Umi Hotpot Sushi & Seafood Buffet — Restaurant in New York

Umi Buffet (the old Charlie Brown’s location). $40 dinner and weekends. Picture for those who think people be fighting over crab legs - this was at 7:30PM on a Saturday.

I’ll keep this short for the “not worth it” crowd:

Not worth it - if you don’t like seafood, only eat sushi (not sashimi meaning you eat the raw fish without the rice), and only like your typical Americanized Chinese buffet items like General Tso, Chinese fried chicken and Hot and sour/egg drop soup. MAYBE lunch is a better/only option

Lengthy thoughts ahead on “worth it” at least once - sorry no TLDR

you come for the variety and not so much of the high quality (read better than your average buffet on Staten Island) per se at the cooked food area. So I’ll only talk about the things worth mentioning for the high price tag initially, then generic stuff.

there are a lot of seafood items such as baby octopus, tiny bits of abalone wi th vermicelli, variety of crabs cooked various ways and grilled oysters. I could go on but go for yourself. They also have a “large” area for raw clams. They didn’t have Cantonese lobster when we went 🤷🏽‍♂️

As far as the sushi goes, I didn’t eat the sushi and ate 90% of my entire night at the sashimi stuff. I mean, if I’m gonna pay $40 before tax and tip, and they’re pumping out salmon, yellowtail, eel, artic surf clam, fish roe, octopus, etc - I’m gonna eat my fair share. Bonus points if you put your fish roe on top of your other sashimi items for added texture. If you really want to eat the sushi I guess it didn’t look bad.

The milk tea wasn’t as watered down as I thought I read someone say, but maybe they preferred milk tea that’s really really sweet. They have Taro, mango, Thai, Passion fruit and honeydew - honeydew was the least favorite imo.

The ramen I would suggest to share with another party member, not only because of the wait, but because it comes in a bowl big enough to fill you and you won’t have room for the other stuff. It wasn’t anything spectacular since again you come for the quantity not quality.

There’s an area of food that you can miss because you refuse to stand in line for ramen so make sure you look through people. There’s short ribs, steak, and pork ribs there that’s easily missed and if you love those three items, you’ll get your money’s worth.

Didn’t bother with hot pot but I wouldn’t go here for it since there are couple other places on the island that specializes in that. In my opinion, I think it would be best if they got rid of that area, keep items in the kitchen, make it made to order type of experience, so it would prevent unnecessary waste since it didn’t seem like patrons really wanted hot pot. If they got rid of that space, they could definitely expand the food options and for sure make the $40 price tag seem more worth it.

If you’ve ever been to Ichi Umi at Menlo Park awhile back, that’s the kind of food offerings that would be a good value for $40.

As far as dessert goes, lazy offerings meaning a chest freezer type with cheap ice cream cups. I’d say, if this place offered an ice cream machine with those levers for chocolate, vanilla or combo, it would at least elevate the perception a bit for the high price tag. Sure it may cause form maintenance and upkeep issues, but think about perceptions and how much patrons are willing to pay so take care of us and we’ll keep coming back. There’s also some cake section that I didn’t care much for.

Parking is daunting but instead of just driving around, just be patient as it does seem like it churns “fast”.

Service is what you expect when it’s crazy so give them some slack. You’re at a buffet, not a Michelin starred restaurant.

Overall, for trying it one time, I’d wait for a month or two and let the crowd really die down before going. I’d be interested in trying it for lunch during the week to see what the food options are like and how much less you may get.

I’d be surprised if management took into considerations my recommendations but if they do, at least they’re...

While I will say that the food was above average, I experienced a few things I didn’t like, especially from a restaurant that just opened three days ago.

My family came in at around 5 and got seated at 7:15, so basically we waited around 2.25 hours. I’ll give them the benefit of the doubt that they just opened and they are probably overwhelmed every night, but if you’re going to call my number, do it intentionally, making sure we DO in fact have a table. My number was called, but we still had to wait another 10 minutes before finally getting our tables.

Once we got our tables, the first thing we grabbed were plates. As someone here mentioned already, you really have to be careful with picking your plates because some of them are either dirty or oily. Again, they just opened three days ago, so this further stained my first impression of this restaurant. Even the utensils were stained. It’s a bit baffling to see this level of quality control, and if a health inspector came, they would probably set off more than five violations.

While I did find that the service was great, I also found it a bit weird to have three to four different waiters come to us. I get it if they’re there to take away our finished plates, but it got really confusing when one person came to give us the receipt, and then another waiter came with another receipt (with a completely different amount). They also took $10 from our change, so they essentially took their tips without our consent. So logically, if you’re taking our tips already, we don’t have to tip you. Additionally, there was supposed to be a 15% discount added into our check because of a promotion, but they didn’t put it in.

Also, big warning, if you come in and see a fridge full of bottled drinks, DO NOT GET THEM unless you want to pay for them! There were no signs that told us they would charge us, but then we were charged $3 a bottle at the end. Just order cups of water when you’re seated.

Before I came here, I was consistently checking up on the reviews of this restaurant. I’m a bit shocked to see this many five star reviews in such a short amount of time since they opened. I’ll assume that there was an incentive.

Although, the interior was nice, I was more focused on the floor because of how dirty it was. My friends said the floor was sticky, but to me they were extremely slippery, and while I can say it was perhaps the shoes I wore that night, this can be a potential hazard as someone can slip and fall.

The food was good though, but given the issues I mentioned, I probably won’t ever come back because it’s just simply not worth it based on the...

Took my son and my elderly parents here a week ago to celebrate my son's graduation. We sat at a table I guess that would accommodate a bigger party which I did not have and issue with. I guess it was an issue for the server so they wanted to separate the table from the others which was also not an issue. What I did have an issue with was the unnecessary need for five to six people to come to our table and tell us the same thing making me feel uncomfortable as we were surrounded by a bunch of servers as if we were causing an issue. As an African-American family that looked very bad on us knowing the climate we live in this country already. The servers that stayed with us definitely lightened the mood and were very good so I have no complaints about them. Very attentive and very nice.

One particular host, tall young Asian guy was very arrogant as well. I had asked about the hot pot condiments and wanted to make sure I was grabbing sesame sauce and not peanut sauce. I am regular eater of hot pot so I know the color difference between the. I asked him for clarification which one was which and he responded arrogantly "the labels are there".. I'm aware that labels are there but they looked to be incorrect hense why I asked. His response was " I know the difference" as if he knew better than I would the difference between peanut and sesame sauce. Anyway they should separate those 2 anyway due to cross contamination and to avoid a mistakes that would lead to someone having a severe allergic reaction.

I would suggest being more culturally aware of how to deal with certain ethnicities and the proper to approach a situation as well as loosing the arrogant attitude at the door. Not everyone will respond to that type of attitude with a smile.

Food was good. I would prefer the the hot pot to be made with broth rather than water based but it's a buffet so my expectations are not that high. Lobster also had an ammonia taste which leads me to believe they're dead before preparing already. I mostly had sushi. Didn't make it to the...