When the Indian buffet Apna Taj took over the former East Ocean space back in March (on 55th btw. Lex+3rd) I noted that for just 45 cents less (they charge $10.50) they probably weren’t going to siphon off any business from the popular Indian buffet next door, Darbar Grill (which is $10.95).  Clearly they got the message, because they just lowered the price of their all you can buffet to $9.50. As anybody who reads this site regularly knows, I find something very appealing about all you can eat buffets that come in below that $10 threshold (they are dwindling by the day, so to see one drop the price is very exciting.)  Now, I will definitely be trying Apna Taj very soon.

Last month I went to 55th st. looking for some Indian buffet action and Darbar Grill was the obvious choice. Always pretty crowded, a ton of options, 3 (!!!) dessert choices, and of course- the infamous make your own dosa station. Photos of that meal, are after the jump…

Darbar Grill is one of those “upscale” Indian buffets that you can find pretty much anywhere in Midtown.  The difference is, they only charge $10.95 for their spread (while others in the area, charge $15.95 and more.)  The price, combined with a wide array of options, has gained them a pretty substantial following- so you will never find yourself alone at this buffet during lunchtime.

First plate was pretty standard (a little taste of everything), and you can see they have quite a few options- including goat and a fish curry (both of which were really good.)  Bone in tandoori chicken is always a nice treat, and their saag was not watery at all (a huge problem at cheaper Indian buffet.)  Sadly though, I think it had chickpeas instead of paneer (the Indian cheese that is sought after by many Indian buffet loving Midtown Lunchers.)  They also had breaded and fried mushrooms the day I was there.  Sure, I would have preferred samosas or pakoras as the fried offering- but it didn’t stop me from enjoying them (or getting more on my second plate, which is reserved for the things I liked best.) And free, all you can eat naan comes out hot from the kitchen.

Of course the biggest draw of the Darbar Grill buffet is the make your own dosa station, which I was pretty excited to try. The mini dosas take a few minutes to make, and are stuffed with an average tasting potato filling- but just having the option is exciting.  Not the best dosa I’ve ever had (the shell was totally undercooked) but it was a lot of fun, and totally distinguishes this buffet from the others in Midtown.

Another thing that distinguishes this buffet from the others?  Three desserts!   Awwww yeah. My tip:  when they offer you more than one dessert option, screw those tiny plates they leave on the dessert table.  Go back to the main buffet, and snag a regular size plate.  It’s the only way to do it.  The day we were there, they had kheer- the standard Indian rice pudding dessert you find at most Indian buffets, plus a totally awesome mango pudding, which had the consistency of a thick Chinese pudding thing I’ve had at Dim Sum before. Kind of like a pudding/jello combo. But my favorite was the gajar halva, a carrot pudding that I’ve only seen at Spice Fusion (on 8th Ave. btw. 47+48th.)  Awesome.

All in all a great Indian buffet, and well worth the $11.  The dosa station is not good enough to get me to completely swear off trying Apna Taj (or keep me from going back to Bombay Bistro on 52nd btw. 3rd+Lex), but everything else is top notch, and I will be back.

Darbar Grill, 157 E 55th St (btw. 3rd+Lex), 212-751-4600

(Not to be confused with Darbar on 46th Street)

The space that used to be occupied by the cheap Chinese food place East Ocean (on 55th btw. Lex+3rd) has finally been filled by Apna Taj, an all-you-can-eat Indian buffet. I’m willing to go up to $11 for an all you can eat buffet, so this one (for $10.50) just makes it under the cap. It’s kind of ballsy to open up another Indian buffet 2 doors down from the upscale Darbar Grill (which is only 45 cents more expensive), and a ML reader has already sent me an email crying out for a head-to-head.

“Both hover just below $11, so they’re within your price-range. The newest buffet, Apna Taj, deserves a look just to see if it merits taking up the space of a Chinese restaurant you reviewed so highly. Their neighbor, Darbar Grill, goes the upscale route with a buffet that [the other day] featured 4 different types of salad, sweet potato croquettes, tandoori chicken, chicken tikka masala, goat curry, Goan fish curry, palak paneer, a yogurty version of baingan bhartha, channa masala, daal, a made-to-order dosa station and 3 different desserts ranging from gulab jamun to crème caramel. And surprisingly for Midtown East, I wasn’t the only Desi mixing chutneys over his sweet potatoes to make chaat. It seems like they’ve gotten themselves quite the following. Best regards, Omar”

I peeked into both on Friday, and even without trying them I think it’s kind of hard to not declare Darbar Grill the automatic winner. They have 3 times as many options as the newly opened Apna Taj, and the made to order dosa station kind of seals the deal. Clearly I need to try both, but sometimes looks do tell the story. And from the looks of this, Apna Taj is going to have to charge a lot less than $10.50 to lure people away from Darbar Grill.

Apna Taj, 159 East 55 St (btw. Lex+3rd), 212-223-0010

Darbar Grill, 157 E 55th St (btw. Lex+3rd), 212-751-4600

Lunch’er Joe made this pretty sweet discovery last week, and was nice enough to send along a few photos. Apparently Kanaat, the all you can eat Turkish buffet formerly known as Al Baraka on 55th btw. Lex+3rd, sells $1 samosas on the sidewalk in front of their restaurant on Fridays during lunch. I don’t know about you, but there is something about samosas being sold on the street that makes them that much more Midtown Lunch’ish, don’t you think?

In addition to the samosas, they also sell “boxed lunches”- which is not just sold in a box, but also out of a box. Check that out after the jump.

Only $6, the boxed lunch is actually available all week long inside the restaurant- but on Fridays they sell them on the sidewalk along with the samosas.  Here’s what Joe had to say about the boxed lunch:

“The chicken was well spiced and juicy – not as much heat as I would prefer, but probably traditional Turkish spices.  The peas were most likely canned, but in a tasty red oily sauce.  The white rice had some sort of inconsistent yellow coating that gave it flavor.  Salad….blah….but looked like an iceberg romaine mix.”

From the sound of it I think I’ll stick with the $11 all you can eat buffet inside… but $1 samosas.  I would totally be down with that!

Kanaat, 154 E 55th St (btw. Lex+3rd), 212-546-9007

Al Baraka, Midtown’s best only Turkish buffet, is now Kanaat Turkish Restaurant.  The chef, food and lunch buffet are exactly the same, but it is now $10.95 (up from $9.95 before).  The lamb shanks are still on the buffet, so it’s worth the extra buck, but the current trend of lunchtime price increases worries me that soon all buffets will need special exemptions to be included in the Midtown Lunch’ing price range.

Another popular buffet that has broken the $10 threshold, after the jump…

Curry Dream, the Indian Buffet on 39th St. btw. 5+6th has also raised the price of their all you can eat buffet from $9.95 to $10.95.  For Indian lunch buffets under $10, there’s still Kashmir on 8th Ave. btw. 39+40th, and the West Tandoori Club on 37th btw. 7+8th both still sitting pretty at $9.95.

In the end, as long as the lunch buffet at Spice Fusion (8th Ave. btw. 47+48th) remains at $9.95 I won’t go into panic mode.  Hopefully winning best Indian Buffet in the 2007 Midtown Lunch Readers’ Poll won’t go to their head.

But what if you are in the opposite corner of Midtown?  Well, I found your place.  For those of you working in the Northeast corner of Midtown, there is East Ocean on 55th btw. Lex+3rd.  On the outside it looks like your average Midtown cheap Chinese place… but at lunchtime they put a steam-table that is not quite for everyone.  Let’s put it this way, if you’re looking for Chinese food, where you have to ask what each item is (and General Tso’s chicken is a rarity), than this is your new favorite place.

What they’ve got, and a +/- after the jump…

East Ocean is actually a pretty small place, making the selection at the steam-table more limited than Hing Won or the 38th St. Restaurant.   It actually took me a few visits of walking in and walking out before I finally decided to actually eat there, which for me, is pretty strange, but just demonstrates that the place is a crap shoot.  On some days, the food looks great, on others, not so much.  Each day they have different options, and the later you get there, the fewer items you have to chose from (and the less appetizing they look).

Here was the plate I got on trip #1.

This was one of the late days, so I pretty much got whatever was left- which was a pretty standard Chinese chicken dish, a much stranger ground pork dish (on the left) and my favorite part of the meal, a scoop of cooked bean sprouts (which I love).  3 items + rice, for $6.50 (and you get a free soda).  Not bad.

Here was the plate I got on Trip #2:

This time I went with the white rice (to be healthy of course!), and for the life of me I can’t remember what any of these things were.  Nothing stood out as spectacular, but since I got there earlier on this day, everything tasted a bit fresher then Day #1.  I did regret not getting the pork chops, which looked pretty awesome.

Finally, on the third time I returned, I decided to order off the menu- which seems to be the popular option for most of the non-Asian people eating at East Ocean.  Unlike the steam table, the menu is just like any other generic Manhattan take out place, and the noodle dishes are the most popular.  I went with the Chow Fun, which was pretty good. 

Like everything at East Ocean, it was not great, but far from terrible… it was the Mixed version, and there was a pretty good amount of Shrimp (which is always a good thing), and the pork was good too.

Most importantly, if you are an adventurous eater, it’s fun (especially if “adventure” to you is eating unidentifiable Chinese food from a steam table).  I know there are some Chinese food connoisseurs who will go and say “the food on the steam table isn’t that weird.  They have seasame chicken sometimes!”, and they may be right.  I admit, the selection is not nearly as strange or “authentic” as the 38th St. Restaurant… but I’ve got to say that it is for those people who always order chicken with broccoli, and think they’re eating amazing Chinese food.  If that’s you, you will most certainly be weirded out by the Steam Table at East Ocean.  Luckily they have all your favorites on the menu, so you can order something to eat, while you watch your fat, adventurous co-worker scarf down tofu in brown sauce, and some sort of mystery meat.

THE +

• Not your average Chinese steam table
• Very cheap.  2 items with rice is $5.95, 3 is $6.50, and everything comes with a free soda at lunchtime (including the food off the menu).
• One of the few interesting and cheap Chinese food options in this part of Midtown

THE -

• Like all cheap Chinese food, it’s really greasy
• Not for people who like their steam tables clearly labeled, and filled with Americanized Chinese food
• The quality of the food is not as good as Hing Won, and the selection is not as large as 38th St. Restaurant & Bakery
• It’s really small, so the tables can fill up during lunchtime

East Ocean, 159 E. 55th St. (btw. Lex+3rd), 212-588-0699

I’m a big fan of the buffet.  Not any particular buffet… just buffets in general.  I like the style of eating.  I like the variety.  I like the extent to which I can embarrass myself by eating a ridiculous amount of food.  Chinese would have to be my favorite kind of buffet, because I find it very hard to order just one thing at a Chinese food restaurant.  I’m actually a huge fan of any kind of Asian food in buffet form.  Sushi is not ideal (because of the freshness), but I have found a couple that I enjoy (like the Korean/Sushi buffet Arang, in Koreatown).  Indian buffets are great.  All you can eat Naan is an added bonus… and the only time I will lower my “don’t eat the bread” buffet rule.

American buffets are ok, but they are definitely my least favorite.  The buffet that a pregnant Frances McDormand ate at in Fargo (with the meatballs) looked pretty sweet… but unfortunately fictional buffets don’t count… and even if it does exist- I doubt I’ll ever be in that small town in Minnesota.  I love the buffets in Vegas- but I usually end up eating the Asian food- so that doesn’t really count as an “American” buffet.  I haven’t been to Charles Southern Kitchen (a Soul Food Buffet in Harlem) but it’s pretty high on the list.  Fried chicken on a buffet is the greatest and worst thing of all time… but I did survive a KFC buffet off I-95 in Florida once, so I’m sure I’ll be ok.

So on Friday, I was walking in an area of Midtown I had never been before and stumbled upon something very exciting (to me, because I’m fat and love buffets).  The place was called Al-Baraka, and it was something I had never seen before in all my buffet eating… a Turkish Buffet.  It passed the price test ($9.95), and the look test (the best part about eating at a buffet is that you can go in and take a peek at what you’re paying for) so I decided to check it out.

What I ate, the food porn and the +/- all after the jump…

I am not really a Turkish food expert so I don’t know exactly what each of the dishes on the buffet were, or if it was even traditional Turkish food (the sign outside actually says “Mediterranean Cuisine”) but I can tell you this… if you are fan of veggies- stick with one of the many Indian buffets in Midtown.  This is more for the meat eaters.  There were a few vegetable dishes (a chick pea dish, a zucchini dish, and a broccoli dish) but none of them were good enough to warrant the $10 you’d be better off spending at an Indian buffet where the veggie dishes are just as good as the meat dishes.

On my first plate I started with a little of the stewed beef dish which was good.  The meat was super tender.  I also tried a stewed chicken dish which was fine, but forgettable.  The real treat of the buffet was the lamb shanks.  That’s right… lamb shanks, on a buffet- all you can eat.  The meat was fall off the bone tender, and it was clearly the big money item on the buffet.  Sort of like the Shrimp and Crab legs at a Vegas buffet.  If you are not going to eat the big money item(s), then it’s probably not worth going to that particular buffet.  Well, in this case- if you like lamb shanks, then this buffet is worth the $10.

They had a baked chicken dish (which I can best describe as being a spicier version of tandoori chicken) that was also really tender, and delicious.  It was also the only thing on the buffet that was even remotely spicy.  There was also a soup (which I didn’t try), salad, all you can eat hummus (which was nice) and they bring you some warm pita bread, and yogurt dip (with dill) to the table.   There was also two kinds of rice… a rice pilaf, and a basmati rice, both of which were good.

For dessert there were two options, both of which I tried- so I could report back to you about it (well… that’s what I tell myself anyway.  There’s nothing wrong with eating two desserts…  Get off my back!).  There was a really nice rice pudding, which was less rice and more pudding (if you are into that)… and there was this amazing cake that was soaked in this honey-like syrup and topped off with pistachios.  I believe it’s called Ravani, and it was delicious!!!!

So if you like buffets, and you like meat (especially lamb) this place is definitely worth the $10.  Although it might not be better then your favorite Indian buffet, and it will probably not be the best Turkish food you’ve ever eaten,  it’s a nice change of pace.

THE +

• It’s a buffet, so it’s all you can eat.  There’s not really a bigger plus than that…
• Turkish is a nice change of pace from all the Indian buffets in Midtown (and most of the dishes are not spicy at all)
• All you can eat hummus.  (There aren’t many good vegetarian options- but the all you can eat hummus is great)
• Lamb shanks.  All you can eat.  (Did I mention it’s all you can eat)  Although I was there on a Friday- so I cannot guarantee that there are lamb shanks every day.
• The two dessert options are pretty awesome.

THE -

• Not all the dishes are great, and the vegetarian options are not good enough to warrant the $10 price tag.  The broccoli and zucchini dishes were cooked to a mush… and the chick pea dish is not as good as what you would get at most Indian buffets in the city.  The meat is definitely where it’s at.
• Not sure if it’s the same dishes every day.  I was there on a Friday- and can’t guarantee tha the lamb shanks, or the baked spicy chicken are available every day of the week.
• You have to really love buffets… I’m sure there are better Mediterranean meals to be had in Midtown, that will totally fill you up, and will be much less than $10 (but they are not buffets!)
• At 12:45 when I walked in, it was pretty empty.  By the time I left it was packed.  Might be harder to get a seat after 1pm…

Al Baraka, 154 E. 55th St. (btw. 3rd & Lex), 212-546-9007