Midtown Lunch

When I last ate at Oriental Express on Cedar St. (btw. William & Pearl) I went straight for the buffet rather than dealing with the crowd of people at the back counter where you get things from a steam table or order off the menu and have something cooked to order. There were some hits and misses with the buffet but it became pretty clear that if it’s junky Chinese food you want, it’s probably best to just order from the menu rather than grabbing little bits of things and worrying about how much rice you can afford to pile on. The good thing about the huge mass of people in the back is that even the food on the steam table won’t be sitting around for long.

Read more »

I had one of those days recently where come lunchtime all I wanted to do was eat greasy food and get my recommended daily salt intake in one sitting. While I had many options to do that I opted to head over to Oriental Express on Cedar (btw. William & Pearl) to check out the buffet. I haven’t eaten at a by-the-pound buffet since New China Red in Tribeca scared me with its buffet sushi and communal soy sauce. I hadn’t quite committed to the buffet when I went down the stairs into the underground dining room, but it looked pretty good and at $5.95 a pound I wouldn’t be losing a whole lot of money if it did suck. Read more »