Here we go again. I love the buffets… and on Friday I visited another one (with my wife and a few of her co-workers). I had actually been to this buffet back in March for my brother’s birthday- when it was known as Minado. We went for dinner, and it was pretty good. Decent sushi, some good hot things, not too crowded- but things were still fresh, and a huge selection. A couple of months later, I had read that it was sold to Todai, a Japanese buffet chain with locations mostly in the west coast, Texas, Illinois, Virginia & New York. My one previous visit to a Todai (in Los Angeles) left me with a bad taste in my mouth (literally). The rice they used to make the sushi was disgusting, and the warm food was not so great either.
With that in mind, we went to the New York Todai, hoping that some of the Minado goodness was held over in the transition. Todai is what is known by buffet aficionados as a “Super Buffet”. It’s a very technical term, and might be difficult to understand for the buffet lay-person. “Super” refers to the awesome size and nature of the buffet in question. Most Super Buffets have many stations, and at least 50 items (I just made that up… I don’t think there is any real measure).
Super Buffets also require a totally different technique from your small scale and regular size buffets. With the small buffets it is easy to load your plate up with the 10-20 items they have available… but with a Super Buffet you need to be more cautious. I like to take small bits of as many items as possible, scope out the real winners and then return for larger portions of the 3 or 4 things that I really loved.
Tackling Minado, the food porn, and the +/- after the jump…
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