MarkerChina China Rstrnt & Buffet

(408) 261-9000

2570 El Camino Real
Santa Clara, CA 95051

6 Reviews of China China Rstrnt & Buffet in Santa Clara

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great place  4 Star Rating - Very good

I went there with my family last week and it was packed. the food and selection was good. especially the honey prawns and bbq ribs, you gotta try them. i almost didn't go there after reading the reviews, but i am glad i went. people complain about selections and food quality of buffet places but it is because they don't operate a buffet restaurant business. i used to operate a big buffet restaurant in L.A area years ago. so i know the inside info. it is easy to keep everything fresh if most of your items are cold or room temperature kept. like in most american buffet selections. but most if not every chinese food item are hot in temperature. and the health code requires them to be kept at or above 145 degree. you try it with your home cooking and see how fresh they become after few minutes. and as far as m.s.g goes, every restaurant uses it not just Chinese restaurant. you look at a can in your kitchen cabinet and i am sure it is in the ingredient. they may not list it as m.s.g. but it is in there, with a fancy chemical name. or they break it down to 2 individual ingredients. almost all the chinese restaurants that claim don't use m.s.g. use it either knowingly or unknowingly( if they are stupid), the most of m.s.g replacement they use in their cooking contains m.s.g. not purely though, it has other ingredients, mostly chicken fat. so when they say they don;t use m.s.g. they mean they don't add pure m.s.g. since the m.s.g replacement is not called m.s.g and the pre packaged sauce and food was packaged from the factory with m.s.g , they think they can get away with it. very very few chinese restaurant actually don't use it. why, because it is very difficult and time consuming to make the sauce from scratch without m.s.g. i'll bet we eat more m.s.g from our can goods and packaged foods then from chinese restaurants. we just don't know about it. next time check your labels.

also being a ex restaurant owner, i am sick and tired of people comparing buffet and regular restaurant food. where else can you spend 8 to 15 bucks depending lunch or dinner, you get to have all the selections and seafood, my god , i go to McDonald buy a hamburger package and it is almost 6-7 bucks. it is like comparing apple and oranges, they are not in the same catagory. the last time i have checked with one of the local buffet restaurant operator, he told me , he make maybe just $1.00 to $1.75 per customer and that is with high volume of customers. if the restaurant is even half full he loses money. you give that profit margin to regular restaurant , they will all go belly up. where do you think all the profit margin has gone, in customer's big belly. and yet your not satisfied.

i hope i shed some light on the subject to all. and , please, know your subject before you yep about it, lets be a little bit responsible about what we say, after all we are not professionals critics and these are other people's livelihood.

oh, lastly, it is not the m.s.g that make the food shine, it is the sesame oil that is dashed on lastly in the cooking, to make it smell nice and a little shiny. why, because every food has to look good firstly, smell good secondly, and then taste good lastly.

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Bad Food  1 Star Rating - Unsatisfactory

We went there once seeing the attractive price of the buffet. But I guess, you get what you pay for. The chicken was so heavily sauced and it felt very hard and not chewable. I would not go there again.

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Decent Chinese food  3 Star Rating - Satisfactory

Our company orders lunches from China China about once a month. I think their food is okay, but most of my co-workers (who are not Chinese) love their food. The most popular dish is walnut shrimp. I also like their broccoli beef. But their egg roll is not that great.

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Made us sick  2 Star Rating - Wouldn't recommend

Made us sick, everything is shiny ( MSG ) which means they most likely use MSG and not very fresh or great selection.

We sat near some neighbors and they too got sick and felt it was a waste of time and money.

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Made us all sick  2 Star Rating - Wouldn't recommend

What can I say, that about sums it up. We all felt sick to our stomachs after eating here.

Everything was greasy and poor quality, not a very good selection at all.

Service was so so - with kids you don't like waiting a long time, we did.

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For the price, it's a pretty good Chinese buffet place.  3 Star Rating - Satisfactory

It was easy to find on Steven's Creek. My companion and I tried it on a whim about a month ago and loved it. The price was great for a buffet lunch, only $7-$8 a person, and the food was pretty good. I loved their hot and sour soup, he loved their tater tots and beef broccoli, we both loved the honey-glazed prawns and short ribs. It's pretty much got something for everyone.

The really disappointing things about China China was their kimchi and sushi (but then again, it's best not to go to a Chinese buffet for either).

Another disappointing factor is the crowd. When he and I first found it, there was a good amount of people there, but we didn't have trouble getting seated within the first 10 or 15 minutes of arrival. Now when we try to go there for lunch, the wait can be as long as 30 minutes to an hour. China China can't help being so popular.

PROS: Great buffet price, good food
CONS: Crowded, sushi and kimchi are terrible

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