Hunan Garden

Apologizing ahead of time. I’m trying not to throw up my food. This place was awful. The meat to veggie ratio was way off. When you get a scoop of food you’d expect there to be some what of equal amount of veggie and meat. Well not at this place. no meat all veggie. WAY over priced! Nothing is fresh. Only one Chinese buffet I have been to where it is consistently fresh food brought out (China king buffet!). The damn cookies were even nasty. Jeez!!!

Mongolian grill was the best! Adjust to your flavor to whatever you’ll like. I like the pop stickers and crab rang goons the best! They also offer senior discounts FYI.

I am sitting in the restaurant writing this review because I have to get my money’s worth somehow so it might as well come from their air conditioning and another soft drink.
It’s Friday night and one would think that they would roll out some quality for the Friday night crowd but one would be mistaken. The food was terrible with absolutely no flavor at all!
Now I realize this is indeed a buffet and that it has to be cooked in large quantities but this is ridiculous! Fresh batches of the items were being brought out as I was going through the line and so my excitement was growing and was first to get to the pork and cabbage. There were 5 paper thin slices no bigger than a blueberry mixed in with enough cooked cabbage to feed an army. It was worse than looking for a dollars worth of quarters in the bottom of your girlfriends 14 gallon purse.
They have no less than 7 different varieties of shrimp, a familiar sound of Bubba from Forrest Gump comes to mind. Sautéed shrimp, pineapple shrimp, shrimp soup… This seemed promising since I am a big fan of the little guys. Turns out, in all of those many styles of this delicacy, EVERY single one had gigantic black mud veins left in them. Such a turn off!
I am going to leave now and finish the Coke I’m drinking since it’s the only thing with flavor in this place.
Don’t say I didn’t warn you.

The reviews seem a little harsh. Not the highest end flavors you will encounter, but the food is ALWAYS fresh, and there are some real gems.
3.5 STARS — BUFFET some of the general dishes can be a little average, BUT The pot stickers, potatoes, sauteed mushrooms, ribs, and some other items really stand out.
5 STARS — MONGOLIAN Now, the Mongolian grill is actually one of the best I have found in the city! The flavors are great, and they will cook to taste. Ask for as much teriyaki, garlic, pineapple, and extra spicy you want. If it isn’t spicy enough for you then, then you should bring something nuclear
5 STARS — soft serve ice cream! Is there a Chinese restaurant ANYWHERE that doesn’t serve stale cookies? Skip trying to be fancy. Fill a cone, or BOWL, with this ice cream… A like chocolate syrup, and BAM you’ll think you’re eating homemade again!

Let’s begin by touching on the shame-​inducing feelings that are creeping up on you (or will be creeping up shortly) even as you read this.[1] Chinese buffets are interesting in that they can not only be a source of shame, but a great way to punish yourself for whatever you’re feeling shame about.
There’s a science to eating healthily (that’s a relative term) at a buffet. You may laugh, but research has shown that frequent buffet eaters have certain tendencies that separate them from individuals who are infrequent buffet eaters.[2] This meandering and lengthy preamble is to basically (eventually, finally, sort of, kind of, not really) get to the point that Hunan Garden’s food is so sub-​par that if you frequent it more than once in a two-​year period[3] it’s not because you’re actually hungry, but because you just need to shove as much tasteless foodstuffs as you can get into your gullet before you cry yourself to sleep. The customers give off more of a «live-​to-​eat» vibe here, as opposed to «eat-​to-​live.»
Everything (and I mean everything) tastes/​looks/​feels/​smells the same. Also, for whatever reason, everything (almost everything) in the buffet is described as being Spicy (even the sweet stuff) and containing No MSG. The fact that they feel the need to mention both of those things repeatedly is odd, since nothing is spicy (not even remotely), and if nothing is spicy, then I’m going to assume everything has MSG. Or maybe not, because MSG actually tastes kind of good. Eat the sushi if you’re feeling particularly bold, you giant risk-​taker, you (don’t do it, you’ll regret it). If I ever come back, it will be because I’ve done something terribly heinous, and on some level (maybe even unconsciously) I realize that I need to punish myself. Service was excellent, so one extra star for that.
Summary: «Meh» but I’m feeling nice.
[1]Note: You’re trolling Unilocal reviews about Chinese buffets. Trust me, there’s some shame there, you just don’t know it yet.
[2]Note: See Wansink, Brian and Collin R. Payne, (2008), «Eating Behavior and Obesity at Chinese Buffets,» Obesity, 16:8 (August), 1957 – 60. In so many words it says that you may be doing buffets incorrectly (or correctly depending on whom you ask) if you: (a) sit at a table instead of a booth, (b) don’t browse through the food before you start loading up, and © you use a fork instead of chopsticks.
[3]Note: This is entirely arbitrary. I’m joking, you can go as often as you want. I won’t judge.

To me, most Chinese buffets these days all taste the same. Not this one. It’s worse than all the others. I’ve been here in the past and remembering it being just as good as the others, (which is great by the way) but it seems as if they have fallen off.

Very average buffet. Food seems fresh but not memorable. Lots of better places for buffets.

Pretty standard chinese buffet. Their food seems to be hotter and fresher than every other place on nw expressway. I wish their dessert bar was a bit more exciting and had more options. They have crappy, packaged cookies that are always stale, packaged and boxed crap brownies and some ice cream.
But, service is usually pretty good and food is consistently decent and fresh.

Standard California based Chinese food. They make sushi (not by request) & use the woks to do the hunan grill. It’s better than quite a few places… hot turnover is quick.
2 points on cleanliness
2 points on flavor
2 points for soft fluffy rice
1 point for lo mein vegetables
2 points for always letting my husband empty the s&s pork!
Unfortunately though nothing is spicy, perhaps the mustard & wasabi peas. That’s why my heart lies in Thai food :)
Not bad pricing either, we never get off work with dinner decided so 8 $ and they close at 10pm ain’t to shabby!