Ye’s Buffet
204-896-6666
I don’t
like buffets, and that puts it mildly.
At worst, I hate buffets—and I have two main reasons why:
1.
They promote gluttony.
2.
The food often sucks.
People want
to get their money’s worth so they stuff their faces until they’re ready to
blow. Sadly, I’m one of them. When it’s there, I can’t resist eating until
I can eat no more (then sometimes, I still eat more). When you’re on your third plate, you can’t
enjoy your food anymore, certainly not in the same way as your first bite, when
you savour and taste every morsel. In
fact, people tend to eat faster at buffets so that they beat the signals from
the stomach to the brain to stop eating!
It’s like racing to beat the train to the track. Yes, that’s me too.
If you go
to a little local restaurant where the chef cooks on site, the chef ensures that every plate comes out
sculpted and manicured. If you go to a
place where people gorge out of a trough, the cooks throw it in as quickly as people
snort it out—that’s if you’re lucky and you’re at a busy buffet. If you’re not lucky, the food sits under
heating lamps or on chaffing dishes for hours, sometimes days. You end up with desiccated slabs that make
you think you’re gnawing on dog rawhides.
Ye’s Buffet
has one thing going for it—the food doesn’t suck, which then promotes gluttony
all the more. Sure, there are hits and
misses but some of the hits are bulls’ eyes hits. Ye’s specialises in Asian, which for them
means heavy doses of Japanese, Thai and Chinese. I’ve been here before so I’m quite aware of
what’s good and what’s not already.
Frankly, it’s not hard to tell.
The Chinese fried fish patties and the sweet & sour fried pork look
absolutely dry to the bone—I can safely pass those. The fried rice has absolutely no colour and,
unsurprisingly, no flavour. The same
goes for the chow mein and the udon. The
Chinese bun (dumpling) has a nice chicken stuffing but the dough is a sticky
wad that guarantees to gum up your valuable stomach space. The Thai mushroom chicken is all mushroom and
meatless, but the sauce tastes rich, which cuddles the mushrooms well. The potato pancake (much like a latke) tastes
bland-bland-bland, so stay away from that.
That’s all
the bad I have to say. Considering they
offer about a hundred items in the buffet, that’s very good.
Now, I
invite you along my journey of gluttony and let you judge for yourself how many
years I will lose off my life thanks to another episode of unabashed
gorging. Here’s what my first trip yielded:
Now I’m
ready for round two:
In case
there’s any doubt, I love sushi—and if you’re going to offer me all-you-can-eat
raw fish, I’m in deep. Starting with the
white meat nigiri, the fish has a very subtle taste. There’s no placard and I have a hard time
figuring out what it is—red snapper is my best guess. The salmon is sliced quite thin but there’s
still enough to get the taste. The meat
tastes buttery, soft and melt-in-your-mouth, exactly as raw salmon should
taste. The big maki is a Spicy Dragon
Roll, housing tempura shrimp, avoado and crab meat. This too tastes delicious. They don’t offer it today but at times, Ye’s
also offers a similar roll with salmon, which tastes even better. Once in a while, you’ll find the same roll
topped with a slice of salmon, taking the roll to a new level yet. The salmon rolls with avocado and/or cucumber
taste nicely put together but the tempura in the tempura rolls are a bit
chewy. Finally, there’s a deep fried
roll and I would stay away from that one—the frying process strips the roll of
all its flavours. It doesn’t’ matter any
more what’s in the core.
Round
three:
I’m done
with all the other stuff and concentrating on the raw fish now. I added another Chinese bun because they came
out fresh; that was a mistake. I should
stick to the fish.
Round four:
This time,
I enter the buffet line at the wrong time and follow a person who has the same
tastes as me. He strip-mines all of the
trays of the raw fish and leaves a token couple of pieces so as to not look too
greedy. As you can see, I take the
rest. To Ye’s credit, all the trays are
replenished in no time. The pollock
rolls with cucumber taste all right. I
don’t like it when restaurants pass pollock off as crab but by itself, I like
it (throw a strip on salmon on top and I’ve got a huge grin). Since I have room on my plate to spare, I add
a piece of tempura. The yam tastes well
done and not overcooked; the tempura batter could be a bit crispier but light
enough that it doesn’t dominate.
Final
round:
No fooling
around now. I’m at the end of my journey
and I want nothing but my favs. As you
can see in the photo, there’s quite a bit of rice to accompany the salmon in
their nigiri. Obviously, this is no
mistake; they want you to fill up on rice rather than fish. Fortunately (and you didn’t hear it from me),
Ye’s doesn’t punish you for scraping the rice off your fish. I left a bit of rice on each piece because I
want something to soak up a few drops of soy.
Many all-you-can-eat sushi houses charge you for unfinished food. In these places, I’ve seen people go to
extremes such us sticking uneaten in purses, pockets and down their pants; I’m
glad Ye’s lets you eat as you like.
Three
pounds and 10 000 calories later, I can prove beyond a doubt that gluttony
exists, but that’s no surprise. The
surprise is that I can find high quality, delicious food at Ye’s Buffet, even
when it comes to raw fish. I know a lot
of people don’t like (or are afraid to eat) raw fish but the sheer size of
their smorg means that there’s something for everyone.
***½ /5
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Well I love Chinese cuisine as it is more flavourful than Thai cuisine. I just love having deep fried spicy Salmon with tangy sauce. I mostly have it in most famous San Francisco restaurants with a glass full of chilled beer.
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