Hibachi & Sushi Supreme Buffet

I was unaware we were reviewing this place. Hm. Ok. I thought we were just being fatties after we dropped our foster kittens off at their adoption event. From the outside this place looks like your typical strip mall Asian Buffet. On the inside, it was a wonderland of tasty delights. Yes, tasty delights.

This restaurant is huge. Several buffet stands full of food (everything from your expected sesame chicken to RIBS and mashed potatoes with gravy, oh yeah, and sushi). We were a little overwhelmed at first.

I asked Dave what our criteria would be for rating this place, and this is what we decided on.

• 
  
  Quality of food (like did the chicken wings have chicken hair on them)
• 
  
  Taste of food
• 
  
  Age of food
• 
  
  Americana buffet (do they have it just to have or does someone back there know how to make ribs)

In the end, everything was so delicious that our rating system was pretty much moot (by the way, someone back there DOES know how to make ribs and they are fall off the bone goooooood). The only thing that I tasted and did not like was the crabcake. Sesame chicken: good. Stuffed Scallops on a half shell: delicious. Lo Mein: soooo good and so on and so on.

It was all pretty fresh. Nothing had been sitting out for too long. It was all flavored wonderfully and was just great. The staff was friendly and quick. We had a great time. In fact, this will probably be a Drop Off The Foster Cats and Eat at the Buffet ritual.

5 noms

Dave's 2Cents:

As my wife had mentioned, this place looked like every other buffet around the country. A big sign promising greatness, in a strip mall with a at least a dry cleaner and possibly a nail salon.

Walking out of the pet store, I pointed the buffet out to Jenn. She looked at me in question as I said, "...but the sign says Supreme Buffet. We've never been to one of those before."

So she agreed and we went in.

This place is very nice inside. I am unsure if it used to be a steakhouse, but it had that feel. Lots of wood, lots of light. (I didn't see any burnt out bulbs either).

The 1st food item i saw was the seafood section. Crawfish, Clams on the shell, full sized crab... GOOD LORD SUPREME GOODNESS!

I then looked for the sushi. In the back was a 20+foot bar of about 15-18 different styles of sushi and shashimi. Next to the sushi bar was the hibachi grill. Definitely a lot smaller than Columbia's Mongolian buffet, they still had a lot of the basics there. I would also like to note that the raw meat was beautiful. The Beef was steak, still in steak shape, as were the chicken breasts. The scallops were huge as well. I enjoy seeing what my food looks like before chopped up into little bits.

Walking to the salad bar i noted on the back wall jugs of soup. On further inspection, it was a soup buffet! NOM!

For the non Asian loving eaters in the family, there is also an American buffet. Beef roast, pork ribs, mac'n'cheese, mash taters, etc...

Someone in the back knows how to do ribs. They were fall off the bone, luscious.

I defiantly give this place 5 noms. If I had to say something negative about 1 thing, it would be the seating. It looks like someone came in and slashed almost all the booth bench seat. Weird.

Talara

Another Groupon, another review. Today we visited Talara, a little tapas/bar place right by Little Italy. We opted to go during a non-busy time of day (read: when we woke up from our nap at 3 p.m. 45 minutes before we had to pick up the foster kittens from their surgery) in hopes of quick service.

I walk by this place pretty frequently as it is near to both work and home, and I have never seen it busy. I noticed that this particular groupon had a little over 1,200 purchases so I do hope that changes. However, before we get to the reviewing of the food part, I do have to say one thing: their website is goddamn annoying. Dear Talara, go easy on the flash, mmkay? You kinda froze up my computation machine and I don't even run into that problem toggling between facebook and hulu Wednesday nights when I'm desperately trying to catch up with Amy and the gang on Secret Life of the American Teenager (we all have demons, go with me on this one). So, in conclusion, your website is confusing, too flashy, and it needs to be stopped. The end.

Now, the food/restaurant experience itself.

It took us a few minutes to decide on what to order, despite it being their lunch menu and pretty concise. Finally we settled on the Pork Empanadas for an appetizer, and Dave got the Bento box lunch which came with a salad, Asian salmon tar-tare, tempura shrimp over grilled pineapple, and two small slices of tres leches cake, I went with the green chile burger which came with queso blanco, bacon, green chile salsa and bbq sauce and a side of fries.

It took almost 15 minutes for our app to hit our table and before we were even done eating it our entrees were there, so I think there's a bit of a timing problem in the kitchen (which happened to be located about a foot to our left). The empanadas were pretty good. The pork wasn't dry at all, the pastry outside was crispy and then soft. It came drizzled with a sauce that tasted like a spicy mayo.

As for my burger, it was in interesting combo of flavors, definitely had that "southwestern" flavor going for it. It was cooked properly, and the fries were delicious. I must warn you this burger has a tiny kick to it, so I was unable to eat much thanks to my stomach. What I did eat was pretty good.

I tried Dave's salad and his shrimp, avoiding his salmon tartare at all costs, then giving his cake a try (I hate cake as a general rule. If you put cake in front of me and I have more than one or two bites, it's damn good cake). His salad was very crisp, the shrimp had a good flavor and I really liked the grilled pineapple. The cake was "eh". It wasn't dry and it was drizzled with a coconutty creamy sauce (which I liked) but it's cake.

The restaurant itself is really lovely. It's covered in all these latin-looking paintings, and the decor is funky and cool. I really like that they do the cooking basically right in front of you (sometimes I wonder what really does go on in kitchens, then I remember that I'd rather not know) but here they're right there and you can watch them make your food.

As far as the service goes, when we walked in we had to wait for someone to come up to the stand to seat us, watching the cooks shout and gesture to someone in the background. Our waitress was really really nice but I think that because it was so slow, it was easy to forget about us. She brought our food as soon as it was ready and our glasses didn't go empty but it did take her awhile to settle the bill. The last time I was in there I waited about 15 minutes to have my glass refilled then by the time she refilled it, we had to go back to work. So the service was better than it was that time.

I do think this place is more suited for a happy hour or business lunch place. I didn't get to try any of their alcohol drinks but I have heard good things. The food is pretty tasty but I just don't see this as a go-out-to-dinner kind of place. This is more of a meet-your-group-there-for-cocktails place. Its relatively inexpensive (at least their lunch menu is, I'm not sure about their dinner menu) and you do get enough food for what you pay for.

Overall, I give it 3 noms.


Dave's 2 Cents:
I really don't have anything to good or bad to say about this place. Nothing was bad, but for the location, something should have had stuck out as great.