The $9.99 All You Can Eat Buffet Takes Two More Steps To Becoming Extinct in Midtown

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.

7 Comments

  • It’s annoying but inflation is real and only going to get worse. A large box of Cheerios in my neighborhood Gristedes is now $7.00!!!!!!

  • I’m going to go ahead and blame the weak dollar for the price of tea and china and indian buffets in midtown manhattan

  • dont forget the cost of oil

  • Weak $ my ARSE

    It’s Zach,he’s been known to make grown steam tray fillers cry.

  • Minar raised their prices too…again…damn inflation

  • Kanaat’s buffet was actually $9.95 today.

    I never had Turkish food before. This was good, but not exciting (I’d rather have indian food) for the most part.

    However, if you like lamb shanks, then hit this place up. The lamb was great. Though underseasoned (rather undersalted), it was braised til it melted from the bone, like a good Lamb osso bucco. Mixed with some of the tahini for flavor, it was excellent.

    There were no signs for the food so I didn’t know what the dishes were, so that wasn’t very helpful.And the online menu has nothing either. But they had:
    – 2 rices (one seemed to have veggies mixed in)
    – a tandoori style chicken
    – a chopped spinach thing with “sunny side” eggs on top (scary by 1pm as the yolks were half solid, half runny).
    – a cauliflower in cream (yogurt?) sauce.
    – some stewed veggies (reminded me of Ghormeh Sabzi)
    – Some stewed chicken thighs with sliced potato
    – Beef kofta (in tomato sauce)
    – Lamb Shanks
    – Accoutrements of shredded cabbage, feta cheese, olives, sliced jalapeno, “white sauce” (like raita), hummus, and naan bread served at the table.

    I always expect the explosion of flavor you get from indian restaurants (which is dumb since it’s not an indian restaurant). The food was overall a little light on the salt (and spice), but the quality was great for a buffet (especially for a $9.95 buffet). The lamb shanks are a steal for that price. I’ll go back once in a while (as long as the lamb shanks are there), but this wont be replacing any of my other go-to spots.

Leave a Reply

You must log in or register to post a comment.