Ma Ma China

My husband brought me here and raved about it from his childhood. Well, it was all nostalgia. The buffet was SO gross. I am not a picky eater and I LOVE all types of Chinese. The food was old and I was nervous to eat. I am not a picky eater and totally adventurous. I was nervous about even eating the ice cream. It is a serve yourself system, but one like you would see behind a counter at an ice scream store. Essentially, everyone scooped out of an ice cream bucket. I don’t think that’s very sanitary.

Probably the most consistently good Chinese buffet.

I hope to be deleting this review very soon. I am a regular at Ma Ma China in Raytown and have been for many years. In all those years I have not seen them slip as they have this past 3 weeks. It appears that either something is wrong with the hot tables or someone has ordered the heat to be lowered in order to save on utilities. Not only is the food being served at a health risk level (lukewarm egg drop soup?) but I personally like a hot meal to be more than warm. Some will not care and most of the food is probably still safe, but I have decided that I will give them one more try (number 3) and then sadly have to delete them from my lunch list if the problem is not corrected. I will overlook the inexcusably jerky tough General Tso’s Chicken that I spat into a napkin yesterday as being a one time occurrence — although another first for this Chinese buffet that has long been my favorite. If the problem is corrected on my next visit I will delete this update and leave standing my original 5 star review. By the way, I did try to make a polite complaint, but was not understood by the waitress.

So I don’t know how it has four stars. This is quite possibly the worst Chinese I’ve had that I can recall. The food is sloppily made, almost frozen food quality. Almost. Just generally kind of gross. Even for dive Chinese. It reminds me of a truck stop diner. The food was sitting under a heat lamp for I don’t know how long. I wasn’t expecting miracles but it’s pretty bad quality. For Chinese I’ll stick to raytown to-​go.

It’s just not very good. The general tso’s tasted like ketchup. The sesame chicken tasted like ketchup. The egg drop soup tasted like the sea. Meh.

Best Chinese buffet around, mainly due to fact the food is always fresher than ANY buffet around. I’ve eaten here since they opened and my college boy was a toddler. I saw a couple of reviews said the food was old and can’t believe it! This is standard Chinese fare but it is well cooked and always fresh! I’ve eaten here for normal lunch and dinner and it’s always busy then so of course food turns quickly, BUT I’ve also eaten late lunch at 2, early dinner at 3:30, and late dinner at 9:00… Food was still fresh… at slack times they don’t fill the pans up so they don’t waste food, but restock immediately as you take.

Great buffet, attentive waitresses, clean windows, well liked by many I have treated there. Raytown has 3 options for Chinese, and this is the best hands down.

Just your standard, run-​of-​the-​mill Chinese restaurant. Nothing really special. Food was good, warm but wasn’t real fresh, but it was around 2:30 when we ate. Would possibly be back.

Great family Chinese Buffet. Reasonably priced and good fresh food.

We always come back, the people are nice and the food is always fresh no matter what time you go in.

Nasty nasty nasty. The place is dirty and the meat reminds me of what a chopped up cat might taste like. Go across town to China town!

The lunch buffet is superb. Everything is hot and fresh and delicious. The service is stellar as well.

I enjoy this place! The owners are super nice. They act as though they remember you every time yoy come in no matter how long ago that was. The food is good. I also love the to go boxes they allow toy to fill up yourselves. Great job for being consistent with your service!

I enjoy this place. I usually head for the buffet to get the honey chicken and rice and the chicken on a stick. It’s not bad, not fantastic — it’s a good value for the money.

These folks accomplish what few restaurants do — their food is consistently fresh and delicious.

I ordered last night and the food was horrible! The fried rice was old and the beef looked spoiled! The crab rangoon was as hard as a brick! I’ll never eat there again, horrible experience!

I’m from California and I was pretty much raised on Chinese food. Ok, Chinese/​American might be a better term. Whatever you call it I love it. So when my wife and I moved to the Raytown area we started looking for a good Chinese food place. We found it here.
My wife and I regularly do take out from Mama Chinas. Our favorites are the Hunan Beef and General Tso’s Chicken although we generally pick a couple of other different dishes from the menu to try when we do take out. General Tso’s is not a really popular dish back home in California but here it’s very popular and Mama China serves the best I’ve had in the KC area. Most restaurants their General Tso’s gets soggy very quickly. Not here. Here’ it’s very crispy. So nicely crispy is the dough that when we do takeout I can warm it up later and it’s still got that nice soft crunch.
The chicken fried rice is also worth mentioning. Always perfectly made with huge chunks of chicken. The same can also be said for the shrimp fried rice. Big chunks of shrimp that will satisfy most shrimp lovers.
In the end this is very much your typical inexpensive Chinese buffet in terms of price and food. The difference is the quality of the food which is top notch.

We’ve driven by here several times. My wife was a bit apprehensive in trying it out. She finally decided to go and off we went.
We were shown to our seats and took to the buffet. There was a selection of much of what you’d expect if you’ve ever been to a Chinese buffet. Lots of chicken items, lots of veggies, lots of seafood. There were also lots of people. Very busy place. That also provides for a lot of turnover for food, so it stays pretty fresh. I don’t eat much Chinese. My usual is a couple of teriyaki chicken on a stick, some white rice, and potatoes if they have them. Here, I also picked up some salmon, which was nice. They also had a honey chicken. I liked that. I also got some of the sweet and sour chicken without the sauce. Very good. My wife loves Chinese food. There was a walnut shrimp which had some coconut and pineapple flavor that she liked. She said the lo mein noodles were ok, but there was a bit of an odd flavor to them.
The service was very business-​like and efficient. Plates were swept and drinks were refilled quickly. The food was solid. The price was unbeatable. After getting similar meals at places like Joy Wok, this was significantly cheaper. We both drank water and got the buffet. Less than $ 20 for both of us together. Quite cost effective.
A few tips, the place is quite busy, so the parking lot tends to be very full. We were lucky to get a spot up front, but it is fairly limited parking. Lots of people get the food take-​out, so there is often many people at the buffet bars. Joy Wok does have a larger selection, as well as some American fare on their buffet bars. Ma Ma China is all Chinese and not nearly the selection. However, what they put out is of great quality and very tasty. We will be back, maybe for take-​out.

I have to admit after seeing the reviews. I thought for sure this place would be better than most Chinese restaurants. I’ll be honest one thing I’ve learned when you see signs like «Top 100 best Chinese restaurant.» It never ceases to majorly disappoint me.
The food was super greasy, some very old from sitting for a long time which was hard to believe considering the ridiculous amount of people in this establishment. Noodles were bland, any of the specialty chicken was disgusting with breading that was mushy. The seasoning for general’s chicken, sesame chicken was way off queue. Egg rolls & crab Rangoon were decent but how can you really go wrong there?
My favorite thing about this entire experience was the option to sit in a smoking section. LOL! We probably won’t return.

Ma Ma China… why have we avoided you for so long. As most of your know food cravings can be cyclical. You go for a while in a general pattern, and we went for a long cycle of asian buffet cravings. We always hopped in the car, drove from South KC past Ma Ma China to East Buffet over near the former Blue Ridge Mall site. Little did we know that we were missing out.
We just happened in today on a whim, and once we remembered that most Raytown restaurants (Cough, Cough) have smoking sections, we were all set! This buffet is in a very dull shopping center, but inside the energy is high and the vibe is right. You can see it all over the faces of happy diners. I knew we were in for something good when I saw who was eating there. When we pulled up there were at least three AT&T trucks in the parking lot, later inside, two priests showed up, the mail man eats there, do I need to go on?! This is one of the places to be in Raytown and we have been missing out.
Everything on the buffet is hot and fresh, and plentiful. The restaurant was busy during lunch but their supply of every item remained in generous supply. They have all of the offerings you would expect of a good Asian buffet, plus I noticed that they spelled Buttered Crab Meat with a «C» and not a «K». A very good sign.
Two buffets, two drinks, about $ 18 bucks. you cant beat it with a stick!

Ma Ma China ALWAYS has cars in the parking lot and I have wondered why? This week I had occasion to find out. And now I understand why. I was with two of my teenage grand-​kids and they were hungry! As in «Feed me… feed me now!» HUNGRY. They love Chinese food, as do I, and I happened to think of Ma Ma China on Raytown Road, not too far from where we were.
It was after two: thirty on a Thursday afternoon and I wasn’t sure whether there would be much on the buffet at that time of the day or whether it would be fresh. But the kids were up for trying it and I need not have worried. There were more than a dozen cars in the parking lot and the two steam tables were laden with plenty of fresh, tasty choices that were still being replenished as needed. There is also a chilling table for salads, fruit, dessert, etc. and, again, lots to choose from.
Three unlimited, all you can eat buffets plus a pot of hot tea for me was under $ 22.00 (one can easily spend that amount at a fast food place for burgers, fries and drinks) and it was all good, solid, middle of the road Chinese. I personally had some Cashew Chicken, Broccoli & Beef, and a dish with Shrimp and Vegetables along with Fried Rice, a Spring Roll, a couple of Crab Rangoon, a stuffed mushroom and deep-​fried mushrooms and a cup of egg drop soup with Wonton strips. I also had fresh fruit and chocolate pudding but was too full to get any of the ice cream that my grandson had, but his looked good.
I love the serve yourself buffet because you can tailor serving sizes to suit your own appetite and even go back for seconds if something really appeals to your taste.
The staff was very attentive, clearing our used plates quickly. And the restaurant space was clean, neat and cheerful. Now that I have been there once, I expect I will go again. And I better understand just why all those cars are always in the parking lot.