Super buffet!

Super Buffet
8998 Miramar Road
San Diego, CA 92126
(858) 566-1888


www.sandiegosuperbuffet.com/

A few years ago, during the start of the chinese buffet craze, a place opened on Miramar Road known as East buffet.  It was a huge restaurant, with tons and tons of items.  A sushi station with handrolls, a noodle station, a mongolian bbq section, soups, dim sum items, cold appetizer/salads, hot seafood/chinese entrees, desserts, fruits, and soft serve ice cream.  It was my favorite chinese buffet out of all the ones I had tried in San Diego and the Bay Area.  However, as it usually goes, all good things must come to an end.  East buffet changed owners and became something else, and then something else, and something else again, until finally becoming Super buffet.  I think I tried it while it was under another ownership, but did not enjoy it very much. My boyfriend got sick of the whole chinese buffet craze, and so we took a break for about a year.

This year, we ventured back in, first going to Savory buffet, also on Miramar Road, for lunch. We had a pretty pleasant experience, and were surprised by the many items we enjoyed for the price of $8 for lunch on a Saturday.  Next time I go back, I’ll blog about it.  So for a while now, I have been wanting to try Super buffet.  But I was afraid it was still bad, and didn’t want to use one of the few times I get to go to a buffet on a bad experience.  Some of my family members had been going to Savory buffet on a fairly regularly basis, so I suggested they should give Super a try.  Upon positive reviews from my brother and his girlfriend, I made plans to try Super buffet.

I went during Sunday, where dinner is served all day.  Probably the priciest day ($15 per person), but also the day with the most food options, including specialty items like shark fin soup, lobster, frog legs, etc.

My pictures are not as nice as I would have liked. I have found that chinese places really don’t like you taking pictures of their set-up.  I’m not sure if it is the same at Super, but just in case, my boyfriend and I only used our phones to take a couple of quick snapshots of the food items.  However, if you go to Super’s website, they actually have some great pictures of almost all their food items.

I like the set-up of this place. It’s a pretty big space and they have a pretty fountain at the front entrance.

Food

Here is a rundown a quick review of some of the items that stood out for me both good and bad:

Soups: Egg drop, hot and sour, clam chowder and shark fin.  Of these I tried shark fin and clam chowder.

Shark fin soup!  I’ve seen shark fin soup offered during weekend
dinners at chinese buffets in the Bay Area and been disappointed.
However, this soup was actually decent!  Obviously it doesn’t taste as
good as the ones you spend a lot of money on at a chinese restaurant,
but the broth is pretty flavorful and you do have little strands of
sharkfin.  The broth had a little too much cornstarch, but I enjoyed it.

Clam chowder- I don’t really like chinese version of clam chowder.  The
cream chowder part always seems a bit off.  This one was too sweet for
my liking.

Entrees– too many to list! here are some I tried:

Baked scallop-  This consisted of a mixture placed on top of a scallop shell.  While this dish looked very pretty, I didn’t really taste any scallops.  All I tasted were the celery bits and sauce.

Frog legs-  Typical tasting frog legs I have experience at other chinese buffets.  Fried and seasoned with salt and pepper.

Lobster- People around me were constantly craning their heads and looking for this dish.  Basically, every once in a while, someone comes out with a big tray full of lobster.  People get in line, and the employee serves you two pieces.  It goes fast!! We only saw the tray come out once during our visit, and both my boyfriend and I got our two pieces.  The pieces had generous portions of meat.  But the taste just wasn’t there.  I don’t like how they cooked and the lobsters tasted like they had been previously frozen.

Crab legs-  Usually I enjoy crab legs, but for some reason, I found the ones here to not be very tasty.  I’m not really sure what it was about them that I didn’t like though.

Seasoned french fries-  The American foods served at chinese buffets usually suck.  I was surprised to see seasoned fries here.  They weren’t very crispy, but were still kind of tasty because of the seasoning.

Fried Shrimp- they looked like chicken nuggets, except with shrimp tails sticking out.  Sadly, I didn’t really taste shrimp, only batter.

Sushi/sashimi– A variety of sushi rolls, raw fish sushi and sashimi. 

I didn’t try any of it, but my boyfriend had the raw fish sushi and sashimi and really enjoyed it.  When we went to Savory, the sushi did not look very fresh.

Desserts: various pastries, fruits and soft serve ice cream

Egg tarts- I love egg tarts.  I don’t often see them at chinese buffets.  These ones were a bit too sweet and had been sitting out for a while.  They were okay though, and satisfied by craving for egg tarts for the day.

Taro cake- I don’t usually try the cakes at chinese buffets, but the taro cake was something new, so I decided to try it out.  It was decent tasting.  Not too sweet, but a little on the dry side.

Fruit section- I found this section a little bit limited. Normally there is a variety of fresh and canned fruits.  Super only had cantaloupe, honeydew, strawberries, pineapples and a fruit salad.

Soft serve ice cream- A definite highlight.  Normally chinese buffets have a water-downed soft serve ice cream that tastes icy and not very good.  The ice cream here is rich and creamy in taste, very similar to that of McDonald’s soft serve ice cream.  This was how it was when this place was East buffet, and I’m happy to see they’ve kept it the same.

I didn’t have any room to try the Mongolian bbq and noodle soups.  Maybe next time.  Here are some additional photos: