Super King Buffet — Restaurant in Ensley

When you have an off day, and your food is cold and nasty, and a customer complains you should apologize, and hope the customer decides to give you another chance in the future, not ban them from the restaurant. This is shameful of this owner and just bad business practice all the way around. I have been a loyal customer of this establishment for over 15 years and in the past few years the quality has gone way down hill. Last time I was there the food was cold hard and basically inedible. We complained to the owner after getting our first plate of food and not eating but one bite of each item on plate. He responded by saying to leave. I decided to give them one last chance today and upon entering this establishment he promptly kicked us out the moment we walked through the door. This place is a disaster with the new owner. Used to be good so have tried to give it many second chances, however with an owner like that I don’t see this establishment staying in business much longer. They have pepper steak that uses way too much baking soda and tastes like soap they have pepper chicken that no longer uses good sauces such as oyster and tastes only of dried out chicken and margarine. They no longer have dumplings of any kind. The shrimp are mealy and gross half the time. And food is consistently left on the buffet for way too long and dries out and gets cold. Not to mention the fact this restaurant has had many health code violations including live bugs in artificial crab meat, slime mold in ice maker, rodents in kitchen, roaches in kitchen and in food. Improper food storage and unsanitary conditions, hand wash sinks in kitchen used as storage. The list goes on and on. I have personally gotten sick from eating here on occasion. You try to help out a struggling owner by bringing some of these issues to his attention and he refuses to believe it’s his own doing and acts as if your trying to take advantage of him. Shameful shameful way of conducting business. So you decide but between the bad food, unsanitary conditions that have caused this place to be shut down in the past, and the horrible business practices of this terrible owner, I would strongly advise avoiding this establishment...

It stretches out beneath the flickering fluorescent sky like a memory you didn’t know you had, this King Super Buffet, not a palace but a kingdom all the same, one of cracked tiles and steam trays that whisper of crab legs and lo mein and the long-held promise of fullness without judgment. We went because hunger had found us—real or imagined, it didn’t matter—and because sometimes you want to be surrounded by choices, even if they all smell like garlic and possibility.

Inside, the light is its own weather, humming and soft, timeless in the way that only buffets and waiting rooms manage to be. The red vinyl booths curve like punctuation marks in a story you didn’t mean to start but suddenly want to finish. There is no music—just the sound of plates clinking, children negotiating fortune cookies, and the low rumble of contentment from men with Saturday bellies and weeklong weariness.

And the food—how to name it all? The general tso’s, thick and sticky like the summer heat, egg rolls lined up like soldiers waiting to be chosen, peel-and-eat shrimp resting on a bed of chipped ice like ghosts from the Gulf. You walk the aisles not like a diner but like a pilgrim, ladling quiet hope into your plate. The soft-serve machine, humming stoically near the end of the journey, offers not just dessert but benediction.

The staff, unbothered and steady, glide like shadows between tables, clearing plates before the regret sets in, refilling waters like a ritual. No one hurries you. The buffet has its own gravity. You stay as long as you need to remember what it’s like to be small before so many options, before the bigness of flavor and the smallness of restraint.

And when you leave, into the sun-punched parking lot where the heat rises off pavement like smoke from old dreams, you do not speak of what you ate or how much. You only pat your stomach and nod and say, “We’ll come back.”

Because at King Super Buffet, you are always welcome, always full, and always just one plate away from forgetting why you came in the...

I don't like to leave negative reviews. King Buffet was always excellent for years. I haven't been in a while and we went a couple days after Thanksgiving. I was hoping business was not as expected and this isn't their usual. But ... the food was almost all old. Very old. The crab meat inside the shell was dessicated and a shade of gray I've never seen - afraid to eat it. Most dishes (great variety btw) the food was old. Even waited for them to refill with fresh food, and that was already old too. Obviously prepared too far in advance. Some bites of chicken were actually cold inside as if not even fully heated from cold storage. I did get two bites of honey chicken that were fresh, and the sweet and sour chicken was actually fresh and crispy. But everything else (and I tend to get one or two bites of many different things) was stale, some completely inedible (some of the chicken broke into powdery shards in my mouth). I was shocked at how bad it was. And truly disappointed. It was an embarrassment too because I brought someone else who had never been there and I told him how good it was. We both got sick afterward, from a quick headache (too much MSG?) to being up half the night in the bathroom with various symptoms. It's not an inexpensive amount to have spent either, though I'd still be upset at receiving horrible and unsafe food for half the price.

I'm sorry it was like this. And I hope they turn it around and this isn't a trend, though I see other reviews over the past few months saying the food wasn't fresh. This stuff shouldn't have been fed to people though.

It's too bad if they keep this up - I suspect they won't be in business much longer. And they have been my favorite Chinese place since they opened. But my companion will not go back, and I'm not sure I would be willing to either. Paid a lot of money to ruin my evening (and the next day as I'm too tired now to do what I'd planned). I just hope my stomach will...