The Tampa Buffet

Ate lunch here today but it will be the last time. Found a piece of what appeared to be wire brush in my food and told the waitress about it and told her which food item it was in. She took the piece with her and proceeded to do nothing about it. I was not offered anything nor did they remove the food item from the buffet. That is not the correct way to handle a foreign object in a food item especially a buffet. Pull the item, have the manager or owner speak with your guest offer something had I swallowed that I could have been in some serious trouble. Get a clue Tampa Buffet.

Best chinese buffet in Tampa… Can’t come here expecting Bern’s…For what it is, its good. Good General Tso’s, best crab rangoon! Been coming since it was called China Garden! Years!

I do not like giving poor reviews for businesses as I believe good reviews forgive and support well-​intentioned business owners, but I cannot do so for Tampa Buffet. Except for sushi that had JUST been made at our request, the quality, taste, texture and temperature of the majority of the food was so bad that we will not return here. It looked like garish food coloring was added to some dishes, others were rubbery or dried out, others were greasy and not even warm, and there were very few shrimp dishes (my husband’s usual favorite). Time to find a new buffet destination.

I’m surprised this Buffet isn’t rated higher! But honestly though, a buffet is a buffet. I like this one because they do have a wide selection of different Chinese food items we all grew up loving! Here’s a few of the items I know they have after many many dinner breaks here ;-)
Lo Mein
Fried rice
Steamed white rice
General Tso’s chicken
Honey Chicken
Hot pepper chicken
Bourbon chicken
Baked salmon
Baked crab
Swai filets
Steamed wonton
Chicken and mushrooms
Beef and broccoli
Green beans
Pan fried dumplings
Sweet and sour pork
Egg rolls
Spring rolls
Egg drop soup
Hot and sour soup
Crab Rangoon
Mac and cheese
Chicken wings
French fries
Pizza
And SO MUCH MORE!
PLUS!
A Mongolian grill and sushi bar!
The Mongolian grill comes with the «build your own» plate cart. You can choose from raw assortments of chicken and beef. They also have broccoli, fresh mushrooms, and other toppings for your dish. The grill guy is usually in the back of the house, so just ring the bell and they will come to help you!
The sushi is pretty good and some of the rolls are very large! I can usually eat about 2 – 3 of these before I get the dreaded «not yet I can’t be full yet» feeling. Must keep going…
Then there’s dessert! A freezer full of 6 tubs of ice cream; with flavors like chocolate, vanilla, and mint chocolate chip! Great palate cleanser! There’s also a few small sweet treats and mini cakes to really fill you up!
This place is very nice on The inside too! Very spacious with many tables and booths! A beautiful mini bar and even a waterfall wall!!! This thing is cool when you see it! Awesome craftsmanship! The owners put in a lot of time renovating and making the restaurant feel very clean and to have that «like new» feeling. This place gets a fair amount of customers but I almost always get a booth when I come in, so it’s still a hidden gem ;-)
The employees here are always keeping up with the stocking of the buffet! It’s very rare to find anything low or empty.
Overall, a very good buffet!!! Better than a lot of others I have tried in my lifetime, it’s definitely one of the best so far since moving to Tampa!

Probably one of the worst Asian buffets I’ve ever been to! The place smells like old fish as soon as you walk in. I should have left right away. But I thought I would still give them the benefit of the doubt. Well it was all down hill from there. Most of the food looked like it was sitting all day and it is now dinner time on a Sunday. The lo mein was the only Item I saw them refill and that had no flavor except maybe a dirty water taste. Ugh … the wontons tasted like rubber because they keep it in a steam pan instead of in the broth like everyone else in the world. The macaroni and cheese tasted like the one you get in the box with the powder and that is giving it too much credit. Even the soda was flat!!! I usually don’t rate places this extensive and negative but I read some reviews before I came in and was hoping to come on a good night because I saw a few good reviews but no dice and never again. I feel like I’m going to be sick. What a waste of time and money.

My husband and I are new to the area and love Chinese food. The reviews weren’t great but we decided to stop in and what a great surprise!!! Lots of options, beautiful, clean restaurant and great price for lunch. The service for a buffet was great attentive and quick. I highly recommend and I’m so glad that I didn’t pay attention to the bad reviews.

This place is just sad.
With buffet choices like «dill pickles» or sauerkraut, I won’t be coming back.
The restaurant was poorly lit, the food was cold, old or fried beyond recognition. They promise seafood but that’s fish fingers or pickled salmon. The sushi was fake crab on rice balls.
Also, the music playing is stuff like happy birthday, she’ll be coming round the mountain and Jimmy cracked corn

They lunch buffet is from 11am — 4pm
I arrived around 3:45pm on my 2^nd plate I got 3 shrimp, sat down to eat and the waitress points her finger almost in my food asking if I was paying for dinner instead of lunch because I
got shrimp. I said no, why r u asking and trying to touch my food. She said the shrimp is for dinner. I said I didn’t know that, then they sayq that there signs all around saying the shrimp is for dinner and wanted me to pay extra. I saw no signs. They made me feel very uncomfortable over a few shrimp. Can’t help but think that it was racial.

One of the worst Chinese buffets! No variety at all! The food is not that good. I was trying to get a little bit off everything to find at least one thing that I would like, but could not find even one thing! Definitely won’t go back.

This buffet used to have delicious food, but I think there’s a change of cook. And so now the food are disgusting.

Unfortunately you have to give one star but even that was too much! The staff was not interested in their customers but I wouldn’t have cared about that if the food was ok. But it wasn’t at all!’
Dry meat or you got a combination of old, dry and soggy — so a 3 in 1 deal!
The salad was old and brown and they didn’t replace anything. And when you thought you could never go wrong with desert — they prove you wrong! they offer you 8 different ice cream flavors — which they probably have had since 1983.
It was overall a horrible experience especially when you wake up with stomach pains the next morning!
No recommendation whatsoever!

I’ve been to this place tons of times. In fact this place is my kids favorite place. The staff is really attentive and pleasant. You can’t beat the price. I just paid $ 43 for 5 people.

Lunch was dece but that dinner tho… luckily they came with the check quick. Sushi, sure. Crawfish, whaaat??? No good. Lunch is about $ 4 cheaper and 4x better. Still prefer the value menu at taco bell tho

Stopped in for lunch. Not a bad deal for $ 6.99. Taking into consideration that it is a buffet, and that they are not using top quality ingredients as you would find in buffets that charge so much more.
They had a good selection to choose from and a few options available that were not fried items. The sushi bar had limited items, a few to many items with cream cheese for my liking .but over all ok.
The servers were attentive and always cleared dirty plates quickly. I found the over all resturant to be clean and the buffet area was well kept.

It’s place like this that make we wish Unilocal would allow a zero star rating. I’m an adventurous foodie and it’s odd for me not to clean my plate but this food was disgusting. I could barely choke down the one bite I had and immediately felt sick to my stomach. Gross is the most polite word I can use to describe my Mongolian beef.

Dinner buffet was $ 10.99. Lots of choices, but not all appetizing, I won’t be back. As it was just ok.

You get what you pay for… 6.99 lunch buffet is still a good bargain. The trick is really to be selective on what you eat. You have to come in with a business mindset and know the margins. Sushi or fresh seafood. Prob expensive… Imagine what 6.99 gets you. Chicken… Inexpensive … Prob okay to eat
The sushi was really not fresh. It was really bad. It either had no real fish and a lot of cream cheese or was like not fresh at all.
The other dishes were from okay to average at best.
Th American Chinese food is pretty good.
The restaurant is very clean. The booths are not secured and shaky
The service people are very nice.
Not the best buffet I been to but 6.99 in 2015 is a bargain. You can’t even buy a Big Mac value meal with that.

Food is Good and fair for the price $ 6.99 for lunch buffet. The waiter was nice and the hottest pepper chicken is my favorite

The food was disgusting. The staff doesn’t have well manors. I got the general so and the «chicken» was old dry and a disappointment. The crab ragcoons did not have any crap in it, imitation crab is dry stale gross. Sushi was not good either

The widest selection I’ve seen at any buffet, but the food isn’t anything memorable. It seems they focus on quantity rather than quality. If you’re a fan of buffets, you may enjoy it, but it wasn’t my kind of restaurant. See more at my food blog: