China Buffet — Restaurant in Mankato

HORRIBLE EXPERIENCE! My husband and I along with our toddler daughter entered this establishment hoping for a quick lunch. We had been traveling and we're tired of drive thru food. Before we could get up to the cashier to pay, we were greeted by a woman yelling, "HAND SANITIZER!" Then she kept canceling our transaction causing the processing machine to freeze up. When given the choice of how we wanted our receipt. I pressed print and watched it print. The woman then made us use more hand sanitizer as she threw our receipt away. My husband politely waited thinking maybe it would print the customer copy. She handed us 3 paper cups and plastic utensils and a wooden bowl. When my husband inquired about the receipt, he was told it was too late. She then printed it again and we proceeded to an open booth. My husband prepared his plate and we swapped toddler duty. He was using the wooden bowl to place his shrimp peelings in and another woman came from across the room to yell, "That bowl not for food! It for money!" Completely stunned, he responded by telling her he didn't see a label and she continued to chastise him by waving her arms and yelling even louder that the bowl was for money. There was no reason to attack a paying customer in that manner. I was proud of my husband for not responding to this rude behavior. He took the high road and said nothing more. The food was no where in the realm of enjoyable. The egg rolls were mushy and the fried rice was barely fried. There were more american foods offered than Asian. I requested a top for my daughter's drink cup and was told no. The food was difficult to cut using the cheap plastic forks. The sweet and sour sauce was cold. If you enjoy barely edible food and rude treatment, then you'll be pleased. Otherwise, just go to the Panda Express that's on the next block. We sure wish we'd...

This place didn't exist when I moved to Alabama in 1996 but was the only place I thought I'd like to try when I moved back here in 2018. They closed a few months ago and reopened under new ownership and management one or two months ago.

I can't say how it was under the former ownership/management, but under the current management, they had 4 Buffet rows of foods to choose from in addition to a salad bar and a separate desert bar.

Until today, the only Mankato Buffet restaurant I'd been to was Pizza Ranch and after eating at China Buffet today, China Buffet, I think is my favorite Buffet type restaurant locally and if you leave there hungry you have nobody to blame except yourself.

I wasn't able to try every food option offered, but I liked all I was able to try and left full after 3 plates that left my blood sugar high enough that I ate there around noon today, as my first meal of the day and considering there's only 20 minutes of today remaining, my meal at China Buffet will likely be my ONLY meal from Sunday morning until at least 7 AM Monday morning.

My ONLY downgrade for China Buffet is the complete abcense of available nutritional information meaning that I could only guess at the carbohydrates I was consuming to be able to calculate how much Insulin I should have taken for the food I ended up eating since I have Insulin Dependent Diabetes and need to take Insulin dosages based on how many grams of carbohydrates I eat in each...

For a midpriced buffet the atmosphere is nice and they keep the place clean and kept up. I love the sound of running water from the koi pond, and the koi are large and beautiful. The music is maybe just a bit louder than I'd like, but it isn't obnoxious. I am mainly giving them a 5 because of their kind and respectful service that I observed at a table near me. An elderly woman spilled her drink and the phone surfing young man who was covering the register hopped up and not only helped her wipe it up (there were napkins at the table so he could have expected her to mop it up), but he chatted sweetly with her and put her at ease with friendly smiles. Kudos! The food ranged in quality from okay to excellent. I particularly liked the vegetable Mai fun, mushrooms with pork, green beans and the little cookies on the cold bar. The shrimp in the seafood with vegetables was very good, but I'm not a fan of fake crab. I particularly disliked the peanut butter chicken... I couldn't taste the peanut flavor, it was just salty. The chicken wings were disappointing too, they had the yellow color but none of the curry or five spice flavor I was hoping for, just boring. Again, everything I tried was edible, or at least "ok". Also there is a huge variety so you are bound to find some things...