Ling’s Buffet

FOOD

Ling’s Chinese buffet has a substantial sushi selection and a made-to-order hibachi grill, with American favorites and dessert in the same all-you-can-eat spread. The selection rotates through familiar Chinese dishes and some particular hot-food favorites. Bourbon chicken, pineapple chicken, pepper steak, and butter shrimp are among the names that give this Lakeland buffet its individual character.

Bourbon chicken and teriyaki chicken are part of the sauced hot-food spread, with pineapple chicken bringing fruit into the lineup. Chicken has several familiar names on this buffet, and the pineapple dish gives the trio a particularly cheerful addition. It is a little reminder that fruit at an Asian buffet doesn’t have to wait until the dessert display.

Pepper steak adds beef to that hot selection, with fried rice and lo mein among the familiar Chinese dishes. It is entirely possible for the noodles to attract more attention than the dish they were supposed to accompany. They have a persuasive way of becoming the reason for another plate.

Shrimp appears in both fried and butter versions on the hot buffet. ‘Butter shrimp’ is an excellent pair of words to encounter at lunch. It sounds very content with itself. Fried shrimp is there, too, giving the seafood spread another hot dish alongside the chicken and beef. With sushi elsewhere in the buffet, Ling’s seafood interest extends across more than one counter.

Sushi fills a separate display with cut rolls and fish over rice. The simpler fish-and-rice pieces sit with more elaborate rolls, giving this counter its own visual character beside the trays of hot food. It is a substantial part of Ling’s Chinese and Japanese buffet, with enough presence to make sushi a serious interest in the meal.

The hibachi grill prepares a plate to order from ingredients the guest chooses. That cooking happens during the meal, alongside the ready dishes on the buffet. It adds a direct exchange with the kitchen to a restaurant whose food is otherwise largely on display, and remains one of Ling’s particular attractions alongside its sushi selection.

Dim sum and fried chicken extend the cooked spread, and pizza represents one of its American favorites. This is Chinese, Japanese, and American buffet territory, with no particular embarrassment about the company those foods keep. Pizza and french fries at an Asian buffet is a well-established indulgence; it scarcely needs a defense. The combination is part of Ling’s family-buffet character, rather than an elaborate claim to one narrowly defined cuisine.

Soft serve ice cream joins the other sweets at the end. A modest swirl is possible. So is a rather confident one. After bourbon chicken, shrimp, sushi, and a visit to the grill, that final bit of discretion belongs to the person holding the bowl. Soft serve after sushi and hibachi is one of the small, affectionate pleasures of an Asian family buffet. There is no great ceremony to it, just a familiar sweet at the end of a meal whose earlier ambitions may have been considerably larger.