Ocean Buffet

FOOD

Ocean’s all-you-can-eat spread gathers seafood, sushi, dim sum, Chinese and Thai dishes, and a hibachi grill into one meal. Dinner carries the more expansive seafood selection, including crab, shrimp, and crawfish. Those shellfish give the buffet much of its seafood identity, with the sushi counter extending the interest into another part of the spread. A somewhat more rare find is Ocean’s dedicated dim sum section, with over a dozen steamed baskets carrying a diverse selection of dim sum.

There is also something endearingly direct about a supper that includes both neatly portioned sushi and seafood that asks for your fingers. Crab and crawfish belong to that hands-on side of dinner, with shrimp also among the shellfish. The selection changes, but these have been part of Ocean’s dinner offering. Crab supplies the familiar work of a shellfish supper, while crawfish adds another whole shellfish to the selection. There is quite a different sort of attention involved here from lifting a piece of nigiri: a little time with the food itself.

The sushi selection includes salmon nigiri and spicy tuna rolls, with sashimi alongside the rolls and fish over rice. Salmon nigiri keeps the fish-and-rice presentation familiar, while the spicy tuna rolls bring another named sushi dish into the spread. Sashimi adds sliced fish without the rice. There is a certain extravagance in having that available within an unlimited meal, especially one whose hot seafood and grill are still attracting attention.

Coconut shrimp and orange chicken appear among the hot dishes. Pineapple turns up in the rice, too. Between coconut shrimp and pineapple rice, the buffet has a cheerful willingness to let tropical ingredients into dinner before dessert has even been considered. Orange chicken belongs to the familiar Chinese-American side of the spread, alongside the broader Chinese and Thai offering.

Soups and vegetables fill out the hot food, with dim sum adding smaller cooked dishes. Those foods give the buffet more of an Asian restaurant identity than its seafood name alone might suggest. The spread reaches from shellfish and raw fish to rice, vegetables, soup, and dim sum, with coconut shrimp and orange chicken supplying some of its particular hot-food callouts.

The hibachi station cooks a plate to order from the components a guest chooses. It brings food prepared by the cook during the meal into the same dinner as the buffet’s ready dishes. That connection with the cooking is a distinctive part of Ocean’s offering, and one more reason the meal can hold the attention beyond the sushi counter.

Fruit, ice cream, and other desserts close the selection. Fruit gives the final display another familiar form beside the prepared sweets, while ice cream remains a perfectly reasonable ambition after a seafood dinner. The difficulty is remembering that ambition while crab, sushi, and the hibachi grill are still available. Ocean has enough happening earlier in the meal to make dessert a small act of optimism.