East Buffet — Restaurant in New York

I've been coming here for awhile now. It's my families go to Dim Sum spot. They've changed a bit over time but the food always stayed the same (taste wise is still pretty good). Price has went up a bit over the past year or so which is a bummer. I believe they got rid of the whole buffet aspect and strictly focus on dim sum, dinners, and parties now (but I could be wrong).

Atmosphere: Place is very large and has the whole Asian restaurant feel to it. There are plenty of seating but during holidays they do get over crowded and the wait is a good 20 mins and more. When you enter the place you'll follow the stairs right upstairs and then through the doors. Their lower level serves take out.

Service: Eh, I would say service is ok here. Once you're seating and they give you your tea or water, the staff doesn't really come around as much to ask you if you need anything. They'll come by to pick up the empty trays though. Many of them speak Chinese only so I would recommend going with a Chinese speaker (but it's not required). The lady with the carts take awhile to come by (especially when you know which cart you want cuz they have all the good foods).

Something interesting: $2 Parking in the back, just make sure you get your parking ticket validated. They also take card (since many Asian places don't...

There are two restaurants in the East Buffet location. There is the more formal dinning area upstairs that serves as the dim sum restaurant and for parties/weddings.

The dim sum is very good and the item I would most recommend is the beef short rib. Everything else is very good but not much better than the other quality dim sum places in NY. But the beef short rib I think is the best I have had in NYC.

The wedding and formal restaurant fare is about what you expect from a good Chinese restaurant so nothing special there.

The first floor restaurant in the back is grungier but I think is the true reason to make the trip here (besides the dim sum upstairs). The donwstairs restaurant is very good value for the money with dishes that are cheaper but also very tasty. Only issue is the potential language barrier as the staff likely will not have perfect English but there are a couple that can help you out some. Also, it can be noisy and it is not at all romantic. This is not a place to impress someone on a first date, unless you are the adventuring type that does not care about decor. Ultimately, I think it is a good foodie spot to get good authentic Chinese food at a reasonable price. Did it mention that tipping is not required at either...

Like other Chinese restaurants, this place offers party-sized platters at 3x a dish pricing. We ordered and paid for a few such platters for my son's 2nd birthday party two days ahead of the event and got a receipt with the date and time for pickup that we selected marked on the receipt.

Not only were the platters completely undersized for the amount of orders we placed, the staff completely dropped the balloon having the order ready for the time we specified. They didn't even put in the order until we showed up with the receipt asking for our order. When we voiced our displeasure at having made our party guests wait for the food, the staff not only refused to apologize, they even has the gall to bark back at us that the "chef was busy".

They were in such a rush to fulfill our order on the spot that they failed to pack the mayo for our mayo walnut shrimp, so our guests had to eat bland fried shrimp. I would express extreme reluctance to ever order here again. They are one of the cheapest outfits in town, so that's always appealing, but you really get what you pay for in terms of service, food quality, and...