East Buffet Proves Big Money Items Are the Way to Go

Date April 29, 2008

NYC Food Guy’s not a buffet man, never has been, never will, unless Peter Luger’s decides to go middle America on us. If I am going to hit the buffet though, you better believe I’m going to East Buffet in Huntington Station, Long Island, where $35 (after tax and a 12% service charge) allows you to eat your weight in sushi, shrimp cocktail, steamed crab legs, and Peking duck.

But that’s just the beginning. With three massive buffet stations, a sushi bar, a wall of Korean BBQ, a raw seafood bar, and a wall of desserts, it can be overwhelming figuring out a plan of action. Enter King of Ketchup who’s eaten at East at least 15 times and has the buffet strategy down to a science.

King of Ketchup’s strategy, like Zach’s at Midtown Lunch, is all about beating the all you can eat. A lot of it is a result of trying everything East Buffet has to offer and deciding what’s best but…

Four simple concepts are essential for success at every Asian buffet.

  1. Don’t eat the salad
  2. Don’t order a drink
  3. Don’t eat the American Food
  4. Don’t eat the bread

East Buffet Plate #1 – Seafood

Shrimp cocktail, steamed crab legs with melted butter for dipping, and a few barbecued prawns make a great appetizer.

De-shelling all this seafood makes every bite more satisfying and makes you even hungrier for plate two. If you’re really famished, I’d go 2 rounds on this plate before making a move to plate 2.

You can see the self-serve presentation of the shrimp and the crab legs. If supplies are running low, mention it to the staff and it’s usually quickly replenished. My only issue with the shrimp is that they’re not deveined, more work for us. The cocktail sauce is very mild unless but you can add some of extra horseradish from the buffet, as you can see in the photo at left.

The crab legs take some work to actually enjoy, but once you get through the shells with the crackers on the tables, you’ll find juicy, hot crab meat just begging to be dipped into some butter sauce. The best time to grab these is when they bring them out fresh, so keep an eye out. Monday is the worst day to eat any seafood, most of it is leftovers from the weekend, so avoid East on Mondays because seafood plays a big role in beating the buffet.

East Buffet Plate #2 – Sushi

From left to right: California roll, Shrimp Tempura roll, boiled shrimp Nigiri.

I’m not a big raw fish guy as you can tell from the plate above, but you can see from the sushi bar at left that the selection is wide-ranging. King of Ketchup, a true sushi eater, raves about the quality of the raw choices and considers this aspect of the buffet to be one of the strongest. Everything I ate was well made and tasted very fresh. I liked the California roll better than the shrimp tempura, the latter of which was a heavy on the batter and avacado but thin on the shrimp.

East Buffet Plate #3 – Entrees

Clockwise from bottom left: Orange Beef, sliced Peking duck with Hoison sauce over a bed of sliced scallion and cucumber, sliced rack of lamb, sliced pork, barbecued prawns, Korean-barbecued shrimp on a skewer.

The duck and the prawns were the stars of this show, followed by the orange beef in order of deliciousness. The prawns, once you de-shell them, are succulent and crisp and the sauce has a nice tang to it. The orange beef was deep-fried and sweet. It was crisp on the outside but slightly dry on the inside, tasty, but in the end not worth the stomach space. No orange flavor was detectable, which I prefer. Don’t be tricked by gummy General Tso’s and lightly sauced chicken and broccoli at this station. Grab a couple of Crab Legs at the far end of the steam table, snag a few barbecued prawns, and move on.

And speaking of moving on, quickly breeze past the generic Chinese food steam table. This is where I found the dry and bland sliced pork. Sweet and sour chicken, fried rice, egg rolls, greasy, cold mozzarella sticks, fries, and onion rings, and really poor attempts at Italian food (e.g. chicken parm) also stand as obstacles in your quest to beat the buffet. Avoid this area at all costs.

The skewered shrimp was tasty but unimpressive. It’s just one of the many offerings on the ledge of Korean barbecue. Everything here is great in concept but low in quality. Despite the allure of charbroiled meat, fatty and dry are the two most applicable adjectives.

I saved the duck (below) and sliced lamb for last because they’re served together at adjoining slicing tables. Sadly, the duck skin was dry and slightly tough, but the meat beneath was moist and decadent. They offer steamed buns (in steamer basket) for you to make little duck sandwiches with, but bread is against the beat the buffet rules. Instead snag some sliced cucumber and scallion, dollop on some Hoison and enjoy it all together. It’s messy but delicious. The lamb on the other hand is an item you can pass on. It’s dry and not very flavorful. One disappointing note about this slicing area, the absence of bone-in prime rib, a delicious item which unfortunately East Buffet no longer offers.

East Buffet Grand Finale – Dessert

Now there are some who will get to this part of the post and say, but wait, I thought you were trying to beat the buffet? Why eat dessert? Well, in all honesty, King of Ketchup’s plan of action involves constructing a soft serve ice cream sundae with chocolate syrup and whipped cream and walls made of thin and crisp coconut cookies. While at East I follow the King’s lead, which is spot on. This sundae is definitely the best possible creation amidst a mass of mediocre cookies and cake. The ice cream is self serve and you can find the cookies further down the dessert wall. The whipped cream is at the end of the salad station buried in ice. You can pass on the chocolate covered pirouette cookies, they’re very generic and don’t add anything to the sundae.

There you have it. A fool proof step-by-step plan for making the most out of East Buffet’s myriad of culinary possibilities.

Let’s review the DOs and DON’Ts:

Do

Go for big money items (duck, sushi, shrimp cocktail, crab legs)

Do Not

Eat salad, bread, drink beer or soda, eat American food, generic Chinese food, or go on a Monday

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East Buffet

179 Walt Whitman Rd. (Rte. 110 N.)
Huntington Station, NY 11746
(631) 385-0800
Link to prices page