Lin's Grand Buffet — Restaurant in Tucson

The Crowds Loved It - We Did Not We visited on a Tuesday evening at about 5:30. This is a very large stand alone restaurant with ample parking on all side of the building. We were here to try out their buffet and eat in, carry out is available. You enter into a welcoming room adorned with large size oriental wall decor with seating if you need to wait and the payment counter. The host at the counter takes your payment and escorts you to a table, or you wait until called. The adult cost for dinner is $15.89 and seniors get a 10% discount. Any drink except water is an additional $2.98. On our visit we were seated immediately while some others were waiting. The dining room is huge and there had to be over a hundred diners there. The buffet area is also huge with many islands. All of the standard buffet items, salads, fruits, soups, deserts, oriental and american dishes, seafood including cold and hot shrimp, baked and fried fish, crawfish, and a variety of vegetables. Setting this place apart from other buffets is the addition of a sushi bar, a Mongolian grill and a steak grill. The sushi bar is primarily California type rolls with veggies, cream cheese, american cheese, krab, chopped krab, etc. I did see some butter flied boiled shrimp atop rice rolls, but you won't find high end sushi on this bar. The Mongolian grill area lets diners select from a variety of ingredients and sauces and the grill master prepares your dish on a large circular flat top 'grill'. In the steak area, they will grill a steak for you. We never saw anyone get a steak or order at the Mongolian grill so I can't say any more about them. Now for our dining experience. Even though there were so many diners, the buffet island area is so large and well spaced out that it didn't feel crowded as we wandered around trying to decide what to try. So many good looking items made it difficult to decide. We brought our selections back to the table and started our taste travel. I tried the Hot 'N Sour soup. It was piping hot, sour and a little zippy spice wise with the usual soup veggies and tofu in a beef broth. This soup was ok. I've had better, but that could also be a personal preference. In general, we found the majority of the dishes lacked flavor and were room temperature which is surprising as they are constantly refilling the food trays. And I'm not joking about the food temps. I don't understand how food could not be hot when there's steam rising around the buffet pans, but they were. I even dug down into the pans to take food from below and it was lukewarm at best. So, what was good? I particularly like the baked swai fish which was mild and seasoned perfectly, fried chicken wings, pork egg rolls, pork dumplings, cheese wontons, fried butter flied shrimp, and butter clams. Not so good? Cheese enchiladas looked so incredibly delicious, but were COLD. A real good flavor, but COLD! The green beans and the chicken, shrimp, zucchini mix had no flavor. There was no buffalo to the buffalo chicken wings. The beef and broccoli had some flavor, but very little beef in the mix. We made several trips to the buffet islands to try many items and overall, my wife and I ended up feeling disappointed with Lin's. We travel a great deal and enjoy oriental buffets. Lin's will not see our business...

Wanted to discover yet another Chinese buffet and so drove to the other side of town from me for Lin’s Grand Buffet on Park at I-10. It’s apparently a Texas-based chain with locations in TX and AZ. The building is large with ample seating and parking. Easy access if you’re just passing through on the interstate. They were doing good business for a Monday with most of the tables and booths full. The facility and serving lines were clean and well maintained. The service was competent, the atmosphere pleasant enough. The buffet featured all the usual suspects: crispy spring rolls, pork egg rolls, pot stickers, the trinity of soups (hot & sour, egg drop, wonton), diverse chicken recipes (orange, honey, sesame, with broccoli, sweet & sour, spicy, etc.), beef with broccoli, bbq ribs, fried fish & shrimp, baked salmon & tilapia, a seafood bake, chicken & shrimp with zucchini, salt & pepper shrimp, green beans and other sautéed veggies, noodles, rice, salad bar. However, they also had a few surprises: clams, crawdads… and baby octopus! Yum. Hot dishes were hot, with steam escaping up around the trays. At the back you’ll find a sushi counter and a Mongolian BBQ. Beyond Asian cuisine, they offer trays of hot wings, sausages, french fries, enchiladas, steak, garlic bread, and the requisite cheese pizza for the kids. If you’re not stuffed after all that, you can fill in the cracks with an assortment of desserts & ice cream.

Everything I tasted was delicious. I was pleased with the variety and value for dollar: the lunch buffet was $13.49. It was worth the drive.

BTW, I see several troll reviews posted here on Google. Perhaps I’m stating the obvious, but whenever you read a negative (1-star) review on a restaurant, please first look at how many reviews the reviewer has made. If less than, say, 10, it is highly likely the reviewer is a troll. It becomes quite obvious when they “pile it on” with multiple and radical criticisms about anything and everything. You should ignore such reviews. Several of the recent troll reviews are probably all by the same perpetrator, talking about roaches and rats — more than likely a disgruntled former employee. If you are at all concerned about those claims, then don’t take the word of some anonymous troll; don’t even take my word for it as you don’t know me either. Instead, just go to the Pima County health inspections web site. You will see that on their last inspection, Lin’s Buffet scored an “Excellent” rating and were fully “In Compliance” with all relevant inspection criteria — and those inspections are quite detailed and thorough. If indeed there were the kinds of problems the trolls say, Pima County would have shut them down until they were...

My mom just met with my grandmother here for an early dinner. My grandmother is well over 80 and was seated in a poorly ventilated area where (in a heat wave) isn’t the wisest section to seat an elderly woman. So my mom requested a table where it could be cooler. The waiter visibly had an issue with this but found a better table. Both my mother and grandmother went to the buffet table to find a lot of empty trays. Plenty of seafood options but zero options for people who don’t like seafood. When my mom and grandmother scrounged up what was left on the buffet tables (scraped basically empty trays). They set their plates down on the table and left to try and make another plate. Once they left the buffet tables, they returned to a cleared table. The bus person probably cleared it thinking the scraps were remnants of a once full plate (it was never full to begin with). So with that, my mom requested a refund after receiving little to no service after about 20 minutes. Mind you, none of the food has been eaten at this point. The server eventually returned to report that the person in charge on shift was off to lunch and would not be available for thirty minutes. I don’t understand why there wouldn’t be at least one more superior available in case something happens while the other is at lunch. Poor scheduling on the manager in charge of that. So, after forty minutes my mom reminds the waitress of the time. The waitress informs my mom that the manager wouldn’t be back for ANOTHER thirty minutes. I understand these things happen, but everyone else is on a schedule too. By this time (still no food consumed), it’s been over an hour and the original waitress was ignoring my mom. My mom had to get loud with the other waitress to get her to call someone to process her refund. After about an hour and thirty minutes since arriving to the restaurant, they finally got their refund. Not sure about the names of who was on staff but I can say this was 4:30pm on a Friday. I understand times are tough right now, but is money really worth a bad reputation? I’m not convinced. If you’re wanting something Chinese food adjacent in the area, I recommend Kahu Hawaiian BBQ just up the street in the Tucson Marketplace shopping area. Big plates, tasty, and probably won’t give you the run around for a refund....