Empire Buffet — Restaurant in Mundelein

Overall, its quite a decent place considering its price point. For this kinda money, variety and quality of the food in general exceed my expecteations. Allow me to explain what I took down each star for. Now, in my opinion, its really hard to make a buffet a 5-star place; since there probably won't be much excellence and any unexpected experiences in any of them (subject to change, if I see one). As to the rest, I would say if you do your job, the solid 4 is a great result. Therefore, I was eating my meal and discussing the potential rate with my gf, when the waitress comes and asks me to start passing empty dishes from the end of the table to her hands. It may not sound like something insane, but hear me out: I am sitting with a fork and a knife in my hands, chewing the meal and having a coversation, the lady comes over literally points me at those empty plates in the end of the table to pass them to her. It feels a little disrespectful, someone should explain her, that she must wait until people leave, only then pickup the dishes. Other than that, the plan was to put 4, since the food is always fresh and legit (I'm here quite frequently) AND the pricing is very very reasonable. Hot and sour soup is my favorite here, along with lo-mein, spring rolls and...

I visited Empire Buffet today with my family. Overall, it was an okay experience — not the best Asian buffet in the area, but decent for the price and variety.

Some of the highlights were the Chinese doughnuts, crab rangoons, sushi, hibachi, and the broccoli chicken. The mushroom chicken was also flavorful. I didn’t try everything, of course, but those stood out in a good way.

On the flip side, most of the desserts (aside from the doughnuts) weren’t great, and some of the seafood options didn’t look very fresh.

The service was fine — our waitress was attentive and made sure drinks were refilled promptly. The restaurant itself could use a bit of an update. There was a noticeable musty or stale smell throughout the dining area that took away from the overall experience, even though it wasn’t coming from the food itself.

All in all, Empire Buffet is an okay spot if you’re craving a wide variety of options, but there’s definitely room for improvement in both atmosphere...

Empire restaurant is in a great location around Mundelein and Rand Road. The buffet is large, fresh and clean. The variety and authenticity are above average for a buffet. The big difference is the EMPIRE KNOWS HOW TO COOK CHINESE!!! There are watery gravies or mild tasteless versions of what is a mixture of Cantonese, Szechuan and Mandarin cuisine all done well. Numerous pork and seafood dishes, one of the best General Tzo's chicken with plenty of spicy orange peel sauce, chewy noodles, huge calamari, plenty of tasty ways to eat healthy with garlic sauce fresh crisp stirfried vegetables. Everything is top notch for a meager and fair price. The dessert bar is above average. One tiny nick, at the self serve ice cream bar, the water faucet that the metal scoop is stored should run constantly. Bring the family you won't find more or better at near the price. Imagine a real Chinese master chef inviting you to eat anything from his menu ALL...