China Buffet

Had been here before, when they had more variety of choices, this place seems to be in a steady decline.

My kids like this place– so a star for that. And if you go on a busy night when they have to make dishes fresh. It is pretty good. Tonight was not that night.
Couple of things to remember about Bloomington Chinese Buffets– If you want the biggest, go for Mr. Hibachi (in the old Ryan’s Steakhouse building east of the mall) If you want good food, but smaller space, Great Wall on North Walnut is a good choice. This was the place to go for cheap, but if the quality isn’t there, which tonight it was not, there is no reason to come.
The buffet is small– two hot bars the size of the one I posted in picture. There are the usual chinese buffet choices– chicken and beef dishes, a couple of veggie only choices, and a couple of «american» choices like mac and cheese and mashed potatoes so your kids will eat something. There is an attempt at a cold bar with something that I think wanted to be salad, some fruit and jello. Some rolled sushi, which I avoided, and a dessert bar with ice cream.
I used to love to come here. My kids still do, so we may come back. But this is the second time where I thought the food on the buffet was either cold, old or both. I was very disappointed.
They are trying to remodel the dining area, saw lots of booths gone and new tables in the floor waiting for assembly. So I hope that means they are trying… however, I might (not so humbly) suggest looking at the food in addition to dressing up the lobby.
As for cost– drink is included in price here, where it isn’t on other buffets in town. But we still came in 30+ for family of 4 (including reduced kids price for under 10)
And finally– look at the dates on the Unilocal reviews here– the 4 and 5 star reviews are dated 2012 and 2011. The 1 and 2 stars are from 2014. Be warned.

It had been a couple years since I last ate here so I went with a friend. The price had skyrocketed. $ 22 for 2 people was a surprise and made me think they had revamped their buffet. I was wrong. It was 7pm on a Thursday. Most of the buffet was empty and the food they did have was bland or mushy. I used to come here all the time in college and it was decent, but now it’s gross and extremely overpriced. I’ll never go back.

Now this place tends to be the worse Chinese buffet place in town. I visited there recently around 6pm. Almost all dishes they had at that time were about half of the box, and they were the dishes I had for lunch there some time. I was one of no more than 4 customers at that time. All this means those dishes were leftovers from the lunch time. And around 7pm, they started to serve some typical dinner dishes, like some fish and fried cocktail shrimps.
But when I first came in and all my choices were only some typical lunch dishes like different chickens, they still charged me dinner price.

This buffet located in the 3^rd street in Bloomington. You can take the 3 road that can arrived very near the buffet from the campus. As a Chinese, the taste of buffet is not so amazing as I thought before. It is sweeter than the real Chinese dishes. However it has so many kinds of dishes that you can choose to enjoy. My favorite dish in there is the candied sweet potato, which is has really special taste. The price for China Buffet is different in different time. For example, during Sunday, the price is highest in a week but the dishes are really rich; during Monday to Saturday, the price is different at noon and at night– it is about 7 – 8 dollars at noon but 8 – 9 dollars at night. In Sunday, the price will be 9 – 10 dollars. The waiter there are all kind. Sometimes they will introduce some new dishes for you. It is empty during the weekdays but will be much more people in weekend. In general, it is a clean restaurant and I will give it a four-​star rank.

Wow what a dump! Make sure you’ve got all your shots before you set foot in the place.
The food was a total mess, the few decent items they had were just bad.
Don’t waste your time.

The food here isn’t amazing, but I’m not sure you’re expecting that. What’s the draw to China Buffet? How about all you can eat for $ 8, and that includes the drink! So even though the food isn’t amazing, it really doesn’t need to be. China Buffet is a great place to go to fill you up if you’re starving!
I had a variety of things. What I liked the best was the Lo Mein. The spring rolls/​egg rolls weren’t really anything fantastic though. The service was good. All of the staff was exceptionally nice.
Basically, you’re not going to get a better bang for your buck in all of Bloomington. This is a pretty good deal. Check it out.

If I’m extremely hungry then China Buffet is my go to spot. The place is cheap and the food (though not the most authentic) is pretty good. They offer a nice selection of different food items. I always destroy the clams and chicken and broccoli every time I go there.
When I’m with my friends we usually always end up going to China Buffet. You can’t really beat it. Probably my favorite Chinese Buffet besides Great Wall.

I eat here pretty much every Friday now. That’s testimony, people. China Buffet is pretty darn good, but please know that it belongs to the hole-​in-​the-​wall semi-​dive category of restaurants. Actually, I hate to admit it, but at first I really didn’t want to go eat here. Bad past experiences with mall buffets and all that. But hurray for me for caving ! (My kid was nuts, I was starving, and well, Cheeseburger in Paradise is my personal seventh circle of hell.) No MSG, a wide variety of dishes, and not *insanely* greasy. I mean, in my book some grease is good, but if you don’t go for that, you can eat broccoli and chicken or mushroom and squash. (And if you DO go for fried stuff and critter served many ways, well, you’ll have a lot of choices.) As for Jeff L., I’ve never had anything that was cold that wasn’t supposed to be cold. (Ice cream in the dessert bar!) The food is also fresh. It’s true. I was surprised, but they do brisk business, at least a regular lunch and dinner time, and there’s quite a bit of turnover. Also, if you’re vegetarian you can eat here, though not as well as your meat-​eating friends — there are always a couple of veg sauté dishes and a salad bar, and sometimes veg. spring rolls.

Chinese buffet places are pretty hit or miss usually… and this is a miss. Hadn’t eaten here in some time, and now I remember why. I think everything I ate was cold. Not lukewarm… COLD. Horrible selection, subpar food. It was cheap, so that’s a plus, but other than that there is nothing going for this place. the Great Wall is 100x better, so if you need a Chinese buffet go there or somewhere else, just not here!

NOT vegetarian friendly. I checked the buffet out two times (once later at night and around 6 pm) and the only thing without meat was an egg roll, lo mein, and fried rice. They had a salad bar but the fruit was way past its freeze-​thaw-​freeze point and the lettuce was wilted.