Our friends from Niles, Jerry and Barb, share our fondness for Oriental food, so they agreed to tag along on our first visit. The dinner buffet costs $9.55 (after 3:30 p.m.; before that, the lunch cost is $6.95, both not including beverages). Our preference generally is for the dinner simply because it's harder for us old folks to stuff ourselves at lunchtime and when it's a buffet, we want to make sure we get our money's worth.
It's not a large restaurant, although mirrors on the wall make it look bigger. There are some booths and quite a few tables with four chairs. The buffet itself is at the back, with three "tables" that contain everything from soup to main dishes and a side table with appetizers, sauces and desserts.
Once we'd placed our beverage orders (Diet Pepsi for the two of us and hot tea for our friends), we made a beeline for the buffet. Scoping it out before diving in is always advisable, and I did notice that several of the items weren't labeled so choosing those items was based on a guess and whether or not it looked appetizing. As is my custom, I zeroed in on the hot and sour soup, an egg roll, what appeared to be crab Rangoon (labeled as fried cheese) and a couple of chicken wings to start. Barb chose similar items, with was won-won soup and a spring roll. We all passed on sushi; even though I love Wasabi sauce, those roll-ups are way too fishy for my liking.
My soup was quite good, although perhaps not quite as lip-smacking as what I get at the Sunshine Buffet on State Route 422 in Niles. Here, I polished off a good-sized cup, but I didn't go back for seconds as I usually do at Sunshine. Both the egg and spring rolls were excellent as well, but Barb said her won-ton soup lacked any real flavor.
The chicken wings, however, were to die for; on my return trip, I snagged a couple more (apparently, they're a favorite of other diners, too, since only two were left when I went back for seconds). I also restocked those fried cheese thingys - they taste like there's crab in there even though the sign doesn't reflect that.
As for entrees, there's something to suit everyone's tastes, and the dishes marked as "hot" were mild enough for just about anybody we know. The sweet and sour chicken and shrimp, chicken with broccoli, General Tso's chicken and pepper steak with onions were outstanding - so much so that I didn't try any of the noodle or rice dishes on this visit - they're just too filling.
Two things were worthy of note here: On the positive side, we were impressed that we really liked just about everything we sampled; that's hard to say about other buffets, where at least one or two items just don't cut the mustard. On the other hand, the diet soft drinks have a bit of an odd taste, so I quickly learned to opt for plain ice water. The hot tea got excellent marks from our friends, so maybe we'll try that next time.
We returned a week or so later for lunch, mostly because I wanted to see if there were fewer buffet items. The answer, happily, is no; just about everything we'd found and enjoyed at the dinner hour was here for lunch as well. And yes, I chowed down four of those fried cheese goodies.
I will say that although it may have been a fluke, the chicken wings and egg rolls didn't taste quite as fresh as at dinner - more like they were leftovers or had been in the warming dishes too long. Jack loved the pineapple chicken, and this time I tried the Lo Mein, sesame chicken, black pepper chicken, chicken and chili and fried rice. The Lo Mein wasn't much better than passable and the rice didn't have much flavor on its own, but topped with one of the chicken dishes or add some soy sauce it works very well. All those chicken dishes, however, were outstanding.
Speaking of the soy sauce, go easy at first. It's extremely salty, and a little goes a long way. I also sampled the cold crab salad, which was quite good.
While the food itself gets a big plus overall, we did uncover a couple of negatives. First, we couldn't find any smallish containers to hold various dipping sauces; the only options were to grab a soup cup or ice cream dish, both of which are too large for that purpose. Also, the number of servers, busboys and buffet refillers seemed to overwhelm the number of customers - and they were always on the run, not walk, nearly colliding with customers in a couple of instances.
Then, too, we'd ask if perhaps at least one of them could manage a smile now and again? Every single face ranged from impassive to an outright scowl - constantly - even when we tried smiling first. Definitely not an incentive to keep customers coming back.
If you go:
Happy Buffet
3551 Belmont Ave., Suite 19A (Liberty Plaza)
Youngstown, Ohio 44505
(330) 759-8889
Open 11 a.m. to 10 p.m. Monday through Thursday; 11 a.m. to 10:30 p.m. Friday and Saturday; 11 a.m. to 10 p.m. Sunday.
That’s certainly what you can call a happy buffet! The foodstuff you mentioned are all mouthwatering. I know your descriptions of the food sounds delectable enough, but I wished you posted the photos. Perhaps, the next time you come back to the place? Haha! Have a good day!
ReplyDeleteJames Moore @ Lin's Grand Buffet