Mei Asian Buffet

FOOD

Seafood gives Mei’s buffet much of its premium menu items, alongside Chinese hot dishes, sushi, American fried foods, and a substantial dessert display. The selection changes, but the spread has included whole steamed fish, clams, peeled shrimp, shell-on shrimp, and crawfish. Those dishes give the seafood section a recognizable character beyond a general promise of variety.

Whole steamed fish is one of its more distinctive sights. Flounder has been among the buffet’s fish choices, and the whole-fish presentation gives this part of the hot spread a substantial dish of its own. It belongs comfortably beside the shellfish and vegetables, rather than disappearing into a collection made entirely of small fried pieces.

Clams appear in their open shells, while shrimp comes both peeled and still in the shell. Crawfish has also appeared in the lineup. There is a pleasing lack of commitment to serving all seafood in the same form. Shell-on shrimp and crawfish bring a little finger work to dinner; peeled shrimp is there for anyone whose seafood ambitions do not extend to an excavation. The day’s offerings decide the particulars.

The sushi display adds cut rolls with vegetable fillings and sauced finishes. They make a distinctly different sight from a whole fish or a tray of clams: compact pieces arranged together, with more than one filling or finish represented. It is a familiar temptation of a sushi counter, and Mei includes it within a buffet whose seafood also comes from the hot trays.

Roast beef, chicken wings, and breaded chicken sit within Mei’s Chinese, Japanese, and American range. Roast beef is a particularly clear expression of the American part of that range, appearing in the same buffet as steamed fish and sushi. Mei does not seem troubled by that company, and there is little reason for the appetite to be. Fried rolls and fries appear among the fried foods, too. The wings and other chicken pieces make the hot spread recognizably generous in the family-buffet tradition, while roast beef extends it beyond chicken and shellfish. Fries need very little introduction. They have an audience considerably larger than any one cuisine.

Green beans and stuffed mushroom caps join the hot spread, while lettuce, tomatoes, and cucumbers supply the salad vegetables. The filled mushrooms are another prepared dish among the trays, with the green beans offering a separate hot vegetable. The salad ingredients keep their familiar identities beside a buffet with rather more elaborate things happening in its seafood and sushi displays.

Dessert moves from layered cake squares and puddings to ice cream and fruit. Watermelon, grapes, orange wedges, and melon have been part of the fruit display, giving the sweets a substantial fruit selection alongside them. The small cake portions are particularly persuasive at this stage of a buffet meal. A square looks so modest. Several squares may develop a rather different argument. Mei’s dessert range leaves plenty of room for that last, slightly optimistic ambition.