China Buffet & Mongolian Grille — Restaurant in Lincoln

Used to come here alot pre pandemic, loved it. But it seems everything has gone downhill since then. Standards, quality, service, cleanliness. When we walked in, shortly after they opened, there was a small crowd of various groups waiting to be seated. But pretty soon we were the last ones & prolly stood around 5-10 minutes just watching multiple servers come & go from the front w/o acknowledging, let alone seating us. Got seated & went to get a plate off the buffet. Decent selection, most of it had good taste too. My complaints would prolly be the pepper shrimp & pepper chicken were both more sweet than peppery, but little flavor either way. After that, got a second plate but this time off the grill. Pretty normal selection, similar to a hu hot, but the meat was not being cooled right i feel. Usually the meats are nearly frozen here but today they were borderline room temp. Very thawed we'll say. The table surrounding the grill was filthy. Definitely hadnt been wiped down today. The cook at the grill overcooked it to the point where the beef was chewy & burnt. The noodles were slightly hard too from the over cook. Flavor wasnt great either although i can probably take some responsibility for that because of my mix of sauces. But it being burnt & overcooked didnt help. Lastly we hit the desert table. My girlfriend grabbed one plate that you could tell the lettuce piece on it had been stuck after it ran through the dishwasher. My first plate i grabbed had an eye lash on it, so that was pretty gross. Went & grabbed plates from the buffet. Nearly no selection on the dessert table itself. Some jello & pudding & a couple different kind of cakes which were definitely not on the cooling table right. One wasnt even on the ice & the one that was was actually the warmer one. Honestly the cake was prolly the best part & im near positive they dont make it there. The server came by & asked if we needed anything a couple times, bout the most they can do at a buffet. Not much else when you get your own food and all. But very polite. The bathrooms were clean & seemed well maintained. Overall I'd give a 2.8 & say we might not be coming back. Which is disappointing cause as i said we used to come here...

If I could give a zero I would, or even a negative number.

I know I should have posted this last March, when the experience happened, but, once I finish perhaps it will be understood why I didn't.

I just got done talking to the cancer doctor. My husband who suffered on and off since 2019 was dying. The doctor told me there was nothing more they could do. So, my parents took me to this restaurant to try to lift my spirits.

As we walked up to the door I read the mask note-"Masks Recommended." I thought, cool, now they will honor my medical exemption. We go in. My parents pay for the food, and a heavy set, 20 something, with short, curly dark brown hair, lady with glasses informed me I needed to wear a mask. I told her that I have a medical exemption, to which she stated she didn't care and I HAD to wear a mask. I explained that the sign said it was RECOMMENDED. She insisted. I explained that recommended does not mean, HAVE too! She still insisted.

I grabbed a mask and we went to the table. I put the mask on under my nose, because 1. It was recommeded. 2. I had been crying so my nose was stuffy. 3. I can't wear one anyways. On my way up, that same lady barked rudely at me from across the restaurant and told me to pull my mask over my nose. I asked her if she was going to harass me the whole time I was there?! She kept going on so I pulled it up over my nose.

This was the most unpleasant and unhelpful experience I have EVER had! If the note had said, "Required," we would have turned around and gone somewhere else. The only thing that made it a little better, was when we were on our way out, this tiny, thin, blonde apologized for her co-worker's rude behavior. God bless her!!!!

And, the doctor was right, my husband passed away two months later.

You never know what someone is going through, so, treat people with respect and if you can't, then don't...

I am writing this post in response to a rating that was written about a restaurant that really was never visited by the person who was so very upset with it. China Buffet has never contacted any person at any time under any circumstance to say we were unhappy with a patron or customer who has come in to dine or take carry out. I can tell you though exactly what took place and why they might have been upset...There are free apps that you can load on your phone (which are supposed to be funny and a big joke).. Where an Asian person speaking broken English tries to cuss out the customer for eating too much... This is not the first time that someone has confused our restaurant because they call it the Chinese Buffet... We are China Buffet Mongolian Grill... I can promise you that no employee from here would ever treat a customer in that fashion.. Especially if you have never eaten here before , we could not and would not have your phone number or credit card info... It's sad though because when someone is just playing a joke or being silly it can cause some hardships for others not even involved... We just love having new customers and want to keep our continuing customers satisfied and happy with our food and environment. Please don't believe everything and if a business called me with some Nonsense's like that... I think I would use the caller ID number and try to figure out what was going on, because a buffet that would complain about someone eating too much ,would never stay in...