Great Buffet II

It’s unfortunate that some restaurants have off hours. Such was the case on my visit to the buffet at 4:00pm on a Wednesday afternoon. The food was old, dry, and at times unpalatable. The best part of my meal was the soda, which was refilled complimentary. I sure hope 6:00 on a Friday isn’t as disappointing.

Hum I thought chef has been change the food was better than before. And more stuff coming out on weekend…

It used to be alright. They’ve gotten sloppy. Had raw oysters and made me sick for almost two weeks. Gave me a bad sinus infection possibly from the bacteria in the oysters. Had raw oysters before somewhere else no problem.
Price went up and food not as great tasting so won’t be going back.

Wow… What can I say other than I felt I would be food poisoned at any moment. Nothing was the correct temperature. The Egg Rolls were chewy in the wrong way. The sushi smelled strange. It was all just wrong. You won’t find me there again… Ever. Can you give no stars?

I was recently at a convention in Portsmouth, and our Saturday night dinner — for 150 — was catered by Great Buffet, a favorite of the lady who organized our meal plan. I’ve got to agree. Everything was well prepared, and quite flavorful — this is especially good since they proudly state they never use MSG. I particularly liked that we were given a large number of vegetarian offerings or meat offerings with a lot of vegetables included (hopefully you like broccoli). Their crab rangoon are unique in that they are quite large and somewhat flat. My favorite entrée was the sweet and sour chicken. Unfortunatey, I can’t comment on the potential spiciness of the food, since we had to err on the side of mild. If I lived locally, I would consider lunch or dinner here often.

Ooooh, the Unilocalers have gone to town on this one. So many negative reviews …
It’s a BUFFET! Of course some of the food has been sitting for a while on the hot tables, it’s a freaking buffet! What shall they do when you arrive? Throw out all of the old food to waste and fill the hot tables with all new food just for you? Come on. (end rant…)
I came, I saw, I tasted.
So … it’s a buffet. It wasn’t five star food but it wasn’t bad and there were some real winners. The ribs were falling apart, eat with a fork tender. Fatty but real nice. The sushi was not the best but I expected that. Sushi needs to made for the individual and never left out. But I’m not going to complain since I opted for a buffet.
The best part of a buffet is the ability to have a little bit of everything and this buffet did NOT disappoint. It was huge! They had five or size hot tables just filled with everything. Picky people will be easy to please. There is even food for kids (french fries and chicken nuggets!)
Great price, too. We had three people (one child) and the bill was just over $ 20.00 for so much food. McDonalds (gross) would have been more expensive.

Don’t eat here. For the love of your own health don’t eat here. My wife and I are on Unilocal often. And despite the warnings of others on Unilocal and a warning from our Pastor about the place, we decided to give it a shot. At a quick glance you would assume by the steam rising from the food that it was hot. You would assume that this was made within the last 3 hours. You would assume this food would be flavorful and hot out of the kitchen. Well my friend, your assumption is wrong. The steam rising is from the failing warmers that give off the illusion of keeping the food warm but don’t actually perform the function. The food was lukewarm… all of it. My General (Tso’s, Gao’s…pick a general) chicken was so cold the sauce was becoming gelatinous. The crab rangoon was lukewarm on the outside and cold on the inside. I didn’t dare touch the beef teriyaki which looked more like chicken then beef. The spring rolls and egg rolls seemed to be the safest thing to eat although they clearly were pre frozen. They also both seemed to contain the same ingredients on the inside. My wife said to me she had never seen such a constant look of concern on my face before. We both agreed that the best comparison to what their food tastes like is leftover Chinese food that you microwave and eat the following day. She had taken half a piece of tilapia to which I commanded her to not touch. But it was too late; she took a bite and actually swallowed it. I told her lets just go get ice cream and fill up on that instead. We asked for a check…$ 32!!! All we had was the slop they served at the buffet and some cokes?!! Are you freaking kidding me?!
EPILOGUE: The following day my wife awoke to the most terrible stomach pains she has ever experienced. Wasn’t able to move or eat anything. I just looked at her and said… I told you not to eat the tilapia.
MORAL OF THE STORY: Let this serve as a warning to newcomers to Unilocal.That the reviews on here are there for a reason. For the love of everything sacred and precious in your life… DONT EAT HERE!

I’ve traveled and been in 43 States and I couldn’t count the chinese buffets I’ve eaten and this is the WORST BUFFET IVE EVER HAD INCLUDING MY PREVIOUS LIFE if I had one!!! I don’t even think the meat is actually meat! If you like rubber food KNOCK YOURSELF OUT!!!

Best buffet in Portsmouth. The service was good and the food was fantastic.

The food was great as far as buffets go. Everything seemed fresh and was tasty. The servers don’t have much to do except clear plates and bring drinks, which can lead to slacking, but that didn’t happen here. Our waitress was always nearby, to clear plates and refill drinks. The price was also extremely reasonable. We will definitely come back and will send others here as well.

Oh my God, please don’t ever eat here. The only thing worse than the food (the meat was literally sour) is the horrible customer service!

I started coming here for the sushi portion of the buffett. The sushi part went downhill… slow to put out new product… the seaweed salad is hidden behind the counter, etc.
I come here now for the steamed clams, chicken on a stick, and the garlic string beans.
I really don’t even bother trying the sushi anymore.
They should simply stop offering sushi and go all in with the hibachi instead.

I have to say one of the worst chinese meals I have had in my life time. Every dish was bland the only favor seemed to be 5 spice. I have had chinese food from many different places eaten in Boston’s Chinatown and NYC. The resturant was nice inside huge for the type of place it is. I found that even the tea tasted bad seemed to be some type of green tea maybe that’s not the correct tea to serve with dinner there are so many great chinese teas available really? It seemed down hill from there. The first thing I see was wings thought seemed like they looked just ok not as crisp as expected then I look up at the handwritten label on the sneeze gard «buffalo wings» that was a no go. The boneless ribs no taste and way over cooked. The beef dishes lack flavor and super chewy to the point I had to spit it out. No chow mein and the worst peking raviolis ever that I have eaten. Most of the food was cold too. It was around 12:30 lunch time the place was almost totally empty I can see why.

I used to go here all the time when I was in Portsmouth. This used to be an amazing place, now the customer service is horrible and the food is even worse. People told me, I didn’t believe them but now — never again.

The food is disguising and the staff are rude. Even for a buffet style restaurant this is low quality. The food is old, slimy, and flavorless. The staff are easily frustrated and rude. There is no reason to visit this establishment.

I’ll never go back. This place makes me want to punch a new born in the throat. Everything is cold and seems to be made of some sort of rubber. Save your pesos. Go to McDonald’s.

The meanest people ever. They r very rude we can’t understand what they say. There are no labels on any dishes.

My husband and I made the mistake of going here, thinking it was a sushi buffet… I was thinking all you can eat fresh fish. We were sorely mistaken. Why we didn’t just leave when we walked in, I don’t know, but I guess a mixture of obligation and morbid curiosity led us to being seated. Fresh fish was definitely not a part of the buffet, not unless you consider the faux crab you can find at the supermarket, nor was fresh anything really included in our dinner options. The buffet consisted of mostly prepackaged, frozen, and over sauced blobs of food passing for lukewarm versions of Chinese dishes. There were also random selections of pizza, chicken fingers, pasta and other items, again, all resembling things one could find at Costco. Not good, not something we will try again, not something I would recommend paying for.

My family, mother, daughter and myself were up in the Portsmouth area and my daughter is always talking about a Chinese buffet that she goes to with her mother so we decided to give this one a shot as we were not sure where else to eat after a day of back to school shopping.
The parking lot was very large and there were not many cars, typically not a very good sign. When we walked into the restaurant it was massive in size. The bathrooms are off to the right and the men’s room was odd. For such a large spaced restaurant they only had one stall and two sinks which only one had a working soap dispenser. The handle to the bathroom was like a branch of a tree which didn’t make sense until I read a few other reviews and found out that it used to be a smokey bones. They obviously left the fixtures when they purchased the place.
As we walked in they were freshly rolling sushi and they had a chef standing behind what looked like a hibachi station but nobody was ordering from there so we were not sure if it was included in the pricing. We also had no clue what this meal was going to cost because they 1.) don’t have menus and 2.) they don’t post the prices anywhere that we saw.
We were taken to a table and the server came over very fast to take drink orders. They have the silverware wrapped in a cheap napkin like you would get from a McDonald’s dispenser. My mom’s and my daughters silverware was dirty and we had to ask for them to bring replacements.
We all went up for food and each went in different directions. When we returned to the table the theme was the same between the three of us. The food was not hot at all. I would not even call it warm. My daughter was fine with it as she stated, «I don’t like my food when it is too hot» but my mom and I were not looking for luke warm food.
We complained that the food was mostly cold and the server came back with broken English that the manager checked the temps and ALL the food was fine. When we asked to speak to the manager he said he would see if he could fine her. Not sure what that meant but he never did find her which really was inappropriate.
The sad thing is that the flavors are very good on most of the items that we tried.
Good Food:
Chicken with Broccoli
Chicken with Mushrooms
Shrimp Cocktail Sauce
Hot and Sour Soup
White Rice — Per my daughter!
Not so Good:
Dumplings — They were all dough
Mashed Potatoes — They were either instant or just sitting too long
Boneless Spare Ribs — They were very cold, grizzly and BBQ flavored
Pork — The meat was too pink for us to even risk trying
As we were leaving, without a visit from the manager we noticed all of the steam bays had steam pouring out of them so we were not sure how the food was so cold. The place was not that busy and the décor was all wrong for a Chinese restaurant as they keep the trim, benches from the prior restaurant.
I am not sure if I would give it another shot but it would not be a place that I would drive to for the sole purpose of eating. If I was in the area and the lot had more cars, hence more rapid turnover of food, MAYBE!

Great Buffet II is the best Chinese American buffet I’ve been to on the Seacoast. The place was formerly Smokey Bones BBQ, located across the road from the Fox Run Mall in Newington. The atmosphere inside has a spacious lodge atmosphere with high ceilings and log beams, remnants of its predecessor (I frequent the Smokey Bones in Tyngsboro, MA during the NFL season).
Great Buffet II offers over 200 items rotating daily including traditional Chinese dishes, sushi station, BBQ grill, American dishes, soups, dim sum, seafood, crab legs (dinner only), salads, fruit, desserts, soft serve ice cream, and more. The offerings are similar to their first location Great Buffet in Manchester (across from the Mall of NH), where I’ve dined several times with my buddy.
After I was finished working in the area, I stopped here for a late lunch and the place was quite busy. The selection of food here was pretty extensive. The buffet had lots of my favorites including crawfish, oysters on half shell, mussels, shrimp, pork buns, dumplings, spring rolls, crab rangoons, General Tso’s chicken, fresh green beans, veg lo mein, rice noodles, fried rice, stuffed bread, pizza, baked fish, mac & cheese, potato skins, egg custard tarts, mini cakes, and ice cream. I had some noodles cooked to order at the hibachi BBQ grill. The food was yummy and I really enjoyed those mini pork buns! The food at the buffet was stocked and fairly fresh since the place was busy.
The service was good with refills on ice water and clearing of dishes between buffet tours. There were plenty of staff at the front ready to seat customers. Stuffed!
(4.65 stars)
BUFFET PRICES (in ⁰⁹⁄₂₀₀₉):
LUNCH (until 3PM): Mon-​Fri: $ 7.99; Sat: $ 8.99; Kids (8 – 10): $ 5.99; (5 – 7): $ 3.99: (2 – 4): $ 1.99; (0 – 1): Free
DINNER: Mon-​Thurs, Sun/​Holidays (All Day): $ 11.99; Fri-​Sat: $ 13.99;
Kids (8 – 10): $ 7.99; (5 – 7): $ 5.99: (2 – 4): $ 3.99; (0 – 1): Free