My Marie Restaurant — Restaurant in St. Louis

I don't usually take the time to write reviews, but I need everyone to know how great of an experience we had today at lunch. I want to help get the word out on what a great place this is. I want this restaurant to be a booming success! My husband and I were absolutely blown away by how good everything was. We got the buffet so we could try a bit of everything, since it was the first time we had eaten there. The jerk chicken was some of the best of any chicken we've ever had. Juicy, a nice low level of heat, the seasonings were savory and distinctive, it was divine. I don't care for fried chicken (and a drumstick is generally my least favorite piece) but the flavor and crunch of the drumstick I had were out of this world, the meat inside still mouthwateringly tender and juicy. The chicken and okra stew was delicious, with tender okra, diced stewed tomatoes, and big pieces of chicken in a nice tomatoey sauce that was only mildly spicy but full of flavor, perfect over a little steamed rice. The chicken and dumplings were different than any I've ever had but every bit as tasty. Tender shreds of chicken in a rich chicken gravy with firm dumplings that were delightfully chewy. The bbq pork was great, with a sweet, sticky, and vinegary sauce. The coconut curry chicken was absolutely heavenly, with a mildly flavored curry sauce rich with golden turmeric clinging to fried nuggets of seasoned chicken. The hot buffet also had fried sausages, fried cabbage, green beans, mashed potatoes, brown gravy, red beans and rice, fried catfish, fried okra, collard greens, fried plantains, and probably a couple more items I'm forgetting. Everything we sampled was seasoned beautifully (which was everything other than the collards in my case). The mashed potatoes were made of actual real potatoes, and they were perfectly rich, creamy, and wonderful. It's hard to find a restaurant anymore that will serve real mashed potatoes. There was a very nicely stocked salad bar as well, with several voices of lettuces and spinach and lots of great toppings, but what stood out to me were the hard-boiled eggs, because someone did those in the kitchen and I've never had a more perfect boiled egg in a restaurant (and rarely had a more perfect boiled egg at home). Usually buffet restaurants put out the food service diced eggs that are often still partially frozen. It's just another indicator of the thought and care put into the food served there. I flagged down Marie as she was making her rounds, asking if she was responsible for the food. She admitted yes, and I asked if I could have a hug. We expressed our delight with all of her food and she was beaming with pride. The dessert bar had slices of chocolate or lemon Bundt cakes, coconut or chocolate cream pies, and lemon meringue pie, along with some fresh watermelon other fruits. I chose the lemon meringue, and it was heavenly. Marie was in the dining room again checking on another table that had come in, and I asked if she would adopt me. Naturally she laughed and said of course!

TLDR: Please give this restaurant your business. You won't be disappointed in the quality or flavor of any of the food or the level of service. Tell Marie the silly chubby white lady that asked to be adopted sent you. And maybe give her a hug when you go, she...

Update 6/30/21:

The owner responded to this review because she knows what I put in this review is 100% true. The owner cannot take constructive criticism and she takes it personal and puts the blame off on her customers instead of fixing the problem within the restaurant.

Your restaurant is suffering because you spend time on the Internet trying to defend your restaurant instead of actually being proactive in fixing what’s really going on. Do better.

I really want to like this restaurant but I couldn’t. Every time they brought something to our table I kept getting more and more disappointed with what what’s coming out of the kitchen. Some of the food was cold and was very mediocre. And not only that, the wait time for the food was longer than expected . Plus there was black little things floating around in our drinks when served... even though our waiter tried to correct the problem I was still disappointed. Overall my experience was not great.

The restaurant was very hot and muggy too which also made it uncomfortable to sit in there and actually enjoy the setting.

I understand that no business is perfect but there were just too many flaws within the visit to the point to where I can’t see myself coming back to this restaurant. I had really high hopes for this visit but unfortunately today has...

So we had originally first ate at their location in the mall pre covid and it was delicious. Then covid hit and everything closed, they relocated to their current location. We have tried this location twice most receintly a week ago and I cant explain how downhill this place has gone . The buffett 8-10 items on it and more than half were not edible. So while the owner keeps responding and being hatefull with reviewers saying that their food is freshly prepared and healthy food and how us americans are used to eating nothing but junk food and thats why were overweight and cant appreciate good quality food is completely irrelevant to the fact that their food is cold, dried out, and not the best tasting compared to when they were in the mall. I couldnt even see steam comming up from.the buffett items so that tells me they are not keeping the food at a safe consuming temperature which could give someone food poisioning. With this all said we will not be returning ever again. Its unfortunate that the hottest and best tasting food on the buffet was the bread pudding. I welcome the owner to critize my review and she might get more that what she bargined for. Also if all of us Americans that are spending their money on this nasty food are so bad maybe they should go back to their...