East Buffet

My family and I frequent this OG buffet spot in Hawaiian Gardens for special occasions. On a typical weekend at lunch, folks can be immediately seated. As you get seated, the waitress would ask everyone for their drink preference and they will bring it to your table. East Buffet has an extensive selection of stir fried Chinese dishes. I believe it varies per day, yet my taste buds were rarely disappointed. I really like the chewy texture and savory flavor of their kalbi (beef short ribs). I am a huge fan of their steamed taro buns because it serves as a neutralizer for the items I ate that day. Their sushi selection is okay, as their California Rolls are too mushy for my liking. Last but never the least, I am impressed that they carry Thrifty Ice Cream at their Ice Cream bar. I opted for the Cotton Candy and Butter Pecan flavors. You can't go wrong with your Chinese favorites and Thirty Ice Cream at an OG East Buffet!

Came here for a family gathering. It's an Asian-themed buffet, so you'll have a little bit of everything here. Just think of a Panda Express with a little expanded menu that includes a few international dishes.Likes:- Plantains: Not bad at all. Perfectly cooked - Fish: nicely steamed and flavored.- Stir fried Broccoli: Yum. Nicely cooked, not mushy as some other places.- Chicken wings: crispy, Asian-flavored wings. These go out quick.- Mongolian BBQ noodle station: yep. They got one here. Dislikes:- Crab legs: lacked a lot of the seafoody zest that you'd want because they've probably been frozen for a while.- Soups: missing something. Just tastes bland. This was the egg drop and hot and sour soup I'm referring to.- Desserts: some just tasted a bit stale. - Sushi: well, I probably shouldn't have expected their sushi to be any good. It's a buffet, so...Pro tip: they have an ice cream station here. Do yourself a favor and scoop some of their green tea ice cream and put it on top of these little cream puffs they serve. I call it the Ice Cream Puff Surprise. Not a bad dessert at all.

I didn't have good experiences with the last two buffets I went to despite others IRL saying they were good, or at least good enough for their standards. However, my co-workers insisted that East Buffet was good and wanted to go there for our annual end-of-year luncheon. The ratings from my Yelp friends are literally all over the place with two awarding five stars, two awarding one star, and most others choosing middle of the way.I guess there's a reason why they say, "third time is the charm!"East Buffet is located on East Carson Street, on the southwest corner of the intersection with Norwalk Blvd. You shouldn't have an issue with parking since the lot is ample and spacious. As a matter of fact, we found a spot literally right in front of the restaurant.As soon as we came in, we saw a sign posted on the front door indicating two things: 1) Tips aren't expected, and 2) There's a service charge of at least 10% added to your bill. If your party size is in the double digits, that 10 becomes a 12. We would have been a party of 10, but one was ill, which saved us 2%, or about 40 cents if you do the math.8 of us got there first, but they were happy to seat us at a table in the middle of the dining room while the 9th one was running late. The server who took us to our table asked if we'd like drinks. There's a menu of drinks posted on the side of the napkin dispenser, but we all chose water, which wasn't specified on that menu.Soon after, we all went around the buffet, which in conjunction with the lobby, circumnavigated the dining area. The buffet ran from the sushi on the left to the hibachi station on the right, and plenty of good eats in between.The left (sushi) side of the buffet was mostly vacant. I only saw one chef there shortly after the start of my visit, and for the remainder of the time, that whole half was unsupervised. There was plenty enough food and not nearly enough customers to necessitate replenishing, so it's understandable why that side felt like a ghost town.After finishing my first plate of seafood and BBQ chicken, I noticed there was no line at the hibachi station, so I grabbed a plate and filled it with raw ingredients. When I was done assembling my plate, I didn't see a hibachi chef to hand it to, but my co-worker simply said to leave it there. We noticed a lot of other patrons were following us, leading me to think I'd have a difficult time discerning which plate was mine, but she assured me that our plates would be done first since we got there first.While I was finishing my second plate, I was wondering if my Hibachi plate would be done. She had just gotten her plate, so I sauntered up there to get my plate. I liked my Hibachi plate, and I'm glad I got there before the lunch rush.The rear of the buffet reminded me of Panda Express. I tried a lot of what they had to offer, and I felt it was better than what I had at Panda Express! I was hoping to try everything, but there was just too much to choose from.I was curious why nobody was getting any sushi, so I grabbed a few pieces. A couple of comments regarding the sushi bar: 1) Not everything will have labels, so you may not know what roll you are getting, and 2) They had a couple of sauce bottles that weren't labeled either! Luckily, they have cups to pour these sauces into. I believe they were spicy mayo and teriyaki, the latter of which I thought was soy sauce, but they also have some soy sauce on the tables alongside sriracha. The sushi was quite tasty with the teriyaki. Much better than at Hokkaido, or as I like to call it, HokkaiNO lol.Including the sushi, I used 6 different plates and an ice cream bowl for my lunch. The only plate that left a bad impression was the fruit. The honeydew and cantaloupe weren't fresh, and the grapes had seeds in them. I thought about getting a salad, but the salad bar adjacent to the fruits wasn't what I was expecting. Just raw leafy greens and cold ingredients that I didn't think would go well with those leafy greens.Service was quite decent, at least for a buffet. They were very punctual in removing plates from our table and filling our glasses that at one point during our lunch, I almost thought a server was trying to clean my plate with water lol. I don't think I ever had two plates in front of me except for when I went to pick up my Hibachi plate.However, I must say I loathe and abhor the red herring that is the menu posted on their website https://east-buffet.com/. The menu depicts $15.99 for a weekday lunch buffet, come to find out, the price had went up by $1 between then and now. Nickel and diming (or dollar-ing) scheme? But with how good my experience was here, I'm okay with spending that extra dollar here, but wish the website was updated to better inform the clientele.Overall, I was pleasantly surprised by my experience here, and so was everyone else. The interior looks like it was recently remodeled, and I'd be open to a return visit next time I want AYCE.

Clean but pretty much tasteless. Their salt and pepper shrimp was greasy. Their clams were spicy but no flavor. Even their fried plantains were not sweet. Their sweet and sour fish had the most flavor. Wide variety of ice cream. Their profiteroles had a strange taste. They offer a $1 discount for 65+ and $27 for weekday lunch. Soda is $2.90.

Got invited here for a birthday party and all I could think of at that time was I wish we had a similar place in town. We got Chinese buffet here but food quality was definitely better here at East Buffet. Let's start off with that shu mai. I think that that alone was so worth it. It was certainly packed, flavorful, and really filling. I also enjoyed their soup, sushi bar, seafood and they even have Teppanyaki cooking which unfortunately, I was not able to try. They also have different flavors of ice cream available. Their weakest part of the buffet was probably the desserts for me. It feels like most of them just came from the box but the rest of the buffet easily makes up for it. Service was not so bad, the servers were quick in taking empty plates and refilling drinks - typical East Asian service. If it was nearer, for sure I'll be back but will definitely be if I happen to be around the area.

Nice Saturday lunch for about $24. Does not include drinks. Sushi, teppenyaki, hot Chinese dishes, seafood, it's all here. The different dishes such as chicken wings, teriyaki chicken are very tasty. A lot of dishes are on the heavier side. Seafood casserole with cheese, big sushi rolls, huge shumai is very filling so go slow! People are enjoying themselves here. It's cool, comfortable and enjoyable. Nice place to eat!

There is a takeaway option from here with several price tiers: No sushi or seafood is $8.99/ pound.Anything with meat is $9.99/ poundAdd seafood and it's $11.99 /pound.The odd thing here is there does not seem to ever be a person manning the front, and I've had to oftentimes flag someone to get service, even for others! Food is still good enough: there are a lot of food choices, the vegetables often look quite fresh and not unappealingly gray like some takeout places. There were several large groups tonight and all the dishes were restocked often, including the seafoods.

Staff are not friendly at all ,especially at their noodle area where u they cook for u. Guy just had so much attitude and i was the only customer and it aint like i didnt give him a tip.

food a+service a+ambiance a+from start to finish i love "east buffet" the options and quality of the food and the space of the restaurant... my favorite parts of the buffet most definitely have to be the variety of dishes, the sushi bar, and the dessert sweets and icecream bar!!! i suggest to try the slices of pineapple and honey dew with a few scoops of that amazing mango flavored icecream and those cream puff pastries and star shaped cookies!!! the bomb!

"NO TIP ARE EXPECTED" IS WRITTEN IN VERY LARGE LETTERS IN FRONT OF THE RESTAURANT. And at the end, he attached a tip and charged us, and after the card payment, he presented a receipt with a line recommending a tip. I think the tip I think is that customers should pay as much as the service they deserve. But they just want money, so employees with a guarantee of tips work without a smile. It's a bad restaurant now.