East Bay Buffet — Restaurant in Dublin

&tldr; Better food than your average Chinese buffet, but could be improved; not all food selections available at all seatings.

We’ve visited numerous Chinese buffets across the country over the years, and were excited to find that Tri-Valley was finally getting one of their own again. We visited the relatively new East Bay Buffet on a Thursday for lunch, after receiving their Grand Opening flyer/coupon in the mail.

The Good:

There was no line when we arrived just before 1 p.m. The friendly staff checked us in and showed us to our table (I’d guess that the restaurant was at around 20-30% capacity at that hour). Our dirty plates were cleared politely and efficiently during our 90 minute stay, and we were pleased to see that the buffet food trays remained more than adequately fresh and full the entire time (many buffets will let the supply dwindle when getting close to the end of service time). The staff did an admirable job keeping the buffet counters clean and orderly.

The quality and freshness of the ingredients seemed higher than the average Chinese buffet. The rice in the sushi was just the right texture, and the fish all tasted fresh and high quality. The cocktail shrimp were cooked correctly (tender, not overdone/rubbery). The Shu Mai (a dish that can be positively dreadful at some buffets) was fresh and tasty as well. I particularly appreciated that East Bay Buffet includes some more authentic/traditional items that most other buffets are afraid to stock (like tripe and pig ears). I found both the Hot and Sour Soup and Seafood Soup to have more and higher quality ingredients in them than I would typically expect from buffet soup. There was a wide enough variety of options that both (omnivore) I and my (pescatarian) wife had no problem finding things to eat.

The included beverages were a nice touch. My wife really enjoyed her milk tea, but I was a little disappointed to find that all the refrigerated beverages were sweetened; it would have been nice to have a chilled, unsweetened tea available.

The Bad:

Over half the items pictured in the flyer (oysters, crab, lobster, steak - and even some Dim Sum items like the Har Gow) weren’t available at lunch the day we were there. It’s not unusual for buffets to feature nicer offerings on nights / weekends, but it would’ve been nice if they had been more upfront about the differences.

There are signs above the buffet items supposedly telling you what they are, but you couldn’t trust them to be accurate the day we were there. The sushi area was the worst, with 2/3 or the signs not representative of what was below them I (in some cases the named item was elsewhere in the area, but in most cases the named item was nowhere to be found). We found cases in the customizable soup/griddle ingredient area as well.

The seasoning of the sushi rice was a bit inconsistent. On my first pass, a number of rolls had a slightly over sweet/seasoned taste. That seemed to have been corrected by the time I made my final pass, though, so it was either a bad batch or a variance in the chef’s techniques.

The facility is already having some issues as well. The day we visited was in middle of a heat wave and they seated us in the front room that faces San Ramon Rd.; the air conditioner could NOT keep up in that room, and it was uncomfortably warm for most of our meal (although the rooms were a bit cooler). My wife also reported that only one of the stalls in the women’s restroom was fully functional; the door latch on one was already broken, the toilet in a second seemed to be leaking water onto the floor, and only the handicap stall was completely useable.

Summary:

We had an overall 3.5 star (rounded up to 4) star experience. We’re split on the overall “value for the dollar”, but are likely to return...

I tried out this place today.

You payed at the door, the bill come with an 8% service fees, which was like $2.62 from the $26 lunch + an the $2 tax. Pay up front was weird, unless they have alot of no pay/walk out kind of situation, but since Dublin is a nicer, possibly more wealthier area, I thought it was strange. Too bad, because I was gonna tip them 20% for the quick clearing of my plate by the busser, and how clean they kept the place, but there was no option to tip the way you want there.

The place was kinda small comparing to the other asian buffet in the bay area, so there wasn't alot of selection of food, but the quality of the food was not bad. The seasoning seem to be on the less sodium side, which is fine to some cultures and ages group.

Their chow fun was not bad, even thought it was err on the less sodium side. The beef stripe was not bad. The pork spare rib was moist, but need more seasoning, may be oyster sauce, ginger, and white pepper.

I did not get to try their honey comb beef stew, nor their egg yolk bun on a Tuesday. Also they did not have any oyster at the time, BIG TURN OFF. This is what bring people to buffet, but they missing it, no noO.

The sushi, the only thing that I care for is the sashimi and nigiri, but when I got there, they only had one piece of snapper nigiri left, NO SASHIMI. No one seem to touched the roles. No one care for the roles.

They refilled the nigiri tray with salmon, and snapper on my 3rd run so there was some degree of hope. The salmon, and snapper nigiri was fresh, a bit thick on the rice ratio, and the rice was err on the soggy side, but it was still edible.

The marinated snapper with jalapeno was a ta bit fishy, but nothing some pickled ginger and fake washabi can't fix.

At the cold bar, there was some fresh cold crawfrish, there was actually some degree of sweetness left, and the meat was actually still bouncy. My only wish was that they have SNAIL, and OYSTER.

For the chinese food, I like the mayonaise shrimp, and the spicy pork rib, even though the pork rib could use a ta bit more salt. And how come THEY DONT HAVE FRIED CALAMARI.

Ofcourse I ate some green bean, and mushroom.

The seafood soup, and the miso soup was also good.

The deserve did not called for my attention. Could of make some banana/jackfruit lumpia or sticky rice with mango and coconut sago sauce, or even taro with sago soup would suffice, but NOPE, THEY DID NOT.

I wish they have some hot tea to wash the food down, but all I saw was sugary drinks.

I left after 4 small plates of food, and 2...

I've been waiting for this buffet to open and alas, came on a Monday at 11am - right when they open; we were their 2nd table. When you enter, you pay right away then they walk you to your table. Everything is included. I was surprised they have all these unlimited bottled beverages in addition to fountain drinks. Even water is bottled. I suspect this is short term? i cannot imagine they will have these bottled drinks forever because it is quite costly! What i can see is them stopping the bottled drinks and have pre-made drinks like milk tea, regular brewed tea in cups. But these bottled ones are probably limited time.

the buffet is clean but i find the sushi bar area just mediocre. i saw a tub of cut salmon and that just turned me off. They were all piled in a container. And when i tried the salmon nigiri it was kind of warm which i'm not a fan of. I normally would get another round of sushi but here, i just got one round. The rolls had too much sauce it was as if they did that on purpose to mask the fishiness or something. There was also this smell in the area - almost a bit fishy smell it just gradually got worse and worse as each time i went up to get food. I don't know if it's because of the not so fresh fish or because that are was right next the restrooms.

Their cooked food was good, i really like all the spicy fish, salt & pepper shrimps and salt & pepper fish. They also have kid friendly food like french fries, fried rice, noodles, eggrolls, pizza, and mac and cheese (which i did not try).

The dessert selection was just okay; the cakes were not great. i had the cheesecake and the coffee cake. The cheesecake was bad, did not taste good. The coffee cake, was very artificial. i find it funny that majority of their desserts were store bought - the cookies were still in their cookie tray -- which is fine just thought that was funny. The chocolate fountain was a good addition; something different from other buffets. They have a good variety of fruits and they also have a freezer filled with individual cups of ice cream.

They have three different kind of soups. A small selection of dim sum ( i like their tripe the most). the beef offal was a bit too gamey.

one of my favorite items from the buffet was their pig ears, the mala sauce was so good.

and those who like hot pot / noodles, they have a malatang bar -- that was pretty neat!

Overall the buffet is small and i think it's a good place for lunch. if this is what they serve for dinner, i think it's not worth the...