Ginger Buffet and Grill

Very oily! I’ve eaten there twice. I got sick both times. There are better buffets in the area.

Last two times there was horrible. 1^st time was there with a group for a birthday. after one refill of drinks it was like pulling teeth to get them to refill our drinks. After a second plate they no longer picked up the dirty plates just left them on our table. They were defiantly hurrying us out of there.
Second visit was a group. The lady came running out of the restaurant yelling that one of the group didn’t pay. We all saw her pay matter of fact she was the first person to pay. Was very embarrassing. Food is mediocre at best. There has to be a better place around.

This is my favorite chinese buffet in this area. They give a military discount. The food is really good, and they have chinese, Japanese, and American cuisine. I love having toasted ravioli and sushi lol. They also have a fresh food grill section made while you wait. It is kind of out of the way, but worth finding it! They have free wifi so you can have a working lunch.

I’ve been taking road trips to race tracks in the SE and MW and usually eat a dinner at a local Chinese buffet. A guy who works w/​me and I go to one for lunch every Fri. I’ve eaten at quite a few over the years. I was in the area for an event at Gateway Motorsports Park and staying in Caseyville, IL. I found Ginger up the road in Fairview Heights in the phone book and checked out the reviews, which were decent. Although the $ 10.99 price seemed a bit high, it was Fri. night and I figured they put out the good stuff.
There are 4 tables of food plus the sushi and Mongolian BBQ stations. The sushi was OK but I’m not a big sushi eater anyway. I did not try the BBQ because it was cooked to order and I didn’t want to wait. The peel & eat shrimp had to be the tiniest ones I’ve ever seen on a buffet — they were practically salad shrimp — not worth the trouble. So too the snow crab — try sucking crab through a straw. Thus, the premium items were a joke. Most of the Chinese dishes I tried were so so at best, although I like the egg foo young and a mushroom and chicken dish. American items like BBQ ribs, baked fish, chicken wings, etc. were sub par. Other than the wings, no fried chicken or fish, usually a good fallback if nothing else floats your boat. The bottom line is that it was an $ 8 buffet for $ 11. I’m giving it 3 starts w/​the benefit of the doubt that maybe the Mongolian BBQ is the ticket.

Amazing always leave satisfied although like every other buffet go around the normal lunch and dinner times when the food is fresh. The hibachi grill they have is good and it does not cost extra well worth it just for this.

Not a bad buffet. Food was good, service was mediocre. I had to tell the waitress to fill up my glass 3 times which was one time too many. The best thing on the buffet are the vegetables egg rolls.

Food tasted like it had been sitting around for hours. Not impressed at all.

Much better sushi selection since they remodeled a year ago.

I love going to eat here and I always enjoy the food and atmosphere. They really did a great job with the remodel. My favorite food here is the Teriyaki Chicken, and the Mongolian Grill.

I would had rated Ginger higher, because in the past they were probably one of the better Chineese buffets in the area, however my last two experiences have left me a little bit disappointed. The food seems to be average, with nothing really standing out as being great. The owners are currently remodeling the dining room, so it is possible that their attention isnt so much on the food at this time, perhaps this will change when they finish their remodel.

Can’t recommend. I mean, this place is ok. Even when compared with other local Chinese buffet’s it falls into the pack of the average. They do have a huge selection.

It was good, but not fantastic. I am not sure if I would drive that far to visit again. There are five different buffet lines — one is dessert and salad, the next is the typical chicken with sauce, rice, etc., the next is the Mongolian bbq, fourth is random stuff — duck, chicken on a stick, teriyaki, pizza, shells and cheese, hash browns, etc., the last is seafood and a few more random items. I tried to get a little of everything, but there was really no way — soooo much food. I loved loved loved the little sugar biscuits, which were stuck on the buffet next to the duck. I also liked the little sushi they had, the Mongolian bbq, the hot shrimp, the peel and eat shrimp and the chick on a stick. The peanut butter chicken was absolutely disgusting! The egg drop soup was ok, but salty. The pizza was nasty. Overall, everything seemed to be missing spice (besides salt) and flavor. It seems to be dumbed down even more than this type of fake Chinese is usually.
Bottom line — I won’t go out of my way to go there again, but might take a group there as there is something for everybody and it is pretty good for a great price.

Lets start by saying his isnt real chinese duh*
Also the sushi-​probably fake. K
It is fantastic if you want a good meal on a budget, they have a good variety and the selection is always consistent quality
great place to go always kids, dates-​the 10 cine is across the street and cheap– and you leave with a happy tummy there’s even pizza and crab legs and ooooh the potstickers.
lunch is 6.99
dinner 8.99
serve yourself
sometimes they have these almond or coconut mound cookies
amaze-​balls!

Not bad for a buffet in St. Louis. Buffets are a dime a dozen because most Americans are now fatties with an unlimited gut. This place you get your bang for your buck. They have some pretty tasty sauces to put on your food and the «sushi» isn’t bad either. The best Mongolian grill in the area. It’s worth checking out if you live in the Metro East.

Good Chinese buffet. So many others in the area have gone out of business over the past few years. This one seems to be the best that’s around right now.
Had lunch there today with a friend. Good selection, good taste, everything that was supposed to be warm was warm, and cold cold. I’d recommend.

It’s one of the good buffets I’ve tried, though it’s been a couple years since I’ve visited. They’ve had, at least in the past, coconut chicken… or was it shrimp? Either way, the sauce on it is amazing, and I wish I knew how to make it.

Ginger Buffet is not the place to go for authentic Chinese food, that’s true, but I think its offerings are similar to most Chinese Buffets with definite bonuses. I always make a beeline for the Mongolian grill and pile up my plate with all the seafood offerings. There’s usually a line of 1 – 2 people waiting to get their food cooked, so after I tell the chef my choice of sauce, I usually grab a bowl of soup (the hot and sour is excellent) and drop it off at my table. There’s a tip jar sitting next to the grill, and I don’t mind paying a little extra, since I usually go for the lunch buffet, which I believe is about $ 7 – 8. You get a lot of food for that!
Most of the prepared dishes are pretty good; I especially like the peanut butter chicken, even though I know there’s nothing remotely Chinese about it. They always have a good selection of fresh fruit and the little sugar-​covered donuts are MAGICAL.
Service is very good — used plates don’t languish on the table and drinks get refilled very promptly. This place is usually pretty busy, but there’s tons of seating, so I’ve never had to wait more than a minute or two to sit down.

Chinese buffets are a minefield. They are a mixed blessing, promising exotic and familiar fare with no waiting, and a wide variety of dishes to pick and choose from. Too often, the most that can be said is; «Well, the food sucks, but there’s lots of it.» Not so at the Ginger Buffet. This is one of the good ones.
For under ten bucks, they serve freshly made sushi — made on the premises — and while they have their share of the ubiquitous roll sushi, they also serve salmon nigiri, and yellowtail, and unagi. Yep. That’s right. For about ten bucks. All you want.
They also have a Mongolian grill, allowing you to mix up your own little specialties and have them cooked for you. And they don’t scrimp either; you can have scallops and shrimp, as well as chilled snow crab legs and mussels. Often its the seafood that gets the heave-​ho first as cost savings go into effect. Not here.
The tea is meh. There. I said it. It’s that urn-​made oolong-​ish brew that is warm and wet and lacks any other defining characteristic.
The bulk of the cooking here is okay; above average, but not show-​stopping. Here, it’s the little things that more than make up for it. Lychees on the dessert table; really decent salads. They have a mixed Caesar salad here loaded with garlic and shredded Parmesan. Yow. Not Chinese, sure. But really good for you.
Good value, and I never regretted any of my visits — which I can’t say for all of the Chinese buffets in the area.

Ginger is an above-​average Chinese buffet in Fairview Heights. Honestly, I don’t judge Chinese buffets on the quality of their food so much as the value that the price of admission provides. Value is what you’ll find at Ginger, because it has a large selection, a lot of seafood (in the evenings) and a Mongolian BBQ grill where you can create your own stir fry. The price of admission is just over $ 10 a person. Not bad.
Ginger also has a wide variety of standard dishes that are pretty good, including some excellent Won Ton Soup. They serve all-​you-​can-​eat crab legs when the seafood buffet is offered. When they have fresh lobster, they tend to go for broke; I’ve seen some enormous lobsters hanging out in their front tank that are way bigger than anything you’d find at Red Lobster. (The lobsters are sold by the pound, and it’s likely that some of these would be great for a group of people.)
So, what’s not to like about Ginger? I don’t think the food is too authentic; it all seems to be the Americanized varieties of chicken, beef and pork. Sometimes, they have duck, but the way they prepare it isn’t that great. They also have some pretty poor dessert offerings, which seems to be the standard for Chinese restaurants. (If you can find the Chinese Donuts, which are basically just fried dough balls dipped in sugar, or the sesame balls, which taste like they’re fried balls of chocolate wrapped in dough with a sesame seed crust), they’re far superior to those awful pre-​made pastries that taste like wax.
The atmosphere of Ginger is pretty dull. It’s a large restaurant with ample seating for really fat people. This seems like the place that people go when Lotawata Creek is too busy. I have seen some enormous people waddling up to the seafood buffet.
All in all, a worthy place to go for a Chinese buffet dinner, but if you want real Chinese food, there are better options.