Critic's Review
Time for another buffet; this one is on West Commercial about a mile south of the Florida Turnpike. It's in an outdated looking shopping center on the north side of the road.
You enter into a useless foyer with a big statue and 2 doors; they even have their own logo.
This place is a typical setup, with dining rooms surrounding a central buffet. The dining room if fairly large, and there's another room on the other side.
My server was right there as I was seated, so I ordered an iced tea and hit the buffet. I loaded up on meat and vegetables and also went back for.a salad before I sat down. They had a dressing that I thought was blue cheese, but it was something else. A worker tried to tell me what it was, but I couldn't understand a word she said. I put Italian dressing on half the salad and the mysterious white globbular dressing on the other half.
The salad dressing were both loaded with sugar, and god-awful.
I couldn't eat the salad and I pushed it aside, despite the message on the table pleading with me not to waste food.
Sorry, it's a buffet. I'm not eating bad food.
The plate of hot food had a lot of chicken; BBQ chicken, "Peking" Chicken, Teriyaki chicken, grilled chicken. Also some broccoli and cauliflower, garlic green beans and some sort of broccoli casserole.
The casserole was awful, as was the Peking chicken. The beans were cooked for a change (most buffets they are almost raw). So I got a load of protein. Back to try some other stuff.
[show_photo file='chowtime_buffet.jpg
The picture of my second plate was nowhere to be found; I must have failed to save it. Beef with Broccoli, Chicken with broccoli, some fried shrimp and sauted mushrooms. Everything was very bland and uninspiring. Some of the food was ice cold. The fried shrimp where 90% breading and the mushrooms has some sweet sauce on them. The chicken with broccoli served as protein and vegetables only.
Off to the sushi bar.
A very weak choice; just a lot of rolls with sticky sauces. I get that they have to cater to the lower common denominator of society by trying to pass off cream cheese rolls as sushi, but this was one of the weakest offerings I've encounters. No Tuna, no Escolar. They actually had talapia nigiri. Try to get me to eat that for free; I dare you.
The rolls were poorly constructed and didn't even hold up to chopsticks. The salmon was a bit mushy.
I'm on a little diet so no ice cream today. My server offered no refill nor did he take my garbage, which I neatly stacked for him to remove; but to no avail.
Total Bill: 10.58. $7.99 for the buffet and apparently $1.99 for the ice tea with no refill. $1 tip was generous for a buffet where they never took my garbage plates.
Conclusion
The old adage "What can you expect for $7.99" comes into play here; if you're going to have a sushi buffet you have to charge enough to be able to put out some sushi. It's not like for $8.99 the place would be dead; you're not really competing with McDonalds when you run an Asian Buffet.
The food is very mediocre and it's cheap. That's about all I can say. I hesitate to call this a good value.