Spring Buffet — Restaurant in City of Ithaca

Not as good as the day it opened, and it wasn't very tasty then, either.

On the positive side, Spring Buffet has a goodly number of more-Asian-than-American dishes on the buffet.

On the negative side, it's pricy. Depending on where you sit, it can be nice or it can be downright institutional. Some of the more interesting dishes get cool before they empty out enough to be refilled. Few of the dishes have a distinctive good taste that you'll remember for long. The dishes may be colorful, but the lasting impression is, well, beige.

Yes, there is sushi. Sometimes, it sits too long and loses the tangy flavor that makes sushi so special.

Yes, there is a hibachi table (mongolian BBQ?). But, is it all that different from the steam table offerings? On the plus side, you can be sure it's freshly cooked.

Too many salad dishes of the American style. You want lettuce? Go to a supermarket.

Dessert table has some variety, but after one visit you'll have exhausted it. Does not compare favorably to a real chinatown-style dessert selection. And ice cream flavors are picked (as is sadly typical in so many buffets) for color rather than flavor variety.

Update - 08-Feb-2020

Confirming 3 stars, but maybe only 2.

My first time at Spring Buffet on a Saturday night. Much more crowded than previous visits, but they handled the crowd.

Now the down side.

My wife and I agreed, the only item that was truly tasty was the miso soup. Everything else was between bland and beige. Some notes:

breaded, fried shrimp: I've read that french fries are the perfect medium for conveying cooking oil into the human body. Not so. The fried shrimp was so greasy, you could see and feel the grease squeezing out of it with each bite. sushi: actually had a yen for sushi, that's why we visited Spring Buffet. Taste on all items was off, possibly because it was warm. Had been sitting. AND, they ran out of pickled ginger as we arrived, did not refill, ever. salt and pepper shrimp: rubbery, as in overcooked. Contained delicate slices of jalapeno...if you define the Rock of Gibraltar as "delicate". shu mai (pork dumplings): rubbery. seriously chewy skins. vegetables: practically non-existent except for the American salad table. Maybe that's 'cause this is a Chinese AND American restaurant. But wait, there's a huge variety of vegetables in Asia, right? Missing at this buffet. tofu: OK, maybe Americans don't need tofu. But. We found only two dishes with any hint of tofu: the aforementioned miso soup (tofu scarce) and the "mixed vegetable" dish (tofu disguised). food temperature: even with the frequent resupply of the steam tables, the food was only passably warm. Health Department rules are a wee bit too strict, maybe, but this wasn't even close. Even with the rapid churning of food (from kitchen to customer), more than a few dishes sat too long and, even at the lower temperature, they dry out and get rubbery. ice cream temperature: on the other hand, it appears that keeping the ice cream dessert at a rock-hard temperature is a cost-saving device. I watched some muscle-bound teens try --unsuccessfully-- to serve themselves scoops. stuffed mushrooms: stuffed with cream cheese? cut yourself a slab of steak: overcooked and grey. Might improve with marination in ketchup. Positively Trumpian. chicken (general tso, sesame, 3rd flavor): actually, not bad. too much breading, though. service: it's hard to describe delivery of a glass of water and the check as service, but I left a modest...

YES THERE IS SUSHI INCLUDED IN THE BUFFET.... but let's be clear here. You'll get what you paid for. This restaurant has mass-produced cheap American Chinese food. It's delicious if you enjoy eating mass-produced American Chinese food. Read that: prepare for a carbohydrate and sugar load like you wouldn't believe. The bulk of their short buffet bars (I'm guessing six or seven of them?) displays dishes like "Sweet and Sour Chicken;" "Seseme Seed Chicken," "Spicy Chicken, etc, and of course egg rolls and egg drop soup etc. But don't fool yourself and think this is authentic food, or even made from scratch. Most of this food (I mean hey the lunch buffet price cost me a little over $8 with tax) is mass-produced and likely came frozen or in bags, then fried or heated in an oven. *I do suggest, however, that you take in the entire buffet, including the side buffets against the walls and the ones in the back. That's where you'll find the sushi and the seafood. (I had steamed shrimp.). It's no accident that those particular dishes are not front and center in the buffet room like the carb- and sugar-rich foods are. I made that mistake and immediately regretted it. The sushi is skimpy with content, but if I had seen it first I would've dived into it. * Can you find healthy food here? Sure, there's a buffet bar with chopped fruit and some scattered "green" options--like a few cheap vegetable spreads and seaweed--but anything else is pretty much just mass-produced frozen foods. The decorations in the restaurant aren't exotic, but the booths are comfortable and seat about four people.... so enjoy your visit, but know what you're going to get... I give this restaurant three stars because of the quality of the food and the low-cost decorations, but if you're a poor college student, coming here on the cheap for all you can eat is a...

Good selection of chicken, dessert and even a little bit of seafood. Took off a star for the poor selection of unappetizing fruits. The restaurant is very spacious and equipped with interesting and tasteful indoor decors. Whether it’s a company meet-up or a student hangout, it’s perfect for any occasion. Even if it’s simply you taking your wife to a cheap place for dinner to compensate for your crippling debt (very competitive pricing here) and rescue your failing marriage, this place would serve the purpose. The chicken is sweet and tasty like the lies that media feeds us; I especially liked the Kong Pao chicken. As you sit down with a plate filled with myriad types of chicken on the round, faux leather seat near the window, you may contemplate your life choices and your existence as a whole, how no matter how loud you scream it will only be a whisper at a concert of history, no matter how hard you thrash it will only be a ripple in the river of time. Do we live in a simulation? Are your loved ones even real? They say it takes hundreds times the capacity of a hard drive to emulate a hard drive. Are there infinite realities where every time you make a decision you die in some of them? Maybe on your drive to here you died in a car accident in one of the realities? We will never know the truth since this is beyond human comprehension; we could be an alien kid’s science fair project for all we know. Don’t think about it too hard. Welcome to...