Thursday, October 22, 2009
Winner joins crowded Asian buffet contest
TOM ANGLEBERGER Special to The Roanoke Times
Hokkaido Buffet's Mongolian grill allows you to create delicious dishes, such as this spicy shrimp and zucchini stir-fry.
Tom Angleberger knows what he likes. So we've asked him to eat at NRV restaurants and write about them. If you have a restaurant to recommend,
e-mail him. Tom Angleberger
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From the outside, the new Hokkaido Buffet doesn't look all that different than the old and beloved El Guadalupe, the building's previous tenant.
But inside, Hokkaido has given the place an extreme -- and very nice -- makeover.
Inside, it's bigger and brighter and simply packed with food. There are half a dozen or more buffet stations, including a sushi bar and a Mongolian barbecue.
The name suggests a Japanese restaurant, but, aside from the sushi, much of the food is what you would expect to see at a Chinese buffet.
We visited for dinner and found an emphasis on seafood: clams, mussels and something called a ginger crab, which I never figured out how to eat.
The baby clams in black beans sauce were terrific. And then there's the shrimp. If you like shrimp, you'll find many variations here: deep-fried, sauteed, crispy, chilled and stir-fried.
They're also available on the Mongolian barbecue, which lets you pick and mix your own ingredients and sauces. I made myself a dish with shrimp, zucchini, onions and the like.
The sauces were unlabeled, so I took a chance on a reddish one and handed my plate over to a chef. It took a little while, but the result was spicier than expected and simply spectacular. This dish alone was worth the price of the buffet.
My wife declared the sushi bar to be very good as well. Her California rolls were excellent, and she enjoyed the chance to pair them with as much pickled ginger as she wanted.
Not everything on the buffet was as good, but there was plenty of delicious food on hand.
I looked at my plate and realized with pleasure that it was not just piled with fried side dishes. There were enough other appealing options to fill a plate without them. While the buffet did not have my default soup, egg drop, it did have an interesting and tasty beef soup.
I don't usually offer my sons' opinions of restaurants, since they will give almost any place an A-plus. But they were quite delighted by the food, the ice cream, the fortune cookies and the very, very friendly waitstaff at Hokkaido.
"This Chinese restaurant is the best," declared my 6-year-old. There's some tough competition around here for that title, but Hokkaido is definitely a serious contender.
Bottom line: With delicious food and a focus on seafood, Hokkaido Buffet has made a bold entry into the area's already crowded Asian buffet market.
