to my readers - and that is a lot - each of those dishes is taken away by the table server shortly after it is set to the side of the table. On one night, we sat down at a table that (along with the other tables in the section) had no salt and pepper shakers and no dish of sweeteners and sugar. None of the tables here had them - other sections did have them. The table server came over to wipe down the table and greet us. As it is supposed to be. I figured that he would soon be back with at least the dish of sweeteners - as we had purchased the additional $1.99 beverages, clearly marked on our table paper that the server signs at the bottom, and perhaps we were going to have coffee, tea, or ice tea. That was the last time we saw that server all night. He was off in another section and never came back. With a stack of plates piled about eight high including soup cups and salad plates, another server came walking past to his section, saw our plates and picked them up. Some more empty plates followed those on our table, and as we were just getting ready to leave, the original server showed up again, ignored the plates and put down a dish of sweeteners on our table along with a salt and pepper shaker. I have had poor service here and at other buffets, but this tops them all as worst.

To make things worse - on Thursday nights - Thursday has been, chain-wide, children eat for 99 cents. A nice gesture, but other than cotton candy at this particular OCB, there is little to no kid food other than the usual pizza. And, partially due to parents who do not control their children, and partially due to a restaurant management that only weakly makes announcements that children should not be away from their tables unsupervised rather than stay visible and tell the children who are running around wildly in the dining room and around the buffet tables to stop, the entire room becomes more of an uncontrolled playroom that a restaurant. Again, I have been to other OCBs and also Ryan's on Thursday nights when it is children's night and there has not been problems like this. I like kids, but here someone has to be in charge - and when it is not the parents (as bad as that is), it needs to be the proprietor of the restaurant - or someone falls, gets burned, or hurts someone else.

It is all too much! What would I do if I was running this OCB? I have said this before to people who have spoken to me about this OCB and agree with what I am about to say. For a manager to come in and take full control and make this a location that is desirable to come to, all employees need to go and need to be replaced with well screened new hires that would be kept as long as they demonstrated that they did their jobs well. This would allow the management to do what the management needs to do and that does not mean hide in their office or off the dining room/buffet table floor. I would also change the system here for informing the kitchen what is needed. There is an intercom here that is the only communication with the kitchen. Apparently, to actually go into the kitchen requires I don't know what, but no one in authority seems to go into the kitchen. They shout into the intercom - "we need more X, Y, Z" and at some point it is passed to the buffet area through a warming bin that opens on both sides. Now, what happens - the order for more X, Y, or Z is forgotten on the floor and never does appear in the warming bin - which results in another yell into the intercom - maybe - if anyone even bothers. At other OCBs, I have seen a manager look at the serving trays, go directly into the kitchen - you can see it is the kitchen as they open the door behind the buffet tables, and in a few minutes come out - hopefully, with what needs to be replenished. I can only wonder what is going on in the "secret" kitchen, that results in an hours wait to get basic items that should be cooking continually, per the crowd that is dining, back out onto the buffet. And many buffets when a night is slow, bring out smaller servings and make sure to keep more on hand in the kitchen to refill. Not here. One other thing that needs to be watched here is that the recipes are followed according to the OCB book. Often at this OCB, food is over spiced and over salted - to the point that it is inedible.

The Old Country Buffet in Levittown, New York is still the wort buffet in the chain. Will I go back? Certainly I am not going back to be disappointed on what is not there on Thursday nights any longer. I will likely give it some time and try it again to see if there has been any change for the positive, but on those occasions so far, the positives have been short lived.

There is another Old Country Buffet on Long Island, New York. It is in Bay Shore. It is a lot better than this one! If you are in this area, go there. Despite the drive, you will be happier.

A Trip to Shady Maple

Shady Maple Smorgasbord in East Earl, PA celebrated its anniversary again this year during the second week in March. We had an opportunity to make a trip into PA and without a doubt we were headed to Shady Maple for dinner that night.

When Shady Maple has its anniversary week it has contests and special menu items each night. We were there on a Wednesday night and the feature that night was Prime Rib which is the usual Wednesday night feature. As part of the celebration there was a special additional dessert area set up in the middle of the dining room floor with scooped hard ice cream and a supervised chocolate fountain. It had been several months since we had been to Shady Maple - weather and such preventing our travel. No matter what was on the menu, I was eager to get there for dinner.

Shady Maple, as I have written so many times before, has an overwhelmingly large amount of good  food offered on the buffet. For the anniversary dinners, there was even more, with what may be duplicate items on both sides of the long buffet serving area replaced with additional items. There were eight soups on the buffet on this night. All were tempting and I could not resist trying two of them that I had not seen at Shady Maple before. One was a vegetable tortellini soup and the other was scallop chowder. The vegetable tortellini was a thick tomato based soup with garden vegetables and large cheese filled tortellini pastas. There was a lot of tortellini in the soup. It was very good. The scallop chowder was like a thin New England (white) clam chowder but instead of clams there was scallops - whole, large scallops. This soup had a excellent taste of the sea with a buttery flavor as well. There were a lot more scallops in the soup than there appeared to be just looking, as the white scallops were masked by the white broth. This also was a good soup. My wife tried the beef barley soup which is a favorite soup of hers and she liked it here.

When Shady Maple serves Prime Rib they don't just put out one Prime Rib - cooked however it came from the kitchen. They put out several Prime Ribs - cooked rare, medium, and well. They slice a thick slice of Prime Rib for you - as it would be served at a menu restaurant - which fills your plate. There is au jus gravy to ladle on top there at the carving counter. There is no bone - you are getting all meat. The Prime Rib was tender and juicy. I chose the rare cut and it was perfect. As I say, if you wanted a medium or well done cut it was there for you.

At the carving station they were also carving ham. I got to see the new chargrill, though there was nothing cooking on it this night. This was the one thing missing from Shady Maple and it is now there on the end grill station nearest the entrance from the lobby. Now, when there are steaks, they will be chargrilled - to order. I can't wait to get there on a steak night to try this!  The steaks served this night were "Smorgy Cheesesteaks" on of Shady Maples signature items served on certain nights and special occasions. These are made on a fry grill as they should be - thin sliced steak is grilled with onions and covered with cheese. steaks without cheese are also available. I take mine without the hoagy roll (long bread roll) so that I not fill up on bread. There is tomato sauce that can be added on request on top. These are good - Shady Maple's version of the Philly Cheesesteak and they are very popular. In this area, they know cheesesteaks.

On this night there were several fish entrees on the buffet. The cod cakes were excellent - think broiled crab cakes substituting the crab with cod. There was also fried pollock - fried in a batter coating. There was also a  shrimp Alfredo. There was really so much that it can't all be named here.

I always look for the PA Dutch dishes when I am at Shady Maple. There always is dried corn - a sweet and nutty tasting dried corned kernals cooked moist and delicious. There are also always buttered noodles which here are thin, flat short noodles cooked in browned butter. Another regular PA Dutch dish at Shady Maple is Pork and Sauerkraut - shredded pork cooked with sauerkraut - and is locally served on New Years Day.  My attention immediately went to the Chicken Bot Bie - an Amish/PA Dutch specialty - that is often but not always found on Shady Maple's buffet. This is large, doughy flat noodle dumplings stewed with chicken, carrots, potatoes, and celery in a thickened chicken stock. This is a filling dish and those that know it usually cannot resist it.  With a smorgasbord or buffet meal, it is best to limit what you take or feel that you ate way too much at the end of the meal. I know some people who make this the centerpiece of their meal.

Dessert is extensive and it is always worthwhile looking on both sides of the buffet area at both dessert sections to see more. There are always an extensive selection of cakes and pies, hot desserts, cold desserts, fruit, puddings, etc. As I mentioned at the beginning of this article in addition for their anniversary celebration meals there was also name brand, hard scooped ice cream (in addition to the usual name brand soft serve ice cream) and a chocolate fountain that was supervised by employees - a must for any chocolate fountain and rarely if ever done elsewhere.

I could go on and on. The Shady Maple meal never disappoints. We named them one of our Top Buffets for 2012 - and previously had been Best Buffet year after year. I was happy to see our Top Buffet certificate posted in the lobby with other commendation certificates awarded to this restaurant. The anniversary celebration is now passed but the meal will be wonderful here on any night.

Shady Maple is open from Monday to Saturday until 8:00 pm. The dining room is not shut down until 9:00 pm but do not arrive too close to 8:00 or you will not have time to really enjoy this buffet. They are closed on Sundays and certain holidays. Shady Maple Smorgasbord is located at 129 Toddy Drive in East Earl, PA. Take Route 23 East from Lancaster or Route 322 South to get to the restaurant. (Put the name in your GPS and it will know it.) The phone numbers are 1-800-238-7363 and 717-354-8222.  There is a website and it is listed at the side of this page.There is also a very active Facebook page!

Mongolian Stir-Fry at Old Country Buffet and Ryans PART 2

See our article of March 22, 2013 for PART I

PART II

The next visit was the night I would try it, but when I went up and that the young man who was being trained was gone but a very personable young lady was there in his place. I went up and she smiled - so rare at an OCB from many employees with very special exceptions. I asked for chicken with noodles and vegetables. She filled a large ladle with noodles - thin lo mein style noodles which OCB had previously been using when serving Lo Mein on the buffet. The noodles went in the pan and another large ladle of chicken went on top, followed by a large ladle of vegetables. On top of that a very small ladle with teriyaki sauce went on top and the frying pan went on the cooktop. As it heated she started stirring with a spatula. She mixed and stirred. Steam came up as it cooked and the noodles turned to a light golden color from the sauce. She asked if I would like it spicy and I told her no. There was a large bottle of hot sauce on top of the counter.   You bring your own plate up to the counter and hand it over when the stir-fry has finished cooking. She filled my plate - still smiling. The plate of food smelled very good. It tasted good too!Alright! When properly made this had possibilities and an addition to the buffet that was worthwhile.

My next OCB visit was to Levittown. I wondered if this would be just as good. I did not even bother to try it there. There was a small crowd around the corner of the dessert counter where the stir-fry is. I went over to look at how the food looked coming out of the pan. It was consistently a deep dark brown. They were putting in way to much sauce. I watched as they poured ladle after ladle of teriyaki sauce into each pan. Instead of a pleasant smell coming from the pans, you could smell the sugar coming from the cooked sauce and you could see the dark brown liquid pouring out with the food onto the plates. This was nothing like what I had enjoyed at the other OCB. This was not appealing at all.

I wondered if my stir-fry plate in Bay Shore was a one time experience. The next visit that we were at Bay Shore I tried again. This time the young women who cooked my food was not there, but a new young man was there. He was very pleasant also and had a good sense of humor and attitude as he worked. He was personable and chatted with the guests as he cooked. I asked for the same thing I had the first time. He followed exactly the same process as the young woman had and produced a plate that looked just the same. Then he offered me an egg roll on the side - a light flaky crust, fried roll with vegetables inside.  That was a nice compliment to the stir-fry and it was fairly good. Another visit here found the same good preparation and enjoyable plate - this time with two egg rolls on request.

I would love to say that this is how it always is - but I cannot. Another visit to Bay Shore found a long line at the stir-fry counter. So long that by the time I had finished my second plate from the buffet - after soup and salad - there were people still on the line that had been on the line when I went up to get on it. It was the same personable young man - but he did not seem to be cooking. He was out of multiple items that he needed to cook - and much of the time these people on the line were waiting with him for these things to come out of the kitchen so that he could do his job and fill their plates. This is not a good thing.

One thing is that this is not like a Mongolian stir-fry that you would find at an Asian restaurant or buffet. There the meat and the vegetables start raw and only cook on the grill where it is served to you. There you choose and assemble the dish yourself and hand it raw to the cook who cooks it for you. Here it is all pre-cooked and if something runs out - and there is not much kept on hand at the cooking counter  - the whole operation stops until trays are refilled. Whoever at Buffets, Inc. came up with this process had no idea of its pitfalls.

Has it struck you that the Mongolian Stir-Fry is a weak attempt to come up with a comparable feature as the Seafood Saute at Golden Corral? And that feature is one of the worst ideas that Golden Corral ever came up with because the process of cooking to order like this in a buffet has the potential to back up the entire buffer serving area. At Golden Corral this backs up the steak and meat grill as the Saute shares that space. Lines for both intersect into long waits and confusion of guests who cannot figure out where to stand or what line to get on for which one. Here, at Old Country Buffet, that started to happen on the night at Bay Shore where the line never moved - for lack of ingredients at the stir-fry to cook with. The line started to stretch into the long space blocking a buffet server and access to the buffet area from the dining room next to the stir-fry counter.

At best, I can say that the Mongolian Stir-Fry at Old Country Buffet, Hometown Buffet, and Ryans is inconsistent. I can be very good if the people cooking are well supplied and know what they are doing - and following the recipe that has been set for this by corporate. It can be the opposite in the hands of cooks that are doing their own thing. The other problem is that there needs to be one or two employees assigned to do the job of cooking the stir-fry and nothing else. They cannot be called away to fill serving trays on the buffet, bring out plates for the buffet, or get ice for the ice machine. In a chain of restaurants that have cut back the number of employees that are necessary to properly maintain the buffet and maintain the dining room, a feature food that needs full attention is certainly not a good combination.

Before trying this feature - even in the same location - stop and watch what is taking place as it is cooked. See if they are doing it as it is supposed to be done - and from what I have seen and had come out successfully from the pan is a ladle full of noodles or rice, a ladle full of meat (avoid that odd beef), and a ladle full of vegetables, topped with ONE small ladle full of teriyaki sauce. If you want it hot, ask and they will add hot sauce - but from comments that I have heard by those who had the hot sauce added, don't let them put too much unless you really like to eat things impossibly hot. (Again, I get this from comments of those who thought it would be good.)

So - the Mongolian Stir-Fry is hit and miss. Hopefully, you will find more hits than misses. I have come across more misses than hits.

Mongolian Stir-Fry at Old Country Buffet and Ryans PART 1

This article has been in the works for almost a year. My first encounter with what has now become a widespread feature at Old Country Buffet and Ryans restaurants - and Hometown Buffet was in April 2012 in a Ryans in Hagerstown, Maryland. There the Mongolian Stir-Fry was being prepared at the steak grill with a sign in front showing what it was and how to order. As I noted in an article about that restaurant at that time, there was no one ordering it.

Just about the beginning of the summer, Buffets, Inc. (parent company of OCB, Hometown Buffets, and Ryans) sent out an email to their email list customers announcing the Mongolian Stir-Fry and that it was available at many of the buffets. 

This past summer I saw the Mongolian Stir-Fry being offered at an Old Country Buffet in Alexandria, Virginia. There, this was set up in a corner of the dessert counter with two hotplates set up next to a few trays of the ingredients. I watched to see who was ordering this - no one was. At this point the way the sign read about how the stir-fry would be prepared, the meat and vegetables would be cooked in a sweet sauce or a hot sauce. Neither appealed to me so I passed it by - along with everyone else, apparently.

The feature soon appeared in one of the two OCB's local to me, the Levittown, NY OCB. Just like in Alexandria, there were two hotplates, that here were conduction stove burners, with a few trays of ingredients stuck at the end of the dessert counter - taking away dessert items that once had been served there. When I first saw this here, again, no one was having it. I wondered why. Surely, it must appeal to someone. I went over on one visit to look at the ingredients - there was cooked, cold chicken - much like is served at the salad bar - and there was a brown, dried looking meat very unappetizing. Apparently, this was the beef. It may have been overly cooked roast beef but it barely resembled that.  (On a later visit, a customer asked the young man behind the counter who was the cook for the stir-fry, "What is that?" - pointing at the brown meat. The answer was "Meat.") Again, the sign talked about sweet or hot sauce and I passed it by - with everyone else.

There is another OCB not too far away in Bay Shore, NY and they did not have the Mongolian Stir-Fry. When we were there on Thanksgiving a section of the dining room opposite the buffet servers was under construction. They took out tables to do this and a serving station appeared to be what was being constructed. On a later visit we saw that this was going to be the Mongolian Stir-Fry station. As it developed two conductive cook burners were put into place along with set in trays for meats, vegetables, and sauces. Also around this point Buffets, Inc. was focusing their advertising on the Mongolian Stir-Fry feature - served every day at lunch and dinner at Old Country Buffet, Hometown Buffet, and Ryans.

When the station finally opened in Bay Shore there was still little interest in the stir fry. Interest only started to pick up, at both Long Island OCBs, when the the television advertising became frequent. Then there was some interest in ordering. Just about the same time the sign changed which no longer said sweet or hot sauce but dropped the mention of sweet sauce and talked about adding hot sauce if you wished. The beef, however, still looked the same - crumbled and dark pieces of something - and still unappetizing. They did add small shrimp as another choice.

I decided that I would try it. Not in Levittown where the employees at the cook tops did not seem to know what they were doing - when there was someone even there to cook, but in Bay Shore - but still where was the cook? This was a couple of months ago and they had not put someone at this new station to just take care of the Mongolian Stir-Fry - which is essential. Eventually, they caught on and they started assigning someone there. Here is how my first attempt - yes, attempt - at having the Mongolian Stir Fry went - and this is not present, but as I say, a couple of months back. There was a young man behind the counter and he was not really interested in being there.  I first watched how the stir fry was being made. An amount of noodles or rice was added a fry pan and meat and vegetables were put on top. A measured amount of teriyaki sauce was added and the pan was put on the conductive burner and stirred while it cooked. It smelled good. I stepped up to the counter and asked for chicken the stir fry with chicken and noodles. The young man asked me if I wanted vegetables. I did not realize that this was an option but said yes, I would like vegetables. He looks at me and says, "There are no more vegetables.", and then he stared at me. I glanced down where the vegetable tray was and it was just about empty. The vegetables are a variety of mixed vegetables including broccoli, onion, peppers, snow peas, etc., and they are apparently also pre-cooked. OK, I looked at the cook and said, "Are you getting more vegetables?" This was not late in the dinner service. Unless he was planning on shutting down the stir fry, there would need to be more vegetables. Again, he stared at me. I tried again, "Will there be no more vegetables tonight?" With hesitation he finally said, "Well, I guess I could go and make some." And then there was more hesitation and some mumbling. I decided that this was not my night to try the stir fry feature and just said forget the whole thing and I walked away. That also pretty much ended the stir fry for about an hour when just as we were leaving a tray of vegetables came out.

All right. Was I ever going to get to try the stir-fry? A few more visits to the same OCB and again, no one was there cooking at the stir fry and when there was they were called away frequently to do other things. This was as it was all of the time at Levittown - and still is.  Then there was  a night that we were there in Bay Shore when the manager was with a young man behind the stir-fry counter training.

End of PART I

Two Visits to Southern Smokehouse, Linden, New Jersey

I only get to Southern Smokehouse when I have something scheduled in New Jersey. While the restaurant is only a hour from my home, the trip involves tolls that amount to more than the cost of the meal. I do look forward to my annual two trips to this area and while there are other buffets to try around there, I go to Southern Smokehouse for dinner on both trips.

This is our third year back to Southern Smokehouse. This buffet restaurant is a bit out of the ordinary as it is a mixture of Southern barbecue and country cooking with Asian food. I have written mixed reviews of the restaurant in the past - generally good, but with some problems. The problems have always been about the service here. The food is exceptionally good!

The price of the meal is $12.99 for adults and $12.49 for seniors, and these are every night prices. (The price has gone down fifty cents from last year.) This price includes unlimited soft drinks, brought to your table by your server. The price is excellent - especially for what you are getting here.

Let me start off by talking about the service on these two visits - and, as it happened, we had the same server both weeks in a row. On the first visit the server was excellent. He was very attentive, came to our table a number of times to ask if all was well and when he saw that the drink glasses were low, asked if we would like refills. Dishes were picked up promptly. The restaurant was very busy - and very much so in the section that we were seated. This did not throw him at all. He deserved a decent tip and received one. On the second visit, he was still pretty good, BUT he was not as attentive, had to be asked for drink refills and the empty plates sat on the table for awhile before they were picked up. The restaurant on this night was not as crowed as it had been the week before. So - while, service was far better than it has ever been in any of of visits before, it still remains inconsistent. You can luck out with great service or not - even from the same person working your your table. Service, aside, this buffet is wonderful.

There was a delightful surprise when we came in the first night. A sign at the front announced that they now had added a smoker to the kitchen. A smoker is what makes barbecue good. It smokes the meat for hours to give it a great flavor, keeps in the moisture, and makes the meat just fall off the bone. The barbecue coming from the smoker was now served on the buffet and was also available on a platter basis. At the price, there is no reason not to go for all you care to eat barbecue, along with everything else. What they are serving primarily from the smoker are ribs and chicken.

I love barbecue. I love ribs. In the past the ribs here were OK. Now they are, what I consider, the second best buffet ribs that I have had. (The first best going to a buffet in Virginia.) The ribs are now what they should be. You can taste the smoke and the meat on the ribs can be eaten completely off the bone leaving clean bones behind. Why are they not the best ribs that I have ever had? In addition to the smoker they seem to be charring the ribs afterward. This creates a tougher outside layer on top that was a little chewier than I expected. While some would say that this is the "bark" that forms on the meat closest to the fire in the smoker, here it was consistent on each rib. This did not take away from the flavor but from the tenderness of biting into the rib. The ribs are very good. On my second visit, I decided that because I get smoked barbecue ribs so rarely, I would concentrate my meal around those ribs, and I did. In fact, I went one rib too far in the meal and hit that "meat wall" and could not finish the last one. And I struggled with myself to put it down on the plate and say that is all.

My wife, the picky eater, does not eat barbecue. She does like a lot of Southern dishes and there is plenty to choose from here that is not necessarily Southern. One of the other great things that they have here is a real roast, on the bones, turkey carved at the grill. This is not the usual turkey breast. This is a whole turkey, drumsticks and all. It has been awhile since we have had what I consider "real turkey". This is real turkey. Both of us - on both trips had this moist, carved from the bones in front of you, turkey.

Southern cooking involves a lot of fried foods and there are plenty of those to be found here too. The fried chicken is home-style fried chicken. This is not the broasted or the typical buffet fried chicken. This is fried chicken as it is served in the South as I have had it at Southern restaurants (not buffets) known for their home fried chicken. There was also fried fish - pieces of whole, thin fish fillets (there were a few small bones present) deep fried. The fish was good - a little chewy because it was thin. There were fried sweet potato "tots". Good. There was fried okra - also good.

I know out there there are the readers who say "fried food - terrible!" and are thinking there is nothing here for them. Well, there is barbecue chicken. There is meat loaf - which is served in a thin tomato sauce - not the usual ketchup covered meatloaf. It was good. There are the Asian/Chinese dishes. There is broiled salmon at the grill. There is also on the grill, steak. The steak here is a marinated skirt steak. They cook it on the grill and it is served from the grill. Skirt steak is known by a variety of names - some call it hanger steak, some call it Romanian steak. Skirt steak is not known to be a tender cut of beef. It is known for its flavor. It is cooked thin here and well charred on the outside but it remains moist and very flavorful - especially the char. There was bourbon chicken. There were hot wings. There was rotisserie chicken. There is cold peel and eat shrimp.

What else is there? There are a lot of side dishes - some also Southern cooking. I tried something for the first time on the first of these two visits - cooked plantains. I have seen plantains before and avoided them because I do not like the taste of bananas and plantains are a type of banana. I heard recently - on some food show - that plantains are not sweet like bananas and this gave me the thought that perhaps then they do not taste like bananas. Well, I found out by trying them here that they do not taste at all like bananas - at least when cooked - they are cut into pieces here and sauteed. They have a very pleasant flavor and texture. Of course, I had them again on the second visit and was just as delighted. There are collard greens. There is kernel corn. There is corn on the cob - which seems to be cooked in milk - it was very good! There are string beans, barbecue beans, and black eyed peas. There are mixed vegetables. There is plain rice. There was baked ziti in sauce. There was plain spaghetti with tomato sauce on the side.  There were french fries - hand cut and lightly fried french fries. There are mashed potatoes. There are perogies - which taste good but are a bit tough on the outside. There were sauteed sliced potatoes. And then there is wonderful macaroni and cheese. This is not at all the commercial type of orange, wet, and drippy mac and cheese, but baked, thick, and full of white cheese that pulls when you spoon it out of the serving tray. This is homemade macaroni and cheese. I have written about it here before - it is a must try. And if you like this type of comfort food, you will have to then try and stop yourself from going back and back for more. There is also pizza baked in a brick oven behind the grill. There is more, too.

There is a large salad bar with both prepared salads and make your own lettuce salad with two types of lettuce plenty of toppings and vegetables. There is also cold fruits and cold desserts at the salad bar. There are two soups on the buffet. They were the same both nights we were there - both Friday nights. One soup was a cream of broccoli which I tried the first night and it was very good. The other was a turkey rice soup - which contained no rice (which for me is good as I can't eat rice) but was full of large pieces of turkey meat, celery, and carrots. The broth was thin and full of turkey flavor. There is no doubt that these two soups were made from scratch right here. The turkey soup reminded me of turkey soup that my grandmother served on Thanksgiving when I was a small child.

What about dessert?  The desserts here are limited. There is a hard ice cream sundae bar with toppings. There are a couple of sheet cakes that look good and platters of cookies. Then on one of the hot buffet servers there is a hot apple pie/cobbler. There is fresh fruit and puddings over on the salad bar. The dessert is adequate to end a over-filling meal, but don't come here for the desserts. Come here for everything else.

Something that takes place often at buffets near home in New York is that people take spoons adn serving pieces from one serving tray and use them in another leave them there - transferring whatever sauce was in the first item into the other tray of food. This WAS NOT happening here.  While this is not the fault of a buffet, it is a problem with the people who are eating at the buffet. One thing that we have observed on each of our visits to Southern Smokehouse is how nice the people seem who are dining there - mostly families and polite.

On the drive home after the second meal my wife was coming up with excuses to be in this area again - and I would love to go. Inconsistent service aside, I am going to look forward to my next visit to Southern Smokehouse. I recommend it highly (put up with the service) - if you like this type of cooking. I do, and even my picky eater wife - who avoids eating fatty things and doesn't when she is here - does.

Southern Smokehouse is located at Aviation Plaza Shopping Center which is at 611 West Edgar Road (Route 1 and 9) in Linden, New Jersey 07036. This restaurant is in the very far corner of the shopping center, off in a parking lot cut off from the main part of the shopping plaza. With Home Depot on one end of the plaza and Target on the other end, go past Target to where it looks like you are exiting the shopping center and you will see another parking lot to the side and this restaurant brightly lit on the far end.  This shopping plaza is adjacent to an airport. The phone number is 908-862-1883. The hours on Friday and Saturday are until 10 pm. Weeknights and Sunday nights they are open until 9 pm. They open each day at 11 am for lunch. There is also a breakfast buffet. There is a website and it is listed at the side of this page.

Rules of the Buffet

A new year has begun, and it is time to bring the rules out again for a refresher course. So often I wish that I carried these around with me, printed out. I would just love to leave them on a few tables in a buffet dining room after observing what goes on at the buffet by the people at those tables.

There are two of these rules that are recently most often ignored - and this is just common sense and courtesy. They are Rule 14 and Rule 29. It is unbelievable.  Why must someone take the spoon from the beets and put it into the feta cheese? And why do people think that they are at a cocktail party and stand at the serving tray with their plate and eat while they are standing there. Their table is just a few feet away - can't they wait the few seconds that it will take to walk back to the table and sit down and eat?!? No one is that hungry at a buffet!

Here are all of the rules - read them, follow them, and share them!

RULES OF THE BUFFET

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 the 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. (this is not referring to medical guide dogs)

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.

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.

28. Never put the serving utensil, whether it a spoon, fork, or tongs, up to your nose to smell the food that you have taken out of the serving tray.

29. Do not eat while walking with your plate back to your table.

30. If you take a plate, bowl, cup, or piece of silverware and you decide you don't want it, do not put it back on the stack of clean dishes or back with the clean silverware. Take it back to your table or put it on the side of the stack where it will not be taken as clean.

The BEST Server

This is not a new award from this site but it is special recognition for the best server - the person who takes care of you at your table - at any buffet that I have ever been to, and that includes a lot of buffets over many years. Her name is Lisa and she works at the Old Country Buffet in Bay Shore, New York. As I have heard, she has worked at this Old Country Buffet since it first opened many, many years ago - and she is still working there. She is one of the most dedicated workers that I have ever seen at any job - not just in a restaurant, but anywhere!

She is constantly on the go making sure that the tables in her section are taken care of. In this job that includes taking away plates and making sure that when a table is empty, it is cleaned and ready for the next guests. We have seen her at work for a number of years and she never seems to falter in what she does. She is always there when plates need picking up and she does so with a smile and welcoming remarks to the guests at her tables.

She has gone beyond what other servers in this restaurant and others do by carrying a spray bottle of cleaner with her all of the time in a special belt holster that she, personally, had made for this purpose. Where other servers here are just carrying around a wet cloth to clean tables, she is sanitizing the table - and the chairs - with the cleaner and then wiping them dry.

She never seems to slow down, and we have watched her work when she has been dealing with physical problems and injuries without missing a step. Currently, she is battling cancer and in this extreme circumstance she continues working, still with a smile and pleasant demeanor and still with all of the energy that she can muster.

As I say, we have seen a lot of good servers at various restaurants and, not just, buffets, but no one has been as impressive as Lisa. She is the BEST server anywhere. Old Country Buffet is very fortunate to have an employee like this.

Ruby Buffet, Massapequa, New York

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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


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


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

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

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

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

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