Super King Buffet — Restaurant in Portland

Great Chinese heavy, pan-Asian buffet.

Visited on a Friday afternoon at about 1:00. Was not super busy, though more people showed up during the hour we were there. Good mix of patrons; working men, families, couples on dates, older folks, & the kind of diverse crowd you’d expect on any stretch of 82nd.

There is plenty of off-street parking in a secluded private lot with several cameras, super important given the neighborhood/lack of on-street parking. The building is also a gem. Super high ceilings in the secondary dining area & a nice wall of windows on the east side. There are no windows in the main dining area & it gives you that weird time-warp feeling when you leave. Interior is a bit dated & could use sprucing up, but a nice space that is kept immaculate & I do mean immaculate.

I say immaculate because this place is really clean. Always a great sign when you see people spot cleaning the dining room during an AYCE service. It wasn’t uncommon for a couple of employees to bring out a bucket & towels to clean the walls or fixtures, never mind tables. This level of attentiveness is shown to the buffet tables themselves, not a spot of sauce out of place anywhere on the line. This place comes by their 100% score from the Multnomah County Health Department honest. Staff were courteous & checked in frequently, plates were cleared promptly during our subsequent trips to the buffet.

The food is more or less what it should be. It was after the lunch rush, so the trays weren’t turning as fast as they would have if it was busy & I tempered my expectations for that reason.

That being said, everything that was fresh was great. Chinese meat dishes were well done, noodles & rice were good for the style of service. Most of the chicken had a strong hit of five spice. Not sure if it was brined or in the batter, but even the sweet & sour chicken tasted of it. It’s not bad, but for a dish that most Americans have a very specific expectation of, it’s probably unnecessary. It worked well with the skewers & stir fry dishes though. Pretty sure there was some fish or oyster sauce involved as well in the beef dishes, which was perfect.

I mostly stayed away from the seafood, but that’s because the hotel pans weren’t turning fast enough for my liking. I tried the crab rangoon & a crab bake stuffed in a scallop shell, both were a little too sweet on the palate, but they weren’t bad. Coconut shrimp & fried shrimp offerings were all good, worth the price of admission alone if you just wanted to just focus on those.

The vegetables, like the de rigueur string beans, were as they should have been. The broccoli in the stir fry dishes was also great. The salad bar looked perfectly reasonable, as did the edamame.

The stuff that wasn’t fresh, was of course, not great. I foolishly dove into the little bits of General Tso’s that had been out for a while when I arrived & it was mediocre. Thankfully, they re-upped it before I left & I got to try a large, just glazed piece; it was perfect. My partner had a white fish that suffered from the same problem.

Related, the sushi didn’t seem like a good idea. I probably would have gone for it during a busier service, but not on a slow afternoon. It wasn’t turning over at all, what was on offer had a patina of age to it that wasn’t being helped by the relatively warm environment at the back of the scramble that it was being held in. Ditto for the head-on shrimp, though they looked more reasonable. That being said, anyone who eats questionably presented sushi at a slow buffet gets what they deserve.

Only thing that was missing were Vietnamese offerings. I was expecting to at least see vermicelli noodles, pho broth or lemongrass chicken & was disappointed.

The price is exactly what it should be for the quality of food, plus the service was outstanding. I can’t stress enough how clean it was, despite the space being a little worn & dated.

I am already planning on going back in the near future after a good day...

“Well worth the drive and the cost. A good buffet. M-Th dinner $21.99. Weekend $23.99.See photos and read below.”

(long review warning)

I wanted to find a Chinese buffet in the area like ones we found in Arizona before Covid. We have tried a couple in Salem, and they are decent. But the local establishments created a desire to expect more. Because of the other reviews of Super King Buffet, I wanted to find out for myself if the negative /positive reviews aligned with my taste preferences and expectations.

The appearance of the building outside is unremarkable. Inside, the place is extremely clean. Our server provided a table and our drinks quickly. Looking around, the empty tables were clean along with the floor of the establishment. A diverse culture of people was in attendance enjoying their meals, piled high with shrimp, open face clams, or crab. Others took a moderate approach, with a medium amount of food on their plate, but returned to the buffet line multiple times.

I would suggest that before rushing off to the buffet selections, grabbing a plate and maxing out the square footage the plate can handle, just walk slowly up and down the many food stations and soak in the large variety of food options. There were 6 main stations. An additional two or three stations had fish on ice, and sushi. Dessert options I do not remember other that my wife getting the soft served ice cream. They offer coffee, tea, and Pepsi products. The restaurant was busy, but the food options were always replenished, and the serving areas were kept extremely clean.

I was amazed at the selection options. Other buffet restaurants may have a decent seafood selection but miss enough variety if one does not want seafood or other items not offered. But the selection also needs to taste according to one’s expectation. I was pleased with all that I consumed. The hot food items were hot. The cold items were cold. The noodles and rice options met expectations of good Chinese buffets. Spring rolls were hot inside and crunchy outside and tasty.

All the deep-fried foods I tried such as the butterfly shrimp, sweet/sour chicken, and crab wontons did not have any old oil after taste. This was a pleasant surprise. However, there were some disappointments in our food selections that night. For my taste (personal preferences), I disliked the coating on the chicken legs compared to other Chinese buffet restaurants. It seemed like they used the same coating they used on the fried fish. Then the salmon was dry. This is a problem at more than one restaurant, we have visited beyond a Chinese buffet environment. Good news is that all the shrimp selections are well cooked, not over cooked. Refills for our drinks and removing our used plates were faster than expected.

My wife and I could not sample every item with just one visit, but we ate our usual favorites and except for the few discrepancies, we were incredibly pleased with this establishment. Is this an elegant restaurant environment with a salad bar option? No. But for a Chinese buffet,...

-UPDATE 12/25: Christmas Day: All Day Dinner for $26.99 with several special Seafood and Traditional Asian & American Holiday favorite items added like Honey Roasted Ham, Mash & Gravy, Whelk, Whole Tilipia and so much more!

*AND I recently discovered that you can take food to go and pay by the pound and it’s extremely reasonable! (See Togo packaged food pics below) scaled I love this restaurant, and especially love the family and the 💓 that the owners put in the food, and the kindness they show our communities! There is a homeless man wandering in the parking lot when I was parking and I saw him inside I just a moment ago and they were giving him a meal! Very kind and compassionate. I have been here four times over the last month because it’s such a great deal and super delicious wonderful food for such a great price!

M-F Lunch 11-3pm $15.99 M-F Dinner $20.99 Sat & Sun All Day Dinner $23.99

1st week of Nov 2023 $21 for AYCE Asian Seafood Buffet Dinner?!! 🤑😉😍😛 That’s Right and was givin EVERYTHING! 💯🔥🤤👍🏽 Super Fresh ✔️ Super Tasty✔️ $$✔️ Perfectly Seasoned ✔️ Super Clean✔️ Sashimi & Sushi Rolls🍱✔️ 2 kinds of Oysters, 3 types Clams, Shrimps, Prawns, Scallops, Baked Salmon & other Fishes✔️ Steamed & Fresh Veggies🥦🥬🫛🥗✔️ Soups & Salads✔️ AND SO MUCH MORE! 🤰🏽

1st time bk since 2020 for late lunch/early dinner and the Food was great! 1st thing I noticed was the clean and yummy smells and the very friendly and engaging staff! The manager informed me that I could start and just upgrade bc dinner would be starting soon and I wanted sashimi I decided to graze a little bit and wait for that to come out, and yayyyy 😋I was happily pleased slices of fresh fish, the freshness of the oysters, the delicious poach, shrimp and etc. I posted some pictures below of my favorite items and some other items that people tend to want to eat and I can eat buffet but I skipped all the salads and desserts and etc. cause that’s not really my thing but I loved the fresh and very sweet honeydew 🍈 slices and the pomegranate seeds! I’ve never seen pomegranate seeds on an AYCE buffet like this before only pay by the lb like at Whole Foods, where the price is an 💪🏽 & 🦵🏽!

I will definitely be coming back to super king buffet on the regular and I’m so glad I didn’t go to this other joint. I was thinking about earlier! I had contemplating going to FJ Buffet near my house, but walked and was overwhelmed by the heavy, foul seafood odors and after looking 1st- the buffet wasn’t fresh -too many dried out hot items, warm looking cold items and poor abundant of quality seafood— I.e....