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| - This place just opened in the Northside strip mall along Sherman that is undergoing HEAVY remodeling and construction. We haven't been to any Asian buffets in Madison, but we know that Madison has been hurting for a really good one--QQ Asian Buffet should fill that need.
Before we get to the food--the restaurant is clean and the wait staff is very nice. The first thing that we did when we showed up was ask if we could look at the buffet before we decided to eat there, and they had no problem with that. Sure, not EVERY waiter/waitress smiles at you, but they were WAY nicer than the wait staff at most of the Asian buffet places we've been to before.
Now the food--the quality of most of the dishes at the buffet was MUCH better than most of the food we've had at sit-down/take-out Chinese places we've tried here in Madison, which is a rarity. Usually you'd have to give up quality for quantity at an Asian buffet.
Some of the dishes that particularly impressed us was the crab rangoon, Chinese donuts, General Tsao's chicken, sesame chicken, and anything with shrimp (fried shrimp, coconut shrimp, and one other shrimp dish with a sauce and peppers). None of the dishes were overly greasy and had a good balance of ingredients (like, when we had a pot sticker there was a good amount of filling compared to the wrapper). Even the non-Asian fare was pretty good: the pizza (but for some reason I'm a sucker this cheap item) and even ice cream were tasty.
The kitchen staff was constantly refilling and replacing platters, and you could tell that the food was being freshly made in the back. Even the fruits and cakes in the dessert bar looked fairly fresh (the cakes may not have been made at the restaurant, but they looked good).
As for the minuses, you have to pay an extra $4.99 for crab legs. We have NEVER seen a buffet tack on an extra fee for a specific dish before, Asian or not. We would have liked to have seen more noodle dishes, and the one they had, a lo mein dish, left much to be desired. The selection was good, but we've been to places with many more dishes to choose from.
The lunch buffet is around $8 and the dinner buffet is about $11 a person. Give this place a try--Madison does not want to lose such a great quality Chinese restaurant since there are so few good ones out here!
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