Joy East Chinese Buffet — Restaurant in Austin

This was a tough one, but I have to be honest.

If you don’t care about the clientele and cleanliness, and just want all the food you can eat for a great price; then this is the place for you.

The food was good for the most part, nothing too fancy, okay to good flavor, I was surprised about some of the items that they had such as stir fry clams, bbq spare ribs, plantains, and even hot wings. But I know it’s to cater to some of those who wanted some other variety than just Chinese food, which is honestly not a bad thing. I actually loved the Buffalo wings, wasn’t too saucy or that spicy but bring in a bottle of franks hot sauce or crystals hot sauce and you’re good to go.

My biggest gripe comes from the sanitary side of things.

Walking in, there was a dominant clientele base in there and they seemed surprised to see an Asian person at a….Chinese buffet……yeeeeeeah. I heard one of them say “chinito” and being the only other Asian there other than the staff and cook, it wasn’t hard to determine who they were talking about.

I’ve never felt so uncomfortable but I was there for the food and not them.

Next, to the patrons using the utensils to plate their food, DON’T PUT THE UTENSIL BACK ONTO THE FOOD! For instance, the tongs where your hands would be weren’t off to the side but on the ribs itself! The ribs still looked good and were good, I just had to grab one from the bottom. I even saw this for the chow mein, and some other items but come on people!

Next is that there were obviously kids in there, you can’t avoid that but parents should accompany the kids to help them, although these parents are the type to not care about what they do.

I saw people wiping their hands on their clothes then reaching for another spatula….ugh!

I guess I’m just too much of a clean freak but I am considerate of others and so if I have to go wash my hands, I will gladly do so.

The bathroom wasn’t too great either while we’re on that subject but at least it worked.

I only had one round of food and it was enough for me. I paid and walked out.

For a lunch buffet with a soda, it was around $14 and I added a $2 tip so it was $16ish.

Good food, good price, not so...

Not at all the way it use to be when it first opened 12 to 14 years ago. They had a lot more pride in their presence then I don't know why it's gone downhill maybe it's new management or maybe it's cause of the pandemic that hit but it's just not the same at all. Their donuts were so hard I probably could hit someone with it and knock them out they were hard as rocks. I went around 7pm so dinner should have been served and well underway, if you ask me it seems that they still had lunch food out still everything was just blahhhh, oh my God and their macaroni and cheese deserves a new name for their Mac n cheese like plastic n cheese it was absolutely the worst Mac n cheese I've had in my entire life and that is not a compliment yuck. I can say this though their waitress or table tenders were still up to par just wish they would have quit taking my plastiware everytime they cleared the table, it's just common sense everyone knows you don't take the silverware or plastiware everytime you clear the table it's a buffet rule. Well I wish I could have left a better review but I can't I was very disappointed because this was a favorite place of ours on payday now it's more like I don't know if I will ever go there again. I don't really want to go into bathroom but they were just horrible I had to wait to go home to go to the bathroom because their was no toilet paper the toilet seats were dirty and their were paper towels strewn all over the bathroom yikes 😳😬 and absolute mess seems to me that they also haven't tended to the bathroom since...

I only gave one start because you have to. This place is HORRIBLE I took my little one to the restroom before we began to eat. As we were walking yo the restroom the floor was dirty food and trash on floor nothing a good sweep and mop wouldn't fix. Thought to myself I hope this doest speak for the food quality. Well I should of trusted my gut. Everything I got of the buffet was cold. For instance the egg rolls like warm on outside and cold on inside, I even made my waiter feel how cold it was. The stir fried rice was hard not like under cooked but like it was sitting there for a long time. Well I thought maybe I just happen to get the wrong items. I make a second trip after leaving a full plate on table from it being cold and hard. I got all different items yet once again horrible. The only thing I felt was safe to eat was bread, steamed white rice and soup. The walls were filthy. I attempted to speak to manger and there was a language barrier. So my husband for a Spanish speaking waitress and he asked where the owner was. She pointed him out it looked like he was trying to hide to not deal with the issue. So I ask to speak with him. Everything issue I spoke of he had an excuse. We "tried to clean the walls" "they changed the food after lunch" mind you I was there around 6pm. Everything he had an answer for instead of apologizing and attempting to correct. My husband ate a bit of some fish that was like warm I really hope he doesn't get food poison that's how bad...