Buffet City – Winter Haven

FOOD

Buffet City’s food begins with a substantial Chinese-American spread. General Tso’s-style chicken brings the familiar sauced, fried-chicken favorite, with pepper steak and mushrooms giving the hot line more than one kind of main attraction. Fried rice and lo mein belong comfortably beside them. These are the dishes that make a Chinese-buffet supper feel familiar before the seafood, sushi and grill enter the picture. Dinner generally brings a broader selection than lunch, and the dishes change. The overall appeal remains generous and down-to-earth: familiar Chinese food with plenty of company.

The hibachi grill adds a made-to-order element, and it’s included at lunch as well as dinner. Chicken, shrimp, vegetables and noodles appear among the ingredients, finished by a cook on the flat cooking surface. The station gives a midday meal some substance beyond a quick helping from the serving trays. Chicken with vegetables and noodles makes a coherent meal of its own, even within this much larger spread. For anyone whose lunch usually involves a sandwich at a desk, that is a rather appealing upgrade.

Seafood has a conspicuous place in the buffet’s variety. Salt-and-pepper shrimp sits within the Chinese selection; whole cooked crawfish and oysters on the half shell give this side of the meal a broader personality. Lemon accompanies the oysters, while the crawfish brings the leisurely, hands-on pleasure of shellfish to an otherwise straightforward buffet supper. It’s an interesting combination of familiar shrimp dishes and seafood that asks for a little more time. Dinner can comfortably become a seafood occasion here, without a separate seafood-restaurant outing.

The sushi display introduces another style of dining, with platters of seaweed-wrapped rolls, elaborately topped pieces and fish-topped rice. Their smaller scale fits naturally into a meal with so many substantial hot dishes. The separate counter also gives the Japanese side of this Chinese-American buffet a visible presence of its own. Sushi belongs to the restaurant’s breadth rather than carrying the whole identity; the Chinese dishes and made-to-order grill still give the meal its clearest character. There is room for both at the same table.

Roast beef gives the American selection a proper main course, with broccoli and green beans among the vegetables on the hot line. Soup and salad broaden the meal further. Macaroni and cheese and pizza bring a different sort of familiarity, particularly useful for a family supper with younger diners. And macaroni does have admirers well past childhood. This side of the buffet helps explain why the restaurant works across generations: a Chinese-food outing can still include a thoroughly American comfort-food dinner.

Dessert is a modest assortment of small cakes and ice cream. Chocolate and cream-topped pieces give the cake selection a little variety, and the portions leave room for more than one sweet finish. A small cake with ice cream has a perfectly sound argument in its favor. Happily, dessert needn’t require a complicated decision.