The wonderful Indian restaurant by me in Miami, Punjab Palace, has a small lunch buffet where they have a big pot of hot, fragrant rice, and then a selection of several dishes in a steam table, set up like a typical buffet. They have tandoori chicken (delicious!), several vegetarian curry-type concoctions with spinach (saag?), potatoes, chick peas, and other great things you’ve probably never sampled before. They have three types of chutnies (sauces): spicy tomato onion, sweet mango, and cooling mint. Then they have a cool, creamy yogurt dip, and a few options for dessert.
Seriously, I’ve only gone out for Indian food three times EVER, but I loved it immediately, and I try to eat new things every time I go. It goes down great with a yogurt shake (lassi) or a cold Kingfisher beer. And any Indian restaurant should offer this buffet-style option, rather than an “all-you-can-eat special of the day.”
Here’s an informative Straight Dope thread from the past about demystifying Indian food:
We have a local BBQ restaurant that has an “all you can eat” rib night and a local TexMex retaurant that has an “all you can eat” chicken-fried steak night. Neither event is sanctioned by the American Heart Association.
Nitpick: Calling Mongolian BBQ “pretty much your typical Chinese fare” is like equating Italian and Japanese cuisine because they both feature noodle.
And I think Hometown Buffet pretty much has the “stereotypical all-American meal” buffet restaurant market sewn up. And **Souplantation/Sweet Tomatoes[/b is 98% soup-and-salad-buffet.
Be warned. I spent the month of April living in a hotel outside of Toronto (Mississauga), pretty much in the middle of nowhere. They had a buffet dinner that I could charge to the room. Very good, lots of food to choose from, and good food to boot - Cajun chicken, veal medalions, all kinds of pasta. Unfortunately, I put on 5 pounds thanks to that place.
Find a quality hotel with a buffet, they’re worth the price, just don’t eat there every night
Wes you might check out the local motels/hotels that have restaurants. A lot of them actually have a breakfast buffet. You usually don’t have to be a guest either. There’s a couple here…the Ramada and the Spanish Trace and…I can think of several others in diffrent cities I’ve been.
The price is usually very good. Between 3-4 bucks per/person all you can eat and how you gonna fuck up breakfast? Scrambled eggs, waffles, biscuits, pancakes, sausage, bacon, hashbrowns, oj, milk, coffee, donuts, pie etc.
There used to be a little cafe in Ft.Davis TX. that for $2…you heard me two dollars…all you can eat breakfast. It was damned good chow too.
I agree that hotel restaurants are your best bet if you are looking for buffet.
If you ever go to Las Vegas, you will be in hog heaven. Every hotel/casino tries to lure gamblers with their cheap but great buffets. Do you have any Indian reservation casinos near you? They would probably have buffet meals.
There are some other places that, while not buffets, offer all-you-can-eat specials. In a lot of places, they have a-y-c-e fish fries on Friday. Red Lobster locally, right now, has an a-y-c-e shrimp deal. A couple of the other fish places in town have a-y-c-e crab legs, but they aren’t cheap – they are more than the price of 2 pounds of crab legs, which is about the most I can eat even if I stuff myself, which I avoid doing if at all possible.
I like the idea of the buffet because I can have a little of a whole lot of different things, not because I can stuff myself on any one thing.
Oh, one more suggestion, check out places that have a Sunday brunch menu, these are often all-you-can-eat, and some of them have more upscale menus, offering eggs benedict and the like.
Yeah you’re right…but seriously it’s not exactly gourmet cooking ya know. Sure cold or raw etc. but by and large breakfast is usually pretty consistent.
I know what you’re saying though. I was at a friends house one night and his old lady was fixing supper. She was going to make some deviled eggs or something…anyway she was hard boiling some eggs and when she cracked the first couple they weren’t done. So she threw them out and started boiling some more water and opened another dozen eggs.
Yep…you heard me. :eek:
For years, there was an AYCE seafood restaurant here in Maryland called The Chesapeake Bay Seafood House. The deal was, you ordered and paid for whatever entree you wanted, and then you could order more of anything on the menu that was no more expensive than the entree you ordered. This gave a lot of variety, as opposed to the AYCE crab legs (which I think are horribly overrated anyway).
Down in the Williamsburg area of Virginia there is a seafood buffet chain called Capt. George’s. It’s pricey (last time we were there, it was about thirty bucks for adults), but they have real seafood, not just deep fried shrimp and stuff made from fake crab meat! The thing is, to do it right, you have to know the layout of the place. The line guides you past all the salads and breads and veggies first, in hopes you’ll be half full before you ever start in on the seafood. Bypass that part entirely, or just take a small salad, then stuff yourself with seafood!
As for Chinese restaurants offering better fare at dinnertime: yes, that happens around here. However, all the ones I’ve been to that have crab legs have a surcharge if you want to eat the crab legs (I never get them; see comments above). However, our fave Chinese buffet around here, on Sunday night offers about four shrimp dishes (with lots of shrimp) in addition to having just good old steamed shrimp. They have lots of other good food, too, and it runs about $8.00 for adults; I always end up thinking that, for the $20.00 we spend on the meal, I couldn’t buy all that seafood at the store and cook it at home; it’s a bargain!
Do you have a Souper Salad or a Sweet Tomatoes? They have great buffets where you can make your own huge salad, get some yummy soup and bread, and end the meal with frozen yogurt.
For a short time, Gainesville had a Mexican restaurant that did this one night a week. You could pay a flat rate of something like $8 and then order anything else off the menu, however many items you wanted, as much as you wanted! It was ridiculous, and sadly, the place didn’t stay in business very long. But for a few months, it was amazing.
In the Southwest, there is a chain of Mexican Buffet restaurants called “Pancho’s”. It’s of good, solid quality (note, I said “good”, not “great”, not “excellent”, but not “poor” either), and is a good opportunity for variety. I see that you are in Indiana, and I don’t believe they are up there, but if you are ever visiting the right places, check it out.
Some places advertised as salad bars (like the Sweet Tomatoes mentioned above) will also have pasta, so that’s something else to check out (and healthier, for those people [not me] who are interested in that).
Hometown Buffet and Old Country Buffet are from a chain of restaurants that simply serve a variety of food, and may be in your area (or a related restaurant with a different name).
At times, varying fast food restaurants have gone through fazes where they have inexpensive buffets. I know KFC, Wendy’s, Rax, and another one whose name temporarily escapes me, have all done this in the past. I don’t think any of those currently do, but you can check in your area. The last fast food place I was aware of that had a buffet was Grandy’s, but I haven’t been to one in a while (they are not in my part of the country).
Ugh, last time I ate in a Pancho’s, it was really, really gross food. (except the sopapillas which were yummy) It seems like a lot of buffets have sub-par food. The Golden Corral I’ve eaten at was worse than Ryan’s.
Anyway, why do you want to eat at nothing but buffets? To make up for the endless food, they usually use cheap ingrediants and they have to make only stuff that will stay edible under heat lamps. (though for some reason, Indian buffets always seem to be a pretty good) Plus, the whole buffet mentality just encourages you to overconsume. It’s free refills, so you feel compelled to take advantage of them and eat waaaaay too much. Last time my dad dragged me to Ryan’s, we noticed how heavy the average Ryan’s patron is. My dad’s really working on eating healthy and he’s pretty much sworn off buffets…
There are 2 Indian places in town and one of them has an all you can eat buffet for $8.48. $8.48 is a little steep as far as AYCE buffets go (I prefer $5-6) but I think i’ll still try them out. One of the Thai places has an AYCE buffet too for $7.
I hear you on this one. When I used to work out in Springfield (VA) there were three Indian buffets. Yummies…
Oh, and when I say ‘Buffet’, I’m not talking about those wimpy buffets that have like 3 things to choose from.
I’m talking, it would take you several days of solid eating to fully finish their menus. This one place (Chutney, IIRC) changed it’s ‘offerings’ every other week.
Those were the days…
Now I’m out in Arlington and I can’t manage to find any…
Might not be what you’re looking for, but Pizza Huts (the free-standing full restaurants, not the Pizza Hut Express storefronts) often have an AYCE lunch buffet. Pizza, salad, “dessert pizza” (which IMO is weird).
I know because I get dragged to one everytime I’m home and my dad gets to pick the restaurant.
Well, I can’t speak for all of them, of course, nor have I eaten at one in almost three years.
One thing worth keeping in mind about buffets: They have to be really well managed. At a normal restaurant, you order something, they cook it then, and you get it relatively fresh. Buffets have to have a lot of food out – so they have to do a careful job of making things when they think they will be needed. It sucks a little to go to a buffet where they haven’t refilled half the food. However, it sucks ten times as much to go to one where the food has been sitting out for an hour.
In my opinion, buffets are only good for the quantity or the selection. When I was in college, I appreciated the quantity, because I was usually on a tight budget, and this allowed a good-sized meal every so often.
These days, I’m more interested in the selection. With an expanding waistline and more spending money, I’m not anxious to gorge myself on food. However, a good Chinese or Indian buffet may give me the chance to try several dishes, especially perhaps a new one (I’m still not very comfortable with or familiar with many Indian foods). That’s a low risk chance to try something different. If I order off of a menu, on the other hand, most of the time I’m going with something I know.
On the other hand, Pancho’s was usually a place that our relatives would want to go to – they didn’t eat Mexican much. My immediate family was familiar with Mexican dishes, though, and when it was just us, we would go to a Mexican restaurant we liked better. (Unfortunately, we moved away from good Mexican restaurants – and most of the bad ones as well. Sigh.)
I love Indian food buffets. They always have a good selection, though unfortunately restaurant-cooked Indian food often gives me heartburn. But it tastes good going down.
There are also some places around who have breakfast buffets, but I don’t generally trust eggs that have been sitting around under heat lamps for a couple of hours.
The very, very best buffet I’ve ever been to, though, was the Sunday brunch buffet at the Ritz. Yeah, I know - hoity-toity. But…they had so much wonderful fresh fruit, smoked salmon and waffles to die for and I don’t normally like waffles. Plus, they served champagne and really, actually decent restaurant coffee, which was a first for me. They also had more lunch-type food, which was also wonderful. Of course, I will probably never go there again unless I become rich and famous. I took my mom for mother’s day while she was in town one year because she loves that buffet. Now I know why.
Yeah, true. Pizza king also offers AYCE buffets here. I should check for an AYCE italian restaurant. Doesn’t fazolis have some kind of AYCE deal? I know they used to.
I just came back from Bombay house. The food was pretty good and had a unique spice flavoring to it, but it was not amazing. The selection was limited as there were only 13 things to pick from. But the bread and certain kinds of chicken were really good. However I don’t think i’ll go back because of the food & beverage limitations. Plus its $3 more than the chinese restaurants or ponderosa charge. But at least I tried something new.
