Got a coupon in the mail for this recently-opened restaurant.
I'm a vegetarian, and I know these Chinese-style buffets usually don't have a lot of veggie dishes, so I even went in to check it out the day before I was going to eat there.
They have a guy who does nothing but make sushi, and I love the deep-fried kind with the beautiful squiggles on top. He had made several of those, but they all had fish or other seafood in them, which I'm also allergic to. I asked him whether they could make that style but vegetarian, without crab or fish, and he said yes.
When I came back the next day, a different sushi guy was there. I asked him for the type of deep-fried sushi I wanted, pointing to the type, but explaining I wanted veggie only, such as with the avocado that was sitting there that he had used in other sushi. He obviously was having trouble understanding my English, but he said, "Sure. Come back in 5 minutes." When I came back, he had instead made a skimpy rice roll with some indistinguishable single thing in it. I tried to explain what I wanted, pointing to it, but he couldn't understand. So I went and got the manager, the only one in the entire restaurant who spoke decent English. She told him what I wanted, and he said he could do it. But then she told me they would have to charge me extra as if it were an ENTREE off the menu, in addition to the buffet charge! For a sushi with just vegetables, obviously less expensive than seafood! They have a guy standing there making sushi to order, and he couldn't make me that without her charging me extra???? The "manager" was very rude, saying that her boss-- who, of course, was not there to be consulted-- wouldn't let him make the sushi I wanted without charging me extra.
Nearly all the dishes they offer are either chicken or seafood or plain noodles. There was even only one beef dish. Even their "fried rice" was just white rice with some tiny frozen vegetables thrown in.
I didn't want a salad bar or a grill to order, and I'm not a green bean person (they're usually undercooked), so I had to be content with fried okra (cold and mushy) and broccoli I picked out from the broccoli beef dish. At an Asian food buffet. No tofu dishes. Not even any stir-fried vegetables without chicken or beef.
One other thing that really turned me off was when I got the bill. They gave me the discount from the coupon, but they didn't list the discounted price on the bill. Instead, they charged tax on the original, FULL price of the lunch, which is probably illegal. It wasn't the few cents difference; it was the principle of the thing. When I pointed it out to the cashier, who was the same "manager" who had wanted to charge me extra for the sushi, she again blamed her boss and said there was nothing she could do about it. She finally got out her own calculator and admitted I was right and, without apology, gave me back the difference.
Not a very good first impression. Needless to say, I won't be back. They were packed, and obviously cater to the non-vegetarian masses at the trough, but they nevertheless displayed a lack of professionalism and were totally unaccommodating. read more