FoodMayhem

Jessica’s mom told us about a new buffet in Astoria, where the food is good and the price is low, real low. It turns out the location is a few blocks from where I used to live, and I was excited to see that the area had major renovations, including a fancy, new strip mall. It’s in that new strip mall where LaGuardia Seafood Buffet LaGuardia Seafood Buffet resides. By the time we got there, it was almost 1pm and we were starving. The restaurant was about half full, which isn’t bad for that area, on a Tuesday. Most of the patrons were senior citizens and a handful of families. More importantly, there was food.

The question was it good food? The answer, was: eh, not really. Let’s have a look…

The sushi was bland at best. There was too much rice, with too little seasoning. And the plates were not well maintained. One or two pieces, with tempura, were passable, but not good. Jessica described the squid as “rubbery”.

The spare ribs were the worst I’ve eaten, tough and overly sweet. There were whole fried fish, but none of us tasted them.

There was a whole section of fried up what not. Some were quite tasty, particularly the Pan-Fried Pork Dumplings: they were super meaty. Also the Bacon-Wrapped Shrimp were delicious; the first time I’ve seen real shrimp (as opposed to that fake prawn stuff) at a buffet. However, all of the fried items were room temperature, not good for fried items.

The Octopus Salad was beautiful, but the seafood was chewy and grainy.

Jessica and I both (independently) thought the golden, gooey-glazed goodness above was going to be shrimp. She thought so because of the length of the items and I thought so because of the strips of red something. It turns out this was batter-fried chicken. The sauce was way too sweet, and the white meat chicken was a tad dry. It looked better than it tasted.

I was excite to see rice cakes on the buffet. They were golden-coloured and paired with crab. They tasted extremely buttery, but didn’t offer much else in terms of flavor. Oh yeah, and they were cold.

In terms of pure flavor, I think this was my favorite dish. Mussels, shrimp, and crab in a curry sauce. The sauce was rich and thick, the seafood was pretty tasty. However, it was cold. Seeing a pattern yet?

Kelly and I both loved the Japanese Eggplant. It was not oily at all and perfectly seasoned. The Seafood and Chive Bun was beautifully creased, but lacking seafood inside, and not enjoyable. The Mini-Jamaican Beef Patties were fun. The golden crust was great, while the filling was average.

Jessica and Kelly agreed that the best thing in the restaurant was there Sesame Balls with Red Bean Paste. I tasted one and agreed they were delicious. Interesting, since Kelly and I don’t normally eat these. The outside is cruncy from the sesame, then taut, almost like mochi, then chewy, then creamy. Really nice. Plus Jessica has a hard time finding the ones with red bean paste these days. Most places use lotus paste.

The dessert selection was pretty sad: two types of cake (we skipped these), some canned peaches, a few fruits, vanilla & chocolate pudding, and soft serve ice cream.

So to summarize the food: nothing was terrible, but it was all average at best. And painfully, it was ALL room temperature. Nothing was hot and many of the fried items were not crispy. They did use P.E.I. mussels, which are the best, and that’s nice to see.

However, the price… $7.60 per person (with tax) is unbeatable. A sandwich costs that much. We probably each ate that much in fruit alone! The price is temporary though, it’s a marketing discount to help introduce the new restaurant.

We wouldn’t recommend traveling for the deal, but if you happen to be in Astoria, at lunch time on a weekday (which is the only time the deal is available), give it a shot.

posted by Lon at 09:01 AM Filed under Asian, Restaurants. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. Both comments and pings are currently closed.