China River

FOOD

The Chinese buffet is the main meal at China River, with rice, noodles, chicken and beef dishes providing familiar starting points. Pepper steak, chicken with broccoli and lo mein are among the restaurant’s named offerings. The selection can vary, including the Latin additions and seafood, so these are examples of the meal rather than an everyday menu. The Chinese dishes remain central even when the less expected choices attract attention.

Pepper steak and chicken with broccoli describe two familiar Chinese-American sauteed entrees. Pepper steak commonly pairs sliced beef with peppers and onions; chicken with broccoli gives broccoli a leading role beside the meat. Both belong to the familiar meat-and-vegetable style of Chinese-American cooking, with the vegetables giving each dish a different identity. They are useful names to recognize among the restaurant’s Chinese offerings.

Lo mein brings noodles into that selection. The name generally refers to tossed noodles, distinct from a noodle soup, and it belongs naturally alongside the restaurant’s rice and hot dishes. Chicken preparations complete the Chinese core with familiar names like sweet and sour, General Tso’s or black pepper. This is the part of the buffet for someone whose original plan was a conventional Chinese-American meal, even if the pupusas prove difficult to pass by.

Pupusas are the surprise here. These Salvadoran corn cakes have appeared alongside a Mexican taco station. A pupusa traditionally encloses its filling within a thick corn dough before cooking, rather than using a tortilla folded around the filling. The filled dough is traditionally flattened into a round cake and cooked on a griddle. It is a distinct Salvadoran dish, with the filling part of the cake itself rather than added on top afterward.

The taco station gives those Salvadoran cakes a Mexican counterpart. Tacos are a broad family of dishes, with tortillas and fillings that vary considerably across Mexican cooking. Here, the buffet format puts them alongside pupusas and Chinese food in the same meal. The Latin selection deserves attention in its own right, with two recognizable dishes from different food traditions sharing the counters.

Seafood includes fried and breaded shrimp as well as baked fish. The seafood offering includes both shrimp and fish, with a baked preparation alongside the fried choices. Wings, fries and pizza often appear among the familiar extras. They support the broader selection, while the Chinese dishes and Latin additions remain the more distinctive reasons to explore the buffet.

For dessert, chocolate cake and coffee cake give the counter a bakery-style finish. Coffee cake has the comforting familiarity of something you might choose with an afternoon cup, while chocolate cake makes a more obvious case for dessert. Finding either after a meal of pupusas and Chinese food is part of this buffet’s unlikely charm. Chocolate cake offers the other clearly named choice. Together they make an appealingly familiar ending to a meal with a less predictable Salvadoran addition.