King Buffet - Nashville, Tennessee

 

 

King Buffet

1051 Murfreesboro Pike

Nashville, TN 37217

                The vacation, visiting with my brother in Tennessee, was coming to an end. A quick trip to Nashville and an overnight stay was in order for me to catch the very early in the morning flight back home. A bit of sightseeing in town done, we checked into our motel and asked the desk clerk where we could get something to eat. He pointed “that-a-way” and said to drive about a mile along the Pike and we would start to see restaurants. As strangers in a big city we were at the mercy of the local’s directions.

                It has been said that all good things must come to an end, so with that in mind one could say that portion of the Murfreesboro Pike and the establishments therein are doing just that.  While there is a smidgeon of rebuilding going on, mostly hotels, but the remainder of the businesses are dated and worn.  You can find the usual fast food eateries, some various ethnic cuisines are offered, a Mediterranean Kebab and a Greek Gyro to name a few  as well as a Mexican market complete with butcher and many smaller places offering fresh Carne Asada tacos.

                We found a rather dated but okay looking Chinese cafeteria and decided to give it a try, we were hungry and well “all you can eat” if it was good food, we won.  The young woman at the front was friendly and soon motioned to a young man at the back to take us to a table.  The décor is nothing fancy, plain table and chairs; separated down the length of the area by a wall with a partial decorative panel on top to offer light and a view out of the window.  A picture or two depicting an oriental motif was on the walls and at the front a smattering of oriental offerings.  There were about 6 self-serve tray lines set up each offering different menu options, but in no particular order. The back wall held the dessert section which had fresh fruit, pies, cakes and puddings.  Here too was found the sushi rolls which I found odd to have placed them there.

                A fresh salad bar offered the usual offerings for a small salad along with fresh fruit; there were two types of hot soup offered, egg drop and their special soup of unknown ingredients, neither of which I tried.  They had steam trays full of small cray fish, steamed shelled small shrimp, what appeared to be muscles topped with a yellow cheese, fried fish with a seasoned corn meal batter, white fish in a tomato type broth to name a few.  You had your usual offerings of all things Chicken, sweet & sour Chicken, Hunan Chicken, Szechuan Chicken, hot and spicy Chicken, Sesame Chicken, Chicken with vegetables and Chicken with mushrooms. 

                They offered tiny beef ribs (1”) Mongolian beef, beef with vegetables and so forth.  You had fried rice, but no white rice, an udon type noodle with seasonings but no broth.  Some fried eggplant coated again with a corn meal type crust.  Dumplings, spring rolls and egg rolls; then not to offend anyone they also offered macaroni and cheese, fried potatoes, taquitos and several other “American” type foods. You are served hot tea, soft drinks or sweet tea and refills are up to you.

                With plate in hand we set off to sample the offerings; some of the chicken dishes had a most familiar taste almost like you could purchase them frozen in your local store.  The Mongolian beef was a bit fatty and tough but had a nice flavor.  The fried white fish with corn meal batter was delicious, lightly seasoned and fried nicely.  The stir fried vegetables were just a bit more al dente that I like but none the less very tasty.  The fried eggplant was also excellent, golden brown and a delicate flavor.

                The egg rolls lacked for a dipping sauce but you got the dipping sauce for the dumplings which I found to be way too sweet.  The noodles were cooked but not mushy and had a nice seasoned coating on them.  I sampled two of the rolls and they were to my surprise very good. Sashimi with salmon and nori, sushi with avocado, white fish, ginger and carrot were both excellent.

                My brother and I both went back for a second plate in order to sample other menu items, when we sat back down I noticed the young man who seated us earlier was standing behind the back wall partition sort of watching our progress and when we were about ¾ done with the second plate he came around and gave us our bill.  This took us by surprise so much so that my brother felt he needed to offer a statement that he was not yet finished and was going back for dessert.  This ruffled my feathers quite a bit since neither one of us had filled our plates to excess, we only took small portions of items in order to taste them.

                So the burning question; would I go back if presented the chance?  I have given many establishments a second chance in the past but unfortunately this will not be the case for King Buffet.  On a scale rating the best at 10, I give them an overall rating of 4, some of the food was mediocre, some greasy and some was delicious but the overall factor in the scoring was the rudeness of the waiter who actually told us by his posturing, “…you go home now!”

OEC Japanese Exprress

O.E.C. Japanese Express

2438 66^th Street North

St. Petersburg, FL 33710

727-345-4088  http://www.oecexpress.com/

OEC Japanese Express is a moderate size establishment located in a shopping plaza located on a very busy corner; difficult to get to. The returning customers attest to it being worth the effort. OEC Japanese Express is exactly what you would expect from a Japanese eatery.  Polished chrome and glass cover the day’s fresh fish ready to be sliced and served in your favorite roll or sashimi.  Immaculate countertops afford the guest to sit in front of the cabinet and watch their order being made or you can sit at a booth or tables.  A few additional tables are available out-of-doors, under the shade of ancient oaks should one desire al fresco dining.

The staff is friendly and attentive and keeps a watchful eye just in case you want something, they don’t overdo it though, so you can dine without interruption.  The menu is quite extensive and offers a wide variety of rolls, sashimi, soup, yakimesi (fried rice or noodles), tempura, appetizers and much more.  Daily lunch specials are available for $6.99 and include a bowl of miso soup or house salad.   They also offer hibachi meals for both lunch and dinner or you could try a bento box; all excellent choices.

I decided to try the Sushi Lunch Special. You get to choose two maikzushi rolls from a selection of over 30 different rolls. A soup or salad is included. I chose the avocado roll and the California roll and miso soup.  My brother opted to get the vegetable tempura also $6.99, this usually comes with white rice but he chose to have fried rice in its place.  My soup was delicious. It included several nice size pieces of tofu, along with a generous helping of seaweed and thinly sliced scallions in a very flavorful broth.  My rolls were expertly rolled and the ingredients fresh and tasty.  The avocado roll was nori side out and the California roll was rice side out with the nori wrapped around the crab and avocado; it was topped with masago, capelin roe.  Wasabi and pickled ginger accompanied the plate and the size was adequate to satisfy my hunger.

The Tempura vegetable platter was delicately battered and nicely golden brown and served with two dipping sauces; one sweet and sour and the other similar to a creamy salad dressing. Both were very flavorful. There was a nice assortment of broccoli, sweet potato and squash in the dish.  The fried rice was alright, nothing special, but ordered out of curiosity to what it was like. 

The offer the usual soft drinks, hot or cold tea and serve beer, wine and sake, they do offer for those of us who are really watching their waistline a “healthy food” choice menu featuring steamed Chicken, Shrimp and vegetables dishes. You can dine in or take out and they do deliver if you live within their delivery area, delivery is free but there is a $15.00 minimum order requirement.  Open Sunday-Thursday 10:30am-9:30pm and Friday and Saturday 10:30am-10:30pm, give them a try I am sure you will be pleased.

Sumisu - Pocatello, Idaho

Sumisu 309 E. Center Pocatello, Idaho 83201 Located in the historic old town section of Pocatello Sumisu occupies a small corner store front. The inside is minimum at best, dark gray colored walls, a few paper lanterns hang from the ceiling and a miss match of tables and chairs. There is a small prep area with about 2-3 stools and the kitchen is partially open, all in all I was not impressed with the atmosphere and quite frankly expected much more. We were greeted by friendly staff that seated us quickly and gave us our menu’s and almost as quickly returned asking if we were ready to order. Sending her away she returned in a couple of minutes, so to give us breathing time I ordered an appetizer of salt and pepper calamari with hot tea for me and iced for my daughter. The order came back to us in less than 5 minutes with the hot and iced tea arriving a tad bit sooner and of course we were not yet ready to order. I do believe by this time our waitress understood that we actually wanted to read the menu and decide what we wanted instead of just jumping in and opting for the first item in view. We decided on the Godzilla roll ($12.00), a crab and spicy tuna, shrimp, tempura shrimp, avocado, cucumber, asparagus roll topped with seared tuna and finished with sweet soy and wasabi aioli and the 6 piece Sashimi ($9.00) which was the fish of the day or better, what was available. To our good fortune we got Salmon and Hamachi, which for the price was okay but not a great value. Presentation was nice, served on a long oval white platter the roll was about 10” in length, with the tail of a tempura shrimp bringing in the end of roll, a cute arrangement. The aioli was drizzled in the platter and dollops of wasabi and ginger rounded out the dish. As one can imagine with all of the ingredients listed above the roll was quite large and taking the usual one bite per slice was a bit much. Even though I opted for the first one this way I cut the rest in two so I could chew and breathe at the same time. The flavors of the ingredients were fresh and artfully arranged and with the aioli it was an enjoyable taste. Let me not forget the salt and pepper Calamari which was tempura battered and fried to a golden brown and paired with the sweet chili sauce was absolutely suburb. Tea bags instead of loose are used and they offer iced green tea, the usual assortment of soft drinks and a children’s menu offering corn dogs, mac and cheese, chicken nuggets and teriyaki chicken are available. Prices range from $3.00 to $18.00 for the Sushi combo plate and they offer the usual rolls, sushi, nigiri sushi, and basic maki and combo platters. The mid-day diner can enjoy a bento lunch consisting of house soup, house salad, tempura vegetables, steamed rice, California/tuna/spicy/tuna roll until 4PM. Only when our meal was done did we notice a chalk board to the right of the door which offered several really nice specials one of which was a soft shell crab combo. Alas there was no mention of any specials to us or as we listened to the other diners, they do not offer beer, or wine. Rating: Food 8, atmosphere 3, service 6