Today it was scorchingly hot and it was my pick for Saturday lunch. Someone from church had recommended the Hokkaido Buffet on Lindbergh and Baptist Church Road, so I decided that was the place to dine on such a miserably hot day. They are located in a large strip shopping center on the southwest corner of the intersection, only a few hundred feet from the Outback restaurant. Afterwards we probably would have preferred to have selected Outback!
The dining area is pretty enormous and the serving line forms a large "C" around the periphery of the diners. They definitely had a wide variety of different items with the Chinese dishes on the left side, the more "Western" dishes in the back, the sushi in the back right, and desserts and soups (and white rice?) on the right. We all sampled a number of the different dishes and brought them back to our table to try our selections.
Right away we knew something was not quite right, as many "standards" like Mongolian Beef and Lo Mein did not taste like they did at typical Chinese restaurants. They were also room temperature and not very hot which made them rather unappetizing. Some items like the gyoza, spring rolls and crab ragoons were somewhat more "typical" but still could not be called fresh or tasty. At best they were just okay. I selected a number of sushi rolls, and even they seemed a bit off, with the best ones being the simple, plain ones. Any sushi they tried to make fancy or special just did not taste fresh or special at all. I tried a couple that had raw fish in them and they were pretty bad too, and the fish did not taste soft and fresh. Yuck!
Reminiscent of our visit to the old Dynasty buffet in Richmond Heights, the highlight of the meal was the dessert, good old dependable soft serve ice cream. When the soft serve machine is serving the highest quality food in your restaurant, you know you have a problem. Perhaps the restaurant should not put all their efforts into plastering their name and smiling fish logo on everything in the building (and their plates and bowls) and spend more effort improving their food quality, or they may have the same fate as the Dynasty.
Amazingly by 12:30 pm there was a reasonable sized crowd there and more people coming in to eat. At only $8.95 per adult it is a good bargain if all you want is an unlimited quantity of bland to not so good nonauthentic "Asian" food. The dining area was reasonably clean and they could definitely accomodate a large group easily, which makes them on par with someplace like Cici's Pizza ("quantity over quality" could be their motto.) The service was actually reasonable too, with various people coming by to refill drinks and take away empty (or not so empty) plates.
I left with a full belly, but will have to say most of what I ate was not very satisfying. Hokkaido has a great premise with a lot of variety, but the food was just not that good. The day of the Chinese "All You Can Eat" buffet may be coming to an end unless you can find a niche like Joy Luck in Brentwood (attract discriminating Asian diners with a "secret" Sichuan and hot pot menu, and serve bland buffet food to unknowing fools.) I will have to say that Joy Luck's mediocre buffet is better quality han Hokkaido's even if it is quite a bit smaller. Their sushi is definitely better and they do not even try to serve raw fish at all, which Hokkaido should stop trying to do. Our first visit to Hokkaido will probably be our last one as well. Next time we are in the neighborhood we will probably be eating at the Outback.
Food Quality
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