Yao Buffet Sushi Grill

Food tastes great, better than most in Asheville. Great sushi selection. Downside… sends you to the restroom before leaving the restaurant. Tried several times and does it every time.

My brother wanted to eat here for his birthday. It was awful. If you’re gonna do an eastern style buffet, just go with Asiana.

I got very bad food poisoning, & have subsequently heard of about ½ a dozen others having the same experience @ Yao.

Definitely good place, one the best buffet I’ve been.
Food is very tasty and look awesome. Some items you won’t find in other places

Lots of variety, 6 tables of food I think plus a stir fry alcove. Great green seaweed salad. YUM. Plenty of food for kids and people who don’t like Chinese. I did not get one thing I did not like. It is usually crowded but not this time. The buffet is more in the weekend. Good parking options.

This buffet is great!
The place look welcoming and clean.
They have the usual buffet items, like salad bar, fried appetizers items, Chinese entrees… etc. To my surprise, this is the first buffet I’ve been to that have the rice paper spring rolls, they offer both vegetarian avocado ones and the ones with shrimp in it.
The sushi bar is pretty typical California roll-​like sushi rolls.
The fried rice and lo mein noodles are pretty good. They also have pad thai noodles and coconut soup too.
The food taste pretty good, they definitely keep up with the sitting time of the food because none of the food look or taste like they been sitting there forever !
Service is alright, they’re friendly and keep up with taking away plates and getting refills.
We will definitely be back !

Apparently the air conditioning is broken. no fried chicken after 30 minutes of asking and waiting. rice cold and clumped. egg drop soup with corn in it??? Save your time and money

Sunday lunch, very large selection of different type of meat alittle busy good parking spaces

It’s kind of a guilty pleasure for me, chinese buffets. Yaos is one of the best, as is Asiana on Hendersonville road… I love the freedom and limitless feeling I get when I enter this place. It’s addictive. Staff has always been pleasant, but food varies. I always leave here slightly to very dehydrated. But I keep coming back, so that sure says something? Try the custard buns BTW, love them!

It’s a very nice place. I love those beans and clam soup. Sushi is very good If you are lucky to get the sushi when it’s just made.

The sign says «Please wait to be seated.» The waiter gestured at us from 15 feet away, and so we followed, like little sheep. We lost him between the entrance and the 8 racks of all you can take food sections displayed out under warm lit heat lamps. The food is funny, so best to go with the hibachi grill, which has no noodles or rice, but does have raw vegetables (including slices of bamboo), shrimp, and meat. It takes 15 minutes to get, so in the mean time make sure you are eating what looks like is unlikely to have been messed with, so non slimy and less popular foods, like shumai (sticky rice wrapped shrimp or pork with a savory flavoring).
Good for groups of people who don’t want to spend tons of money on dinner. Less than $ 14/​adult person with tax. And I think the only reservation seating is the «imperial room». Yay for Americanized versions of Chinese food. It’s good for a casual evening where you have the time and hunger to reduce yourself to milling around bright displays that you can investigate with a pair of thongs.

I enjoyed the variety and service Totaly epic

A club to which I belong had a dinner meeting here. Yao’s facilities were fine, the staff I encountered were friendly and helpful, and the buffet selection is huge, and I mean huge — row after row of main dishes, side dishes, seafood, desserts, etc., plus a sushi bar. It’s mostly your standard Cantonese Chinese fare, with a few other Chinese dishes thrown in, plus a few Thai and other Asian items, along with the sushi bar and quite a bit of American seafood.
BUT, and it’s a big but, despite the huge selection nothing we found was worth ever having again. I didn’t hear anyone in our group say much about the food, except that it was plentiful and varied.
I guess if you want to stuff yourself on an all-​you-​can-​eat buffet at a moderate price, at a kind of the Ryan’s of Americanized Chinese and other Asian food, it would be okay, but it’s not my kind of meal.
At dinner, we paid $ 11.95 each for the buffet, plus tax and required 15% tip because we were a group of 15 or 20. With one Chinese beer each, tax and tip, for two our check came to about $ 36, and I added an extra tip, so we paid $ 40.
I wouldn’t go back.

If you’re from out of town: GO SOMEWHERE ELSE. ASHEVILLE IS FULL OF AMAZING WONDERFUL PLACES GO. FIND ONE. Please do not expect Yao to be a display of what our area has to offer.
Locals: If you’re tired and don’t want to drive too far from home, sure you can find something to eat here… if you want…
I used to go have soup and sushi once a week here for lunch but lately they have been skimping on spices in the soup and the sushi doesn’t seem as fresh as it used to.
Try Asiana in South Asheville (hwy 25) instead.

There is a massive soft spot in my heart for Chinese buffets. For as long as I can remember I’ve loved these temples of gluttony. You may turn up your nose at the thought of loading a plate with mountains of various steam table warmed dishes that all seem to taste the same, but for me, it’s a celebration.
Yao was once my go to spot. I looked forward to my birthdays knowing that I’d have an excuse to roll out and collect on my free lunch. There was one year where I couldn’t find a friend to accompany me, but I was not deterred. Free buffets or bust.
Upon a recent visit I was shocked to find that this place had descended from the ranks of «delicious mediocrity» to downright «holy hell what is happening here!?!»
It turns out it’s a slippery slope. There’s a fine line that separates «hell ya» from «hell na». It seems to me as though the strict preparation and presentation practices that I’m now convinced Yao used to abide by have been loosened, and things have gotten weird.
Items heated for far too long, well past their prime were surprisingly common. Items that should be white were brown, items that should have been brown were black. Rotating for freshness? Nope. Maybe the person whose job it is to make sure things didn’t look awful called out that day.
The sushi section has gone from being a colorful array of different repackaged california rolls to the equivalent of a sushi orphanage from a Roald Dahl book.
The silliest change I can note is the dumpling section. Yao has added a few new types of dumplings, but for some reason they have removed the standard dumpling steam baskets that were used for presentation before, and have now implemented some sort of warm hot water cabbage bath. If that sounds bizarre, it’s because it is. When you have dumplings swimming in water the skins become saturated with the water and slough off in a slimy film. Mmmmmmmmm.
Was I disappointed? Yes. Did I leave? No. There were still enough items in their absolutely vast acreage of steam tables that were decent enough to consume, but there was no joy in Yao that day.
My birthday is coming up, and I’ll be damned if I miss out on my free meal, but I truly hope that Yao brings its game back to its original level, if not for us, at least for themselves. I’ll revisit this review in due time.

I am rating this as a buffet and as a buffet I’d give it 5 stars. This is not the same rating I’d give it against a non buffet restaurant, but it is still good food at a good price and very enjoyable. We had a great time here. Very affordable at 11.50 $ per person for dinner. They have a really great variety of sushi, which is what I had. The sushi area is large and plentiful and they had delicious rolls and nigiri sushi. I also had raw oysters and peel and eat shrimp which were also delicious. My fiancé had sushi and many of the large variety hot foods. It’s a great buffet and the staff was fairly attentive and friendly. The only thing I’d say was, I was excited the had Miso soup because it is my favorite, but it was terribly bland and even with soy sauce added for flavor I only had two spoonfuls before I gave up. Other than that the food was great.

Everything here is really good. Lil overpriced on my op I noon compared to other oriental establishments!

My husband and I have loved Chinese buffets since college (when we were too poor to afford pricier meals) and this one is fantastic! So many options and all of it tasted fresh. Plus there are countless options for vegetarians. Will definitely be going back.

Great Chinese American buffet with a selection of typical fare along with sushi, dim sum, huge variety of deserts, good veggie options, hibachi grill. This is truly a huge HUGE buffet! Prices are very reasonable: $ 8 for lunch, about $ 11 for dinner. You get a free buffet on your birthday.
The place is also very tastefully designed with several private rooms for parties.

Honestly, best chinese buffet i’ve tried in the SC/​NC area. It’s as good as it gets here. My family and I love this place.
Service is great, everyone is super friendly. Any time we are in the area, we try to stop by. Pace is clean and food is always fresh. Restaurant’s décor is nice, kids love the waterfall.
There’s so much variety here. They have everything from tom yum soup, to sushi, to phở (beef noodle soup), to dessert, There are plenty of sauces to accompany whatever it is you’ve decided to eat.