My husband and I have been missing the gluttonous joy of Chinese buffets since China Town closed down last year. I know a couple new ones had opened up in the last year too, but Chinese buffets can be such a hit-or-miss, I was pretty cautious… Super Asian Buffet filled in the spot that Ichibar vacated so I drive by it enough, and decided to finally give it a shot. The sanitation scores aren’t so bad (only 96) so I probably was not going to end up with food poisoning, which is always a bonus!
First thing I noticed when I went in was they totally changed the decor from Ichibar. They got rid of the waterfall and the boat, and made it just a really big open space. The seating is pretty nice for a buffet, not just the typical patio furniture you might see at other places. We got seated right away and ordered drinks. They didn’t give us a drink menu, and when we asked, the waitress listed off just Coke products and sweet tea. I found out later they do also serve beer and wine.
Going up to the buffet was like a magical wonderland of food. I wanted to try everything, but it just wasn’t humanly possible. I started off with the soup, trying very tiny amounts of each. The fish ball soup was interesting but not to my taste. The eggdrop was pretty typical. The wonton soup was stuffed with what I thought was pork. The hot and sour was definitely the best, simply phenomenal.
Then I moved on to the appetizers. I tried an egg roll, spring roll, cheese wonton, beef spare rib, chicken teriyaki on a stick, and some sweet and sour chicken (because that goes with the sweet and sour sauce I was using for dipping anyway). Nothing was particular spectacular, but I did like the variety well enough.
Then I tried out some of the cold entrees, like the octopus salad and the crab salad. I didn’t quite have the guts to try the chicken feet. Again, not the best, but I had to try at least once.
The hot entrees just went on and on and on. There were all kinds of seafood, dim sum, sushi, hibachi, and lots of the Americanized Chinese dishes like General Tso’s, sesame chicken, honey chicken, etc. I loved the extra spiciness they put in some of the sauces, and I wish I would have had a bigger stomach to try it all. I didn’t get a chance to even try the hibachi or sushi because there was just so much there.
Lastly I finished off with a plate of various desserts. I tried a small strawberry cakey thing that was pretty good, some fantastic fresh fruit, sweet rice and a Napolean that was too much pastry and not enough puddingy stuff. They had a lot of other pastries, Chinese donuts, and real ice cream (from tubs, not from a soft serve machine!) but I was going to die if I ate another bite. I couldn’t even eat my fortune cookie.
They do offer some American food too, like pizza, garlic bread, and chicken nuggets. So if you’ve got picky kids, they just might like the place too.
If you’ve got a particular entree you want, and want it done 100% right, you may want to try one of the better Chinese restaurants in the area like 35, Super Wok, or Taipei 101. But if you want to gorge yourself on Americanized Chinese until you nearly burst, and then sleep the rest of the afternoon on a fat and sugar high, then Super Asian Buffet will certainly fulfill that need.
