Texas Buffet — Restaurant in Jersey Village

This place opened up recently near my neighborhood, and I have to admit, I was excited to try it. Me and my mother visited it today, noticing how packed the parking lot was too. We got our seat, got some food, and hoped for the best, but DEAR GOD were we wrong. I tried almost everything the buffet had to offer and a good 90% of it was either bland or disgusting. Never before have I been so unhappy at a buffet. I'll eat anything in front of me, but even I wouldn't eat this.

The fish? Dry. The chicken? Bland. The only good thing I can say is that the coffee cake was moist, and the sushi wasn't bad. The frog legs were also pretty good, very juicy. Everything else? Horrible. I will say, I didn't get the chance to try the hibachi station, so that might be good (I've read some good reviews about it). If you decide to eat here, PLEASE don't underestimate how much you'll need the complementary salt and pepper. The chef(s) have no intention of seasoning the food, so the job falls onto you. The soup was bland and gross. On my first plate, I had fried rice, broccoli and chicken, stuffed mussels, and a dumpling. The fried rice was just white rice with egg in it. The chicken and broccoli wasn't horrible, and by that I mean the 'broccli' part wasn't horrible. The stuffed mussel was just mussel and cheese. Not bad. And the dumpling reminded me of the frozen ones I'd get from Sam's club. After that, I had the wanton soup, which was just oversized wantons swimming in water seasoned with a pinkie-sized pinch of seasoning. Imagine making instant noodles, except you refuse to use the seasoning packet and drink the bland broth by itself. Then, thinking that it was the only bad soup there, I got a small scoop of the seafood soup, which ended up being worst. I never had seafood stock, which is what I'm guessing the soup base was, but it was horrible. Bland and oddly thick? I couldn't even identify what 'seafood' was in the soup itself. Then I had some sushi, a frog leg, and a piece of the coffee cake. These were arguably the highlight of the whole hour I spent there. The coffee cake was sweet and moist, like any cake should be. The frog leg was juicy and the crust was crunchy. Pretty good. The sushi is a little dry, but soysauce fixes everything for me. They also had a wide array of sushi and a bowl of seaweed salad as well, and both tasted good.

I gave the food 1 star because... obviously. I give the service 4 star because it wasn't bad. We weren't asked if we wanted a refill or anything, but they lived up to normal expectations. They didn't spit in our faces and demanded we left, so 4 stars is good. I gave the atmosphere 3 stars since there was little to no ambience. It's just a large, white-walled restaurant with basic furniture.

All in all, the old Golden Corral that used to be there was better. Maybe I wouldn't have been as angry if we didn't have to pay 46 dollars (with military discount) for entry (6 dollars for 2 iced teas, 40 for 2 adult entries). There are definitely cheaper & better buffets compared to this one, but at least I know not to go back. If you do go, I suggest you try the hibachi, as I did not and could not speak on it. Personally, they can keep the money. I want the hour...

Ok, so... I love buffets. I loved Golden Corral. I miss GC.

BUT...

The Texas Buffet that took its place is pretty good. My wife, our 2 year old, and I came in on a Friday for a late lunch. And from the beginning the staff were friendly and courteous.

The place looks nice, still a lot like the GC it replaced. But the buffet layout is different. And the variety was excellent.

There was a great mix of American, some Mexican, your typical Chinese food, a hibachi, and sushi. Which I love, this is why I love buffets. You have so much to choose from. You can try new things and enjoy old favorites.

I started with a very small baked potato, a roll, some sesame chicken, some fried rice, an eggroll, a fried chicken tender, fried catfish, and some broccoli. Just a small piece of each. I wanted to try as much stuff as I could. Oh, and some crab rangoon. It was all pretty good. What wasn't food, was because I do not like something in it. That's on me, not them. The potato looked like a half of a small baked potato with cheese melted on top... which is awesome. Sadly, under the cheese hid a lot of onions ect... I can't eat onions. Same sort of went for the fried rice, but I was able to scoop around and avoided the onions. Everything else was great. The chicken. Tender was great. The sesseme chicken was awesome. The eggroll was good. The broccoli was tasty. The roll was good. The fried fish was light and delicate. The crab Rangoon was nice as well.

Then tried a pork rib, wonton soup. The broth wasn't the best. But the wonton was nice and a dash of soy sauce and some dumpling sauce and it was really good. The teriyaki chicken was good.

The corn was good, but it's hard to screw up corn.

Other things I had a bite of were the stuffed shrimp, which wife really liked, I was eh, it's OK and not thier fault I don't like it.

Fried crab ball things... and they were good. Son had 3 of these on his own. We all liked then.

We were not a fan of the spinach dish they had.

I also had some boiled shrip, and it was good. Chilled and kept cold properly.

The sushi I had were the shrimp and rice and the salmon and rice. Both were ok. About what you would expect.... not great, but not bad.

Wife really enjoyed the hot and sour soup. She said best in the area.

I will add when I think of other things. And add some pics next time.

The service was really good. Polite and friendly.

Place was clean as well. Food all appeared to be fresh.

We will be going back. And bringing friends to enjoy. And next time we hope to try...

I usually don’t praise buffets, because most of them are just mass amounts of flavorless food.

My adult son and I couldn’t decide on where to go for Sunday dinner after church. He’s been wanting to try this place, but after my disappointment with Fiesta Buffet, I wasn’t excited at all.

I was very pleasantly surprised, in fact this is one of the best buffets of this kind I’ve been to. Of course you can’t compare it to some of the $30+ buffets at some of the Casinos, but price to value, this place rocks!!!

My measuring stick is can I find anything that can stand on its own, that if I ordered it at a normal restaurant, would I be pleased. Surprisingly the answer is yes.

The Hibachi was a big yes. Good quality meat, and the cook did everything right. He cooked the meat first, even flipping it, and then added the veggies and noodles. They even had a type of sausage that tasted like smoked andouille sausage. I never seen that offered at hibachi grills before, but my son and I both felt it took the hibachi to the next level.

The sushi was also a big yes. It was good quality, each offering actually tasted different, and the tempura offerings actually were crispy. Same for the egg rolls and pot stickers. The egg rolls actually had flavor, and chicken in the inside.

There’s a lot of great call outs, like the macaroni and cheese had the cheese stringing as you spooned it to your plate. The ribs were fall apart, and cooked perfectly. The chicken wings were great, nice and crispy as they should be.

My son commented on the shrimp in the hibachi and the other shrimp dishes had great flavor, and texture. It wasn’t that mushy, flavorless shrimp you usually get at buffets.

This buffet is our new #1 choice for when we want a Chinese seafood buffet. I can’t wait to try it on a Friday or Saturday when they have snow crab legs. Based on our experience, we both feel that they will be rocking. I can’t wait to take the rest of the family, and my...