We arrived on a Saturday night at approximately six o'clock and found the front and side parking lot to be pretty packed. I was thinking whoa, we are going to be packed in this place like sardines.
We pulled open the bank vault looking doors and it instantly smelled fishy. Literally. When you walk in you are on a bridge if you look over the handrail you will see water and fish. Kind of neat actually, I guess the smell is okay because its neat to see the fish. We walked in another door and walked up to get seated. There was a full service bar, and off into another room we went. The place is humungous! There had to been 40 tables, 20 of them which seat 5 or more. And it looked empty! I don't know how with all those cars this place looked empty. On the other side of the restaurant was the "not buffet" area, maybe there was more people over there. We were on the buffet side....
The waitress took our drink order and we were on to the plethora of food. There had to been at least 9 banks of food. The normal Chinese buffet kung pao chicken, crab ragoons, general tso's, sesame chicken, sweet and sour chicken, etc., was all there. But this place had some extra things, whole crabs, crayfish, duck, roast beef, a Mongolian looking DIY stir fry, a few kinds of baked oysters like cheese covered and some kind of sauce covered, fresh (?) oysters, fried fish skin, and quite a bit of sushi. The normal Chinese buffet food was pretty good. Some of the other things I tried were kind of a different experience for me. I dont know how they are supposed to be but I will try to describe them.
Whole crabs, it seems like they gutted the crab, took the crab and made it into seafood salad, covered it with cheese and baked it. It was good though. The crayfish were small and red, I had never had crayfish before this time. I pulled the tail out, the black vein, and the tiny piece of tail meat finally came the rest of the way out of the tail. All that work for that little bit of meat?! Id have to have about 100 of those to live on crayfish! (LOL) The sushi was pretty good, there was a crunchy one, some with caviar of different colors, and some others. They all looked pretty appetizing and all tasted decent for a buffet. None of them were labeled though. Around the corner from the sushi was pieces of raw fish. And Octopus. And raw oysters.. And.. seaweed. It must be a Chinese thing. I left that stuff alone. I found it was awkward for me to eat sushi without chopsticks, its hard to dip it in the soy-sauce/wasabi mixture with a fork. They had chopsticks if I would have asked for them. No need.
Ice cream, fruit a plenty, macaroons, and cookies was for desert.
The waitress kept our drinks full, and cleaned our plates while we were getting more. No problems there. She was tipped well.
As were were walking up the the counter to pay the bill, I saw a neat looking green drink. My brother had mentioned before the bubble tea, or bobo tea, whichever, and that was it. We asked about it and he said those ones were the last ones so we didn't get to try it! Doh! Maybe next time. On the way out (and the way in) they had fish tanks with fish, lobster, eel, and oysters in them, and there was a sign that said the market price for the corresponding seafood. Neat. Expensive.
We left with a grin, and a full belly.
Food 9/10 - If you are looking for a Chinese buffet with some different options, this is it.
Wait Staff 9/10 - They were attentive and pleasant.
Cleanliness 10/10 - It seems like it would be hard to keep a place like this clean, but it was in both the food area and the eating area.
Decor 10/10 - Made you feel like you were in a different place, mostly Chinese deco <G>
Atmosphere 9/10 - Big and open, kind of loud. Only seen 1 tv. A couple of the tables were raised up on what looked like was an old stage.
Overall 9/10 The food was good, the waitstaff was good. Just a tad overpriced for the buffet.
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