Great Chow China Buffet — Restaurant in Augusta

This restaurant was below my expectations and experience in Asian style buffets. The ownership needs a lot of work to improve the quality of the food, especially for the price!

$60 for the buffet with 2 soft drinks and 2 waters (party of 4 - 2 adults and 2 Elementary Aged Children) - too pricey for the quality and warmth of the food!

They offer $1 off for military discount.

We arrived about 45 minutes after the restaurant opened. It looked very clean and the lighting over the buffet area looked very inviting. There was a lingering smell that was unpleasant when walking in.

The staff was very nice and did a good job clearing our table as needed and drink refills.

The food presentation was good and had a good color. Overall, most of the food we tried was lukewarm at best. This is partly due to the kitchen over filling the pans that go into the warmers. Other reasons could be mechanical failure of equipment and/or kitchen staff is reheating product partially.

A few items were seasoned well and had a good texture. Most items lacked a good season and was very bland. Pair this with a lukewarm state and this is very subpar. It is very unlikely that we will return to this restaurant!

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Please review my notes about the food I tried below.

• Fried Shrimp - Cold and sitting for a while. Tasted like it was reheated and not cooked fresh. • Clams good and flavorful • Mushrooms taste fresh and flavorful • Coconut Shrimp taste good • Cheesy spinach not creamy lukewarm bland • Sushi is a little chewy and dry • Seafood bake is good and flavorful and lukewarm • Fried dumplings are lukewarm but good flavor • Cheesy mussels lukewarm but flavorful • Yellow rice bland and lukewarm • Ribs cold, chewy, and tough. Taste boiled. Sauce not paired well with ribs • Crawfish cooked bland but right texture and natural flavor • Fried fish seasoned good, but lukewarm • Baked salmon bland, but fair. The red sauce didn’t have much flavor. • Pepper steak great flavor and texture but cold • Ham Sausage link great smoke flavor but lukewarm. One of the best items tried! • Chicken on a stick is cooked good and a slight char flavor lukewarm • Bacon wrapped pork not a good flavor and lukewarm- needs to be grilled longer and salt, pepper, and garlic powder is all seasoning needed on the pork. The sauce doesn’t pair well

Dessert: • Flan is good, with a firm texture • Cheese cake not good • Eclair stale and bland • Strawberry mousse is well balanced • Fried donuts very...

To the bad reviews, people are not really reviewing the place for what it is - A great variety of decent food at a great price. If you want a fancy experience, go somewhere fancier! If you want to avoid anxiety at looking at the bill, go to Great Chow!

Overall, It's ok. I rate it at 3.5 stars, but since I can't do that I'll give Great Chow the benefit and round it up to 4. There are plenty of options to choose from, but I think that's also a weakness. If there were fewer, but more quality options, I think people would overall be happier.

The service isn't too bad, but far from top of the line. The first time I came in, it took about 2 minutes of waiting around to be directed to a table. There was no one else waiting besides me, and there were 2 employees at the front desk area. I'm pretty chill so it didn't bother me too much, but it would seriously bother others. If there's a reason that the two employees can't help me right away, they should acknowledge my presence with a "Hi, I'll be with you in just a minute" and everything would have been gravy. My waitress on both visits was fairly nice -- same waitress both times. The second time she did drop my bill on the table face-down early into the visit. Personally, I like this because I hate waiting to ask for checks. But, most others would feel very rushed, and it would rub them far the wrong way.

The reason I like this place is the price -- the food is good enough for the price (which IIRC was about $7 for the buffet, ~$2 for the drink, and then left a tip of about $2 bucks), was around $11 dollars all together for lunch. Compared to my other favorite place, Izumi's, which is $14 at lunch for just the buffet, no drink and no tip included. So the price is really decent, and the food is decent, and a lot of the time I want to eat a lot of decent food without feeling bad at looking at the bill!

So, compared to Izumi's, the food is of a good bit lower quality, the service is not as good (but should be easily remedied -- just some basic manners are lacking) but it's vastly cheaper.

Overall, I feel like most of the time I will go to Great Chow for a buffet if I'm feeling like really eating because the value is good. However, if I want to have a fancier experience with better quality food (so for a birthday celebration, promotion celebration, etc) I will probably...

This will be our last time ever going to Great Chow. We was there around 5pm 3/21/25, had (or should I say tried to have) dinner with your kids. But the food was so horrible you couldn't hardly eat it. My husband couldn't eat because the meat was cooked way to hard, the veggies wasn't cooked enough (maybe 5 minutes) they was hard like you would go out and pick them out of your garden and eat right there. The rice was very dry to the point it had no flavor. My oldest son loved going there to eat but he even said he was done with it. He complained about the egg rolls being dry and tasteless, the broccoli to hard he couldn't bit it. The chicken being cooked to hard and being dry. He didn't even get the lo mien noodles like normal because his word they look dried out( which they was). The shrimp was way over cooked that it was either hard or chewy basically not eatable. The wings was cooked so long they was dried out. The fried dumplings was burnt and tasteless. I even tried a fresh batch that was brought out but they was the same. When you tell someone that the food was cooked to long all you get is "oh I tell someone". You want to go some place to eat something "good" but you pay for crap and all they offer is there is nothing we can do about it. You don't even get to talk with anyone in charge just an employee that is supposedly some sort of manager without the manager title. Not worth the money they charge for it at all. You will be very disappointed if you go there. Too many there while we was there was sending back plates barely with any food off it. They all said the same thing about the food. Too dry, tasteless, and over cooked. Its a shame that they can't get any better help that is willing to cook correctly. A waste of $75 that was...