Not sure what they’re called in Korean, but grill your own buffets can be very good. On par with what you’d get in a regular Korean restaurant. The Japanese equivalent is yakiniku. Great if you love meat, less so if you’re a seafood lover as the choices seem to be fewer. Never been to one, but hotpot buffets are popping up now, looking forward to giving it a try.
ive heard brunch at ballys is excellent ……
Hu Hot is pretty good – pick what you want into a bowl and then they cook it on the spot.
Brian
My mother refused to eat at a Chinese restaurant for decades. We got her into one in Zurich: it was damn late, that was the only place still open. Nowadays if she sees a “WOK” sign (which is how Far Eastern buffets have ended up branding themselves in Spain), she pretty much head-dives in. There are a few near Valencia, called City Wok, which combine Chinese, Spanish, Argentinian… if you can put it in a buffet or on a grill, they probably have it. The only days they’re not full it’s because they’re closed.
In Vigo we stayed in a Full Breakfast Buffet hotel which was really, really good. I generally prefer to either handle my own breakfast or choose the ones that say “full buffet”, because those include multiple sources of proteins rather than being “build your own continental breakfast”.
Company rates for rooms at hotels like this in China are surprisingly affordable, and so business travellers tend to use these hotels a lot more than we do in the USA, where the company-approved hotels are Holiday Inns or less.
The thing in China, though, is that meal allowances and per diem rates are really, really low compared to rates in the United States. I think our meal allowance was 250 RMB per day – that’s about thirty-six bucks – and it’s less when breakfast is included (our contract hotels all provide the breakfast buffet as part of the room rate). The end result was that I usually sat in near-empty restaurants at Chinese hotels, unless I wanted to hang out with the local nationals in the buffet restaurant, or better yet, go with them to the shopping mall for even more economical food.
I live in hotels, and have been to many many good buffets. Nice hotels and restaurants for holiday buffets in the US are awesome. Some nice hotels have Sunday Brunch Buffets that are also great. And nice hotel breakfast buffets in Europe are even awesomer. But the prices do reflect the quality.
They are a different animal entirely than the standard $11 out-by-Route-17 Chinese Buffet, with their row after row of steam tables. That said, I do appreciate the standard Chinese Buffet lunch (or Indian or Thai or even Golden Corral). I’m not the type to gorge on everything, but I like to have lots to choose from for a dib of this and a dab of that. A major plus for me is the availability of vegetables, as so many regular US restaurant meals don’t include vegetables.
Right, so if you’re in L.A., go to one of the buffets in Koreatown. And they’re actually great if you don’t eat meat, too, because of the many kinds of kimchee and salads. A Korean buffet will have fairly decent sushi, as well. They’re also reasonably priced.
At $85 a person it freaking well better be!
The only legitimately good non-Indian buffet I’ve ever eaten at is Phillips Crab House in Ocean City, MD. It’s good quality seafood, but it’s not at all cheap. It was like $20 a head 30 years ago, and I’m certain it’s at least double that now.
You couldn’t pay me to eat at a Chinese buffet. For a while my parents were really into them, and dragged me along a couple of times. Awful food at any price.
We’ve been to several and have made note to stop when we can. There is a Chinese Buffet in Danville PA and another in Williamsburg that have fantastic quality food and are very reasonably priced. The one at the Three Rivers Casino near us is also really good although a little more pricey for our tastes.
I’ve been to several good buffets. Most of them are at regular restaurants that aren’t full-time buffet restaurants (the exception being Korean buffets). Most of them aren’t cheap as dirt either.
Maybe it was an exception to the Las Vegas buffets some of you like, but the buffet at the MGM Grand was possibly the worst restaurant food I have ever been served.
We have gone for Mother’s Day Brunch at Ivar’s (a Seattle institution) and they have:
“offer a lavish breakfast buffet for Mother’s Day including roasted Alaskan salmon, fresh mussels, oysters and clams, Dungeness and snow crab, fish 'n chips, roasted prime rib, a crepe station and all the breakfast usuals, such as bacon, eggs and waffles.” They also have unlimited oyster shots and bloody mary’s. I think it is $44 all-in person and worth every penny. We were there for 2.5 hours and it was just a grand time!
My apologies to HoneyBadgerDC, as I didn’t FILL my plate 6x but I certainly had 6 plates which did have snow grab. My son counted that they had at least 30 different meat presentations and 15 egg strategies last year- the seafood was excellent but the pork preparations were just spectacular! If anyone else in the PNW want to go, get reservations in February as they fill up by March/April. And I also recommend the 9:30 or 10am starting time as the lines are quite short and there is a recognition of a meal rather than just waiting in line with your family.
IMHO, these types of foods work well buffet style:
- breakfast (a “real” buffet, not the cheap hotel kind)
- southern cooking/soul food
The following are hit or miss:
- seafood (seems more often a “miss”)
- Chinese
- Mexican
- steak
For instance, I’ll do Golden Corral or Shoney’s for the breakfast buffet but rarely, if ever, for lunch or dinner.
I used to work at a place where, occasionally, they’d go to lunch at a strip club buffet. (It was kind of in line with the nature of the job.) I joined them a few times. The food was always excellent - like, way out of line of expectations.
That’s one of my life’s unanswered questions - “Why is the food at strip club buffets so good?” I really don’t think it was 'cause of the booblage.
Minado is amazing. Ichiumi isn’t exactly terrible, either.
Other great buffets I can think of, without too much effort:
Jackson Diner, along with lots of other places in the severely underrated culinary wonderland that is Jackson Heights, Queens, NYC.
Laugh all you want, but the Golden Corral in Milford, Connecticut was amazing. Really. The atmosphere wasn’t fancy, but the food was delicious.
LOL, you guys and gals are bringing back so many memories. I’ve never been to one for the food, but some of my friends would rave about the happy hour food at some of the local hostess bars (which sometimes featured strippers). From what I understand, the best looking and youngest hostesses and strippers didn’t come out until well after dark, so the food is to draw in the after work crowd. Ummm…again, just what I heard. 
For me, the Pizza Hut buffet falls into the good for the money category. I don’t know what it costs now, I think ~$12-$14?, but I would always make sure i ate the equivalent of at least one whole medium pizza which along with the pasta and salad bar ensured I ate more than what I could have picked up in a box.
Actually a lot of the la/sf valley strip clubs started the buffet thing to make money before the girls came in also they could sell beer and wine before 7 pm
and they became so competitive that the buffet almost bankrupted them I mean all you can eat lobster for 25$?
there used to be a list on a website about the strip clubs in la county and since there wasn’t a lot of difference in the girls they based it on the food and booze
In fact one place was more popular for the food than the girls they ditched that aspect and became a full restaurant ….
I was just about to post Minado! It’s the best buffet in our area.
The best buffet I ever ate at was in a hotel restaurant in Glasgow. All of the best Scots foods including salmon, trout and rack of lamb, and well prepared veggies too.
As for the Disney buffets, apart from Boma and Trail’s End (which I hear is no longer a buffet), Akershus is supposedly excellent and so is Biergarten. My favorite there is Tusker House; here’s part of the lunch menu
Spit-roasted Chicken, Curries, Roasted Pork, Peri Peri Whole Salmon, Basmati Rice and Curry Chicken
Black-eyed Pea Salad, Fruit Salad, Vegetable Salad
Brownie, Banana Bread Pudding, Strawberry Cake