A Flourishing Garden

Location:
Asian Garden Buffet
8633 Columbus Pike 
Lewis Center, Ohio 43035(740) 549-1888

I've been to this buffet on several occasions.  Honestly I would like to go more often, but I am rarely in or around Lewis Center anymore, so I forget it's there. This buffet is pretty typical, but the thing that makes them stand out is the freshness. The food is always SO fresh. Often at buffets, Chinese or otherwise, you will see a few pieces of whatever left in the pan for someone to finally take. AGB does not let that happen. Once it's down to a few, they switch it out and put in fresh. You won't find those dried up sticky noodles and vegetables at the bottom, you won't have any chewy crab rangoon or egg rolls.

The crab rangoon are little purse-types, which I am starting to prefer over the triangles. The triangles seem to get stale and chewy and lose their filling very quickly on buffets, whereas the purses stay nice and fresh and full. AGB has a good selection of fried foods, including french fries and onion rings, which were a big hit with my son. The only things that were really disappointing were the white rice and General Tso's, two very important items for a Chinese buffet. The white rice wasn't sticky, it was just stuck together and hard - even though it was warm. The General Tso's chicken pieces were hard and had to be gnawed on, and the sauce was b-l-a-n-d. It was so strange because all the other food I had was really good! Well except the brown sauce, because I expected it to be salty and it was sweet. That was my own misjudgment. Their hot & sour soup, my new obsession, was okay. Very miso-y, which is kinda strange because H&S soup has no miso in it. One other kind of annoying thing, which happens at 9/10 Chinese buffets, is the lack of mustard packets. Once again, as always, I had to get a bowl of hot mustard off the salad bar. It's not so much that I hate that kind of mustard, it's just that I feels so wasteful when I leave so much. Oh, I almost forgot the teriaki - pork, I believe, because it was darker on the inside than chicken usually is - freakin' amazing. I usually stay away from the chick-on-a-stick, but I was tasting for it that day. It was so flavorful, so tender, and so perfectly moist - not dripping gross and not toughly dry. It was literally perfect.

Overall, I'd say in the realm of Chinese buffets, Asian Garden Buffet is definitely one to be visited more often. The staff is friendly, they loved to play with my son, and they kept up on the refills with impeccable timing.

Fries, Onion rings, vegetable pieces, fried rice

I love this rice, Mom!

This right here is the BEST plate ever.

Crab rangoon, brown sauce chicken, naked chicken for S&S

Panko Shrimp, Egg roll

Mustard

Egg roll, spring roll, teriaki pork, crab rangoon, crispy flaky thing

I dip my fries in Sweet & Sour sauce - What?

Teriaki pork, crab rangoon, sugar buns, broccoli chicken

General Tso's and white rice

No pics while I'm chewing!

Beige Plate: Lo Mein, chicken, coconut shrimp

Overall Scores: (1-5, 1 being lowest, 5 highest):     

Cleanliness: 4 (always those old bathrooms! ugh!)

Value: 5

Accessibility: 5

Friendliness: 5

Menu: 5

The Golden Goose... Er, Rangoon?

Location: 

Golden China Express

453 E Wilson Bridge Road Worthington, OH 43085

(614) 848-4600

Just wanted to throw a quick review in about this tiny Chinese take-out place that we go to every once in awhile. Honestly, we should go there more, but they're kind of on the pricey side. (Well, compared to my favorite Chinese pig-out, The Buffet!) I always get the crab rangoon and combination #17, General Tso's with fried rice and an egg roll. It's perfect every time! The crab rangoon are the best best best of any Chinese take out I've ever had. They are huge, about the size of a playing card, hot, crispy, and totally stuffed with crab-cream cheese filling. Oh my god, I literally just started drooling just typing about them! Anyway  the General Tso's is the stickier kind, but they keep their chicken pieces to about the size of half a matchbox car, so they don't get chewy. They don't include any peppers (sad face) but they do include 4-5 pieces of steamed broccoli.  What I really like is their fried rice.  It doesn't have a ton of vegetables in it, or those weird pieces of teriaki pork or whatever that red, hard, tasteless pork is that you often find in fried rice. Blargh. I hate those things. It's just rice, fried, no additions. I don't mind the occasional pea or carrot, but when you get more vegetables than rice, it's like why not order vegetable fried rice instead? I just want some tasty fried rice to put my tasty General Tso's chicken into.

Check out the Golden China Express  on East Wilson Bridge Road, at the intersection of Huntley and Worthington Galena. You will not be disappointed. Poke always gets the house fried rice, and it actually fills him up! He eats a lot. Here's a photo of the combination #17, without the egg roll or crab rangoon - I kinda scarfed those down before I thought to take a picture!

Yum!

Overall Scores: (1-5, 1 being lowest, 5 highest)           

Cleanliness: 4

Value: 4

Accessibility: 3 (you either have to know the back way in, or wait to turn left for 117 hours)

Friendliness: 5

Menu: 5

A Flourishing Garden

Location: 

China Garden Buffet

1788 Morse Rd  Columbus, OH 43224

(614) 848-3628

My dining buddy, JI.

You guys should just go ahead and consider me to be a Chinese buffet expert. I love them, and I will try any Chinese buffet at least once. I've rarely had bad experiences, and I've never been to a Chinese buffet that didn't have at least five dishes I like. The defining item at a Chinese buffet is, for me, the crab rangoon.

I've been to China Garden probably more than fifty times in my life. I started going there back in 2002 when I was with my first husband, and I go there at least four times a year. So that would be at least 44 times in the past 11 years! The decor is nice, they always have the best music (Chinese buffets score really high points with me if they have Asian versions of American pop songs on their Muzak), and the staff is great. They have a good selection of food, and according to Poke, they have the best Peanut Chicken (yuck! I'll never try it!). The best thing about China Garden, which is bane on many buffets of any culture, is food temperature. As a chef, I know the rules, and I know that it's hard to keep buffets above 140* let alone 165*, and I take my chances every time I eat at a buffet. But I have an iron stomach and thus far in my life, it has not been buffet food that gave me salmonella and e. coli!

Crab rangoon, white rice, General Tso's chicken

But I digress. China Garden is #1 in my book because they have the best crab rangoon. They are little pastry purses, stuffed full of creamy goodness and never chewy or hard to bite into. China Garden is the only buffet that I've ever been to that provides the spicy mustard in packets, which is my favorite, so I don't have to get a bowl with plain hot mustard from the salad bar. That's awesome.  China Garden also has some of the best General Tso's chicken. Now, in case you didn't know, there are two kinds of General Tso's out there. There is the sticky, syrupy, brighter red kind, and the darker red, thinner sauced, sesame seeds on top (why, I don't know) kind. China Garden has the latter, and it's super freakin' tasty. Sometimes the chicken in the sticky sauce gets pretty chewy, and you can literally sit there and gnaw on a larger piece of chicken until it's mere shreds between your teeth. Not fun. But at China Garden, they make their chicken pieces on the smaller side (about the size of a large peanut) and because it's in the thinner sauce, it doesn't absorb all that moisture and get chewy. Tiny little bite sized crispy pieces of perfectly sauced chicken. Yum.

Kid's: $Free under age 2$

I love all this food!

Hmmm What should I eat next?

China Garden has the best of a lot of menu items, actually: egg rolls, vegetable fritters, teriaki chicken, bacon-wrapped krab, Singapore noodles, and spring rolls, to name a few.

From L to R: egg roll, crab rangoon, broccoli chicken, vegetable fritter

Overall, if you're in the Westerville area and you're tasting for Chinese food, stop by the China Garden buffet. The price is right ($7 lunch, $11 dinner) and the food is amazing. 

And the BEST sugar buns this side of Hong Kong

Overall Scores: (1-5, 1 being lowest, 5 highest)           

Cleanliness: 3 (the bathrooms could use some work)

Value: 5

Accessibility: 5

Friendliness: 5

Menu: 5

Mi piace il cibo italiano!

Location: 

Petti's Pizza & Restaurant  

29303 Euclid Avenue

Wickliffe, OH 44092

(440) 944-1028 ‎

When I was young, my father worked just down the street from Petti's, and we would often make the drive there to meet him for lunch. Any time we were out, especially for doctor/dentist appointments, my mom would take me over there to see my dad and get some awesome Italian food for lunch. I always made sure to behave extra good so that I'd be guaranteed this trip!

It's been two years since I've been there, but the last time I went was with my mom after we visited the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame. It's pretty close by (about 10 minute drive) so I knew we had to go. It looked different inside than I remembered, much smaller and brighter, but I suppose when your head is at table level, everything seems gigantic!

Once again, it's been so long since I took these photos/ate here that I don't specifically recall the entire meal. I remember scarfing down everything on my plate, including a salad and several rolls, and I was still hungry - never fear, however, there was a lot of food - I just happened to be pregnant at the time and didn't know it! Hahaha!

I do remember that we were there on a Friday and it was packed. They had a few good specials going on, and our waitress was hilarious and awesome. Petti's has been run by the same family for generations, and probably 80% of the staff is family/related.

All in all, I'd say that if you're in the Cleveland/Wickliffe area, check it out! If you are from Columbus and have ever been to Villa Nova, it's a similar atmosphere, room size, menu, etc.

Overall Scores: (1-5, 1 being lowest, 5 highest)           

Cleanliness: 5

Value: 5

Accessibility: 3

Friendliness: 5

Menu: 5

Is this what Italy looks like?

 

Like being at your Italian Gramma's house

Big plate of ravioli!

Good photo of one meatball and one piece of Italian sausage.

My mom got the Lake Perch and some roasted redskin potatoes.

She puts ketchup on lots of things...

Asian Star? How about Five Star!

Location: 

Asian Star Buffet - Festival Centre

2847 Festival Lane

Dublin, OH 43017

(614) 336-8618 ‎

The Asian Star Buffet was a big surprise to me when I was taken there for the first time. I had driven through the Festival Centre before, but somehow I had never noticed the buffet.

Since it's been awhile, as in over two years, since I took these photos, I can't honestly remember everything about this particular visit. I can, however, tell you that we have returned many times since and it has always been delicious. I will be rating on the combined experiences. 

I visited this buffet many, many times while I was pregnant, even alone (which is saying something because I hate to eat alone). After the kid was born, it was the first Chinese buffet we took him to, and he loved it. His first bite of buffet food was cantaloupe, but the second was the breaded chicken for Sweet & Sour Chicken (no sauce). They have some of the best Crab Rangoon in town, and their egg rolls taste like take out egg rolls (instead of the weird, dry, flavorless egg rolls that tend to be on buffets). The best thing about this buffet is the shallow pans. They have a lot of variety and they refill often.  I hate it when you go to a buffet and they have deep pans and the food just sits there for 17 hours getting gross. I do wish they offered more beef dishes, since I am not a fan of chicken, but they offer lots of vegetables so that makes me really happy!

That all being said, here's the rating and some delicious photos!

Overall Scores: (1-5, 1 being lowest, 5 highest)           

Cleanliness: 3 (the dining room/food areas are fine, but the bathroom is always so gross, even though it's not dirty, it's very old and worn down, and one toilet is always broken)

Value: 5

Accessibility: 5

Friendliness: 5

Menu: 5

Mmmm Crab Rangoon - All for me!

Lots of variety at this buffet!

They have a good salad bar that includes tasty sushi (not scary sushi)!

My son's favorite part of the buffet

I love these little sugar buns

They had at least seven different kinds of chicken

Disgusting yet beautiful desserts... Why Chinese people, Why?!

Awesome won-ton broth, not salty at all!

Best decor this side of Hong Kong

There are two kinds of people - Greeks, and everyone else who wish they was Greek.

Location:

The Gyro Shoppe

2061 Henderson Rd

Columbus, OH 43220

(614) 442-1200‎

Located on Henderson Road in Upper Arlington, just down the street from Neighbor’s Deli, is a sweet little gem of a place located in an old Taco Bell.  The Gyro Shoppe has been on this corner for as long as I can remember, and I’ve been getting their amazing gyros and fries for at least ten years.  Finally, I decided to give them a shout-out on the blog.

 

To be generic, everything they serve is delicious… I’ve had the gyros, the Greek salads, the baklava, stuffed grape leaves (see photo above), you name it.  But my favorite meal is a super gyro and fries (and pop).  The gyro meat (lamb, traditionally) is tender and peppery, and cooked on a vertical spit to ensure maximum deliciousness.  A nice amount of meat is stuffed into a pita and topped with onion, lettuce, tomato and tzatziki sauce.  Oh, the tzatziki sauce – a yogurt based cream sauce involving cucumber, dill, garlic, and lemon juice (among other ingredients) – is to die for.  I’m not sure what they do to make it so tasty but the creamy zing of the tzatziki cuts through the density of the lamb-pita combo perfectly.

The fries, which I believe are fried in peanut oil, are breathtaking.  They come in a little wax bag, always overflowing and leaving those renegade fries at the bottom of your brown paper bag.  I love those renegade fries.  But I digress… the Gyro Shoppe’s fries are thick cut, but not steak fries, giving them a super-crispy outside and perfectly potatoey inside.  They offer “Greek seasoning” to shake on them, but I don’t think it’s necessary, and besides I’m pretty sure the “Greek seasoning” is really just Lawry’s seasoning salt.

All in all, a spectacular place for Greek food.  The service is fast, the prices are cheap, and now you can even find another Gyro Shoppe in Dublin on Woerner Temple Road!  The only downside to the Gyro Shoppe is that they close kinda early, so if you get a late-night craving for lamb, you’re s.o.l… at least if you want good lamb!  I used to be a big Yanni’s fan, and then I moved on to loving Gyro Express.  Now that I’m a grown-up, I love the Gyro Shoppe and that is where my devotion will remain!

Overall Scores: (1-5, 1 being lowest, 5 highest)           

Cleanliness: 4

Value: 5

Accessibility: 4

Friendliness: 5

Menu: 5

The Little House

Location:

La Casita

1355 Bethel Rd

Columbus, OH 43220

(614) 457-0823

Another Mexican Restaurant?! Is this girl crazy?!  No, folks, I’m just in love with Mexican food.

In the style of Mi Mexico, El Vaquero, and other popular chain restaurants, La Casita provides a fairly accurate representation of Mexican food.  The servers are mostly Hispanics, the décor is sunsets and palm trees and large colorful birds, and the beer selection includes both Dos Equis and Negro Modelo.  It’s the food, albeit an almost line-by-line recreation of any other menu, that sets it apart from those chain restaurants.

La Casita is a small place with limited parking.  It’s best to go around three in the afternoon to ensure you get a parking spot and a table with no wait.  The best thing about La Casita is that aside from Fiesta Jalisco, they have the best English-speaking staff I’ve encountered. And they’re friendly!  When I went the last time with a friend of mine, we got there when it was a peak time, but our waiter was still attentive.  I ordered the chimichanga (of course) and he got a seafood burrito of some sort.  Most entrees come with beans and rice, and they start you off with chips and salsa.  My favorite part about La Casita is that if you ask, they will give you the spicy super hot salsa.  Mix this with their house salsa and yum yum yum you’ve got yourself a winner.  I enjoy their chimichangas more than most other places because they make two mini chimichangas and serve them side by side on a bed of lettuce and drench them with queso blanco.  There’s nothing like cutting through a film of melted cheese into the crisp shell and releasing the flavorful meat on the inside of a La Casita chimichanga.

In general, La Casita is a nice place to go if you’re tasting for some Mexican food on a Tuesday night.  The prices are fair, the atmosphere is nice, and the food is great.

Overall Scores: (1-5, 1 being lowest, 5 highest)           

Cleanliness: 4

Value: 4

Accessibility: 4

Friendliness: 5

Menu: 3