There used to be a couple of really good ones here in ELP

Uncle Bao's used to have great General Tso's chicken, and the rest of the stuff was excellent, but it has gone downhill

Same for Grand China Buffet, one of the biggest buffets you have ever seen, including Vegas. Started very good, then it also went downhill.

Nothing good in El Paso anymore

Great Wall Super Buffet in Lakewood, CO. Excellent chinese BBQ pork, dumplings, and spicy tuna rolls. What's amusing is that the Rocky Mountain News food critic reviewed the place and gave it a C+ grade. They have the article framed and mounted on the wall. Actually, he didn't really have anything terrible to say about the place.

One buffet in town (L.D. Buffet) offers mayo shrimp...in the warm section. It looked very unappetizing.

Here in Albany (ALB) that would be hands down Dragon Buffet which offers the usual chinese buffet fare, an "american" food station, a made fresh mongolian barbecue station (the best thing there), a singapore noodle station, a satay station, and a sushi (their only weak point). Even the ones pretty far out of the city get packed during the week day for lunch since it's like $8/person.

Making me a bit hungry even thinking about it.

This is kinda funny!Here in the San Gabriel Valley-which has a HUGE asian population and only few crummy Chinese buffets(no place I would go to twice-except Todai)versus places where the asian population is small and they have great Chinese buffets!

The dinner buffet at the Conrad Hong Kong is very good. It's pricey at about HK$280.

I noticed this too. I went to Chinatown in SF and the food was far inferior to your average suburban chinese buffet in the LA suburbs, or even the Alexandria, VA suburbs for that matter.

Absolutely, the best is Crazy Buffet:
http://www.gocrazybuffet.com/cborl.html

There are at least three of these, Orlando, Tampa and Palm Beach. They are a high-end sushi bar with 4-5 chefs making sushi (all you can eat) including sashimi and unusual rolls. They have peking duck, mongolian barbecue, 3 more tables of traditional Chinese-American fare, a table of soups, a table of salads (including Kimchee), a table of ice creams and a table of desserts. it's a bit pricey - $11.95 for lunch to $18.95 on a weekend night -- but it's worth it!

All you can eat sashimi....yummmm....

Almost forgot! A table of seafood... crab, shrimp, oysters, etc...

maybe that's because buffets typically have food catered to Westerners and most Chinatown places have more native "Chinese" food.
Anyway, Golden Bear in Southwest Houston is decent.

That's for sure! Sushi and sashimi aren't authentic Chinese food. Most "Chinese" buffets have a bit of everything nowadays to please all palates.

If any of you go to Singapore, try the Jiang-Nan Chun Chinese restaurant in the Four Seasons Hotel. On weekends there is a weekend brunch for SGD $48 (~ US $30) plus 10% service charge plus tax. It's not a buffet where you help yourself at the tables, but there are 100 different dishes that you can order. Dim sum, appetizers, seafood, meats, rice & noodles, desserts, and soups. Everything is made fresh. Eat as many dishes as you can handle. Only restriction is one bowl of Shark's fin soup per person as that is SGD $32 by itself. Portions of dishes are smaller than usual so it's great with three or four persons dining so you can taste everything. Unlimited Veuve Clicquot yellow label Champagne is additional SGD $30 per person. Food is great as we went twice. ^ ^ Just make advance reservations so you don't miss out!

I like buffets.

In addition to the obvious opportunity for gluttony, I like the fact that you can see your food before you commit to it, and you can sample several different dishes without having to buy an entire serving. Although there's often a quality deficit, which is reduced if the buffet is busy or with certain kinds of cuisines (curries) designed to simmer, and there's the temptation to eat even after your marginal utility is negative, I like buffets.

One advantage of a buffet is the fact that you can get in and out fast....you're not hostage to the kitchen or the server.

Unless there's a grazer. I don't mean someone who nibbles away in line (although that can be gross). I mean someone who takes 20 minutes to decide what to eat! Fer cryin out loud! If you don't like it, don't eat it! Leave the plate on your table and go through again! They always bring a Nutritional Anthropologist, and the Nutritional Anthropologist always feels the need to tell them what's in the dish and where they were the first time they tasted it.

Today, I was trapped behind a couple to whom the phrase "Move it or put a house number on it" applied....I probably spent twice as much time waitching my hair turn gray behind them I did shoveling my own gaping maw....

OK. I feel better now. I'm sure I will see them again at the airport this afternoon, when they will no doubt insist on standing on both sides of the moving walkway.

I'm not a fan of buffets. Food standing out with others potentially touching the various selections make them very unappealing to me.

I used to love buffets in my impoverished university days. Now I only limit myself to the rare Sunday brunch or all you can eat sushi excursion (which brings you the food you tick on a list). And it's more for the variety than value since my appetite has gone way down since becoming a cubicle jockey.

Personally, if someone's holding up the buffet line, I try to go around them and come back to stuff they're monopolizing. I don't think they would/should mind. Obviously this may or may not work depending on a variety of factors.

Amen to that. The last buffet I went to, I went alone, didn't bring a book so I entertained myself by watching people in the lines. Don't ever do this if you actually enjoy going to buffets. I have not been back to any type of self serve restaurant since.

Dude: go around.

It does make me think to myself what exactly is taking a full 3 minutes to ponder. Some people just come to a dead stop and freeze in front of a dish as if their soul has left the building. I usually just go around.