bobbie z.

China China Rstrnt & Buffet

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.