Giant Fried Shrimp Spotted at By the Pound Buffet!
Unable to ignore the prospect of 50% off the hot food at a by the pound buffet, I stopped by Green Cafe yesterday (on 44th btw. Mad+5th) just to see what was going on… survey the scene if you will (before heading to KFC). Like most commenters noted, it’s a pretty generic Midtown deli- and for $8 a pound, the hot/cold bar is definitely not worth it. ($4 a pound, on the other hand…) There was, however, one thing that caught my eye: gigantic friend shrimp! I’ve been duped by shrimp at a by the pound buffet before (the fake shrimp fiasco of 2006), but these were clearly real shrimp. Well, I shouldn’t say “clearly”… they clearly had real tails sticking out the side of a ton of breading that looked like it could possibly house a real shrimp. I wouldn’t put it past one of these places to insert real tails, into a fake fried shrimp carcass (would you?)
I had to find out for myself.
Nope… real shrimp. And not too bad- although as expected it was mostly breading. So much so, the meat to breading ratio bordered on corn-dog like proportions. At $8 a pound, I can’t say if it was worth it or not. It is real shrimp… but the breading is pretty heavy stuff.
As a side note, there was a sesame chicken looking thing on the buffet that looked like it could have been made from those fake shrimp (which I actually love)- so I tried a piece of that as well. Sadly though, it was just dry white meat chicken. I almost wished it had been the fake shrimp… that would have been awesome.
Related:
Fake Shrimp Scam (!?!?) and the ML Guide to Buffet by the lb. Eating
Soft Shelled Crabs Show Up On A Midtown Pay By the Pound Buffet!!!
Posted by Zach Brooks at 11:30 am, May 8th, 2009 under Buffet by lb..
12 Comments | RSS comments feed for this post
12 Comments
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Who can bring me some of these fried sea creatures to my desk? I drank too much last night.
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I was just there before. Nothing really special. Nice staffs though. Really wouldn’t pay $7.99/lb and not much selections either.
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It’s sad these owners will actually fool themselves into thinking all this traffic will bring back repeat customers. Nobody in their right mind will come back for the same food at double the price. I spotted the fried shrimp and looked at the hard shell almost like an empanada, and decided not to get it, I rather the soft tempura. I did what you recommended and got one of each, the biggest surprise was this asparagus wrapped in squid. The whole thing was marinated in korean gochujang and grilled. The squid was nice a tender and not rubbery with a good flavor. Gochujang has to be the best hot sauce for people who actually wanna taste what they’re eating.
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LOL sarah!
Yeah you need grease to cut the hangover stat! -
Girls Girls
The only way to quell thursday night excesses is a Friday morning Full English: cumbria sausage,old spot bacon,Bury Black Pudding, Mushrooms,fried toms, 2 toast(much butter) and a very large mug of Twinning’s breaky tea.
Sarah may of fainted.
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the shrimp corn dogs have been replaced with something called a shrimp ball, a few other additions today but nothing too exciting looking. I went with a half off sandwich and give it a C-. They seem overstaffed and are going crazy and it wasn’t even that busy. Doesn’t bode well for them.
Is there some sort of turnkey midtown deli company that dupes people into opening these places?
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Rudy, if you want to bring me some of that right now I would happily put aside the sprite and fritos I’m presently eating. I’m not sure I could do the black pudding though. Even with a hangover.
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Man I couldn’t help but go here again after this entry. Zach really got me into brown on brown chinese food lately. Also, got me into eating lo mein instead of rice. Damn you Zach
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Today, they said the 50% off might go until Monday or Tuesday, even though the flyer says it ends today. Any chance we can get confirmation on that?
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Have to say the fried shrimp were kind of weird because of that insanely thick breading. The mass amonts of teriyaki and sesame chicken for about $4 was well worth it though.
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This is dangerously close to my master plan… to one day open a buffet with deep-fried turds
Don’t worry Zach, I’ll email you beforehand
I had that yesterday. I didn’t mind the batter they used, it was pretty interesting.
Also, I had to ask a few times to make sure what exactly was 50%. I got their 5th avenue sandwich on that brown bread with the yellow seeds. (I don’t know what it’s called). It had ham, turkey, swiss, and cole slaw. Not too bad.
Though I didn’t know that the salad bar was a whopping $8.00 p/lb. That’s pretty expensive. =/