Barely six months after bemoaning the disappearance of all the good Chinese buffets in Los Angeles in my recent retrospective, we once again have a local Chinese buffet worth talking about, Umi Hotpot and Seafood Buffet (yes, another Chinese buffet with a Japanese sounding name). Not surprisingly it's located in the space once occupied by one of my all time favorite buffets, Kome Buffet, which closed down several years ago. However, the space has been totally remodeled with sleek new lines and compartmentalization. There is the obligatory sushi section, justifying the Japanese sounding name.
What I like about Umi is it introduces so many new elements. For example it offers hotpot via portable table hotpot units, and a dedicated hotpot ingredient section. Yes, a few all you can eat hotpot restaurants may have a table of prepared food, but those are clearly incidentals. In contrast, at Umi you can make the hotpot a major portion of your meal.
Umi also includes drinks in the price of admission. A few buffets do include soda fountain drinks, but here the fridge is full of things like milk tea, grapefruit tea, and mango coolers, as well as cold desserts. Plus a separate ice cream freezer.
Not to mention a ramen station. Yeah, I've seen this in buffets before, but not on top of all the other extras.
Plus lots of seafood and goodies on ice.
But what I liked best was the items that I had never seen before at a Chinese buffet. How about fish with pickled mustard green soup or perhaps spicy pig feet?
Sichuan style saliva chicken. No, not made with the saliva from a chicken. Rather an unfortunate, but common translation of chicken-that-makes-you-salivate.
Lamb chops???
Pineapple fried rice.
The dim sum section is small, with only four varieties. But three of which I've never seen in a buffet. First the semi-mochi bun with a mystery green cream filling. I say semi-mochi because only the top of the bun has mochi.
This wonderful mango cream filled bun.
And these date topped cornbread. I've seen these in Dongbei restaurants and I never would have classified them as dim sum.
And best of all, there's no mistaking where the restrooms are.
About $25 for weekday lunch, $35 for dinner and $50 for weekends with senior discounts. My faith in Chinese buffets has been restored.
