Ling’s Buffet

Yesterday was truly one of the worst experiences. The wait was to be expected, but we had hoped for fresh food with the volume of people. The soup and steamed tofu was empty. I saw one of the busboys knock the utensil from the sushi bar to floor, pick it up return it to the sushi board. I removed the utensil and handed it to the sushi prep cook at the sushi bar. The avocado in the sushi was brown. DO not get in the way of the servers, one almost knocked both me and my husband over. The staff restocking the food did not wear gloves causing a lot of cross contamination. Hopefully no one gets sick.

This is my all time favorite Chinese buffet place. I go on Sundays because they have the dinner setup all day. I usually do the sushi which for a buffet place excellent, compared the a real sushi place it’s middle of the road. One item on the buffet that is at the top of the list is the jalapeño shrimp. You can keep all the crab legs, just do not take all of my jalapeño shrimp!!!

I ate dinner here last Wednesday and the crab legs were disgusting… pure mush. Couldn’t get any meat out of the shell cleanly. Not sure what the cook changed up but they were disgusting.

One of the better buffets I have been to. They have plenty of food to choose from and it was all good in terms of quality, although personal preference I did not enjoy everything, but that is the joy of a buffet! I had my first sushi and oyster experience there, as well. The staff were friendly and one lady even offered to take a group photo of all of us in the foyer. I’d definitely love to go back.

Whats all the fuss about? All Chinese Buffet‘s are designed for an All You Can Eat food eating orgy with endless steam tables providing a vast assortment of Chinese/​American junk. You eat yourself into submission and leave, got it? No self respecting Gourmet would ever dine at (any) Chinese Buffet looking for a (Gastro Experience). That said, I defy anyone to name a better, larger or cheaper Chinese Lunch Buffet anywhere else within the State of Florida!

After reading several reviews on Unilocal,I wondered if we were writing about the same place. This is a buffet. .. a buffet! Food is not delivered hot to your table. It requires that I take only a small amount of food at a time so that it does not get cold as I eat. I avoid going to buffets, but Ling’s is the exception. My initial visit sold me. The cleanliness was the first thing that jumped out at me. I have been back to this Ling’s many times and always found it to be nothing but outstanding. Is it perfect? No, but what place is?
Entering the restaurant, you pass a small pond of fish as you approach the receptionist. I have a preferred seating area and have always been granted that specific area. As the receptionist seats you, expect her to asked for your drink choice and then instruct you to go to the food banks. There is an exceptionally wide selection of food that will surely fit almost everyone’s taste. When you return to your table, your drink will be waiting for you. Return to the food banks as many times as you want. What more is there to an all-​you-​can-​eat buffet? If for some reason the visitor does have a bad experience, and I’m certain that happens from time to time, then that client will not return. But, for as many times as I have eaten here, I have never had anything but a wonderful experience.
Dinners are more expensive that lunches but offer even larger selections.

This is a good busy buffet with a wide variety of choices. I am able to find more than one dish for my vegan diet and my daughter and husband seem to find a lot of food to eat too. Only downside is that the hibachi isn’t always open. When it is open its really good. Nice choice of standard Chinese-​American sauces to adorn your plate. Overall, generally good service and good food (for a buffet).

Excellent buffet. Very good sushi. I visit at least once a week.

It’s not fancy, but in terms of buffets, this place can’t be beat. My son Paul said it best: «Great food, great service, great decorations, and much more! This place is awesome.» He wanted to give it five stars.

I was the first of many customers to arrive for lunch. The food was very tasty and service was good. Surprisingly several of the hot buffet items were at best only warm. The French fries, fried rice and soup broth were cold.

My first and last time. my friend took me for dinner. Food was cold, rude staff, lots of screaming children and was way overpriced. Definitely not worth it.

Vast assortment of filth and funk (not the good Gap Band kind) disguised as food.
Cold
Flavorless
Over priced
Poor quality
Foul odor
If you’re about quantity and quality be damned, this place is for you.
Award winning? How?

Underseasoned and lukewarm food. Saturday night seating at roughly 6pm. Full or almost full restaurant. One would think there would be a good turnover of items, brought HOT to the serving trays. Not so.
Sushi rice was falling apart, Hot and Sour soup was neither. But, for under 20 bucks, it’s decent enough. Unless you want good tasting food.

Everything was great until a cockaroach came walking across the top booth we were sitting at.

Terrible experience… I’m a vegetarian and I was meeting up with a group of friends at Lings so I decided to bring a small portion of my own food to eat, but they insisted that I stop eating unless I pay for a buffet that I didn’t want. The worst part is I’ve done this before and they didn’t have a problem with it, until today. Never going back nor will I recommend this place to anyone. Rude and terrible customer service!

Just a typical Chinese buffet. I had not been in a while and went again last night. The staff is not really very friendly — almost rude several times since I think they thought we stayed too long — they obviously were not at all happy to be there. The food is average at best — typical mass produced buffet food with limp vegetables, tough, low-​quality meat and bland sauces. Of course the usual assortment of fried eggrolls, (obviously cheap frozen brand), wontons and fried biscuit dough doused in sugar. Some like the crab legs, I am not a fan so I guess if that’s your thing you might like that part. If you want GOOD Chinese food, try Peking House in Lakeland — they have menu service with no buffet and each dish has real taste, good eggrolls and egg drop soup and you won’t be tempted to overeat like a buffet — plus the people are friendly.

My wife and I moved to lakeland not so long ago and had family come in for the week and decided we would go get Chinese food, went to lings and saw it was a wait and figured it must be good ! I agree the food was decent but the dragon lady running this place was missing her whip and chains !! Very unfriendly and charged full price because my niece didn’t look 10, and changed the kids age to 9 years after we showed a student id that she was in fact 10 years old ! We didn’t eat the crab legs because we thought they were extra and ended up getting charged any way ! So if your looking for good Chinese food with attitude then I suggest giving them the same respect !

We came in on a Sunday and the buffet is $ 15.99 all day. Everything was clean and fresh. They were constantly refilling the food stations. I was surprised by their sushi selection, a lot more than I expected. I didn’t care for the seaweed salad, but the edamame was a nice extra. They had crab legs (not sure if this was a Sunday special or not) but they were good. My sister tried a few of the «traditional» Chinese selections and said everything was pretty good. The sugar donuts were nice and hot and yummy!
I don’t frequent buffets much, but I’m glad we stopped in this one.

Meh.
Keep thinking we are going to find a decent Chinese buffet that will offer hot selections with some variety, but this is not it either. I just can’t enjoy a meal when I feel like not a single thing is at the temperature it should be! The highlights were the fried donut things (as they actually put out some hot ones) and the fortune cookie… Mei Fun wasn’t too bad either. Crab legs were a joke, not sure what everyone was going crazy for?! Sushi might be decent if buffet sushi is your thing… I think we have sworn off Asian buffets from here on out!

Three places named Ling’s come up on Unilocal search. Two at same address but we could not find the address and the phone has message saying not connected. Tried to find the Florida Ave. location but directions left me in the 100 block of Florida Ave. Called the place and was told to go about 3 more miles south. Glad we did. Good food selection. We went back for refills several times. Our server didn’t talk much and as we figured out out bill with tip he suddenly got attentive. That’s really the only negative. With tip and beverage it was only about $ 13 for a good lunch.