Jane C.
Yelp
When it comes to restaurants like these, I believe it's important to set appropriate dining expectations. Don't expect avant garde fare or experimental cuisine. At its best, Chinese buffets are about fast, dependable, and (hopefully inexpensive) food. At its worst, one ignores quality for the quantity consumed. Here at Hibachi Buffet, I'm afraid I had to remind myself of that quite a few times.
For its high points, the food is fresh. Servers swap out the trays of food from the buffet with fair regularity, especially because when we went, the restaurant was hopping with diners on a weekend evening. What was fried was still hot and crispy by the time I reached in with my tongs, and the seafood dishes were comfortingly unfishy in taste and in aroma.
A few trips to the buffet bar immediately revealed strong and low points. Americanized dishes and common Chinese takeout entrees are well done and tasty. For instance, I couldn't stop myself from getting refills of the lo mein, fried rice, and the fried shrimp.
Where things fell apart a bit were the more 'out there' items. The sushi area had chefs making the rolls fresh, bu upon closer inspection, there were rolls with nothing else besides imitation crab meat and cucumber, along with a thick layer of rice. I wasn't sure anyone would deign to call this sushi, and I felt it unfair to label it as such. The fresh-to-order hibachi area is a neat idea, where one can pick and choose their carb, protein, and vegetables and have it prepared fresh on a grill. According to the signs, we were supposed to have been given a choice for our sauce; in actuality, the chefs (albeit hardworking) used the same sauce for everything - a few dark-colored sauces and LOADS of melted butter. When done, the hot plate was actually tossed onto the counter, sometimes splashing bits of food over the area. As a result, the counter was covered with a thick sheen of oil and grease, and without a system to keep track of which order is who's, I needed to keep watch the whole time lest someone else accidentally collect my plate (which happened once).
All that said, I would've considered all of this par for the course for a buffet on a busy night. What I found unforgivable was the number of times I caught someone taking food out of the buffet with their hands. Most of the time, they were unsupervised children, which is probably more the parents' faults than the restaurant's. Still, by the fifth time it happened (the last time, I saw a child actually RETURNING a square of Jello with his bare hands), I found myself questioning the cleanliness of all the food.
So if you're game for taking chances, this is a solid deal for the amount of food you're getting, especially at these prices. But if cleanliness and food hygiene matter a ton to you, consider yourself warned.