RESTAURANT REVIEW: Asia Buffet in west Little Rock getting warmer

Hopes have been high for the new Asia Buffet Sushi, Grill, BBQ, in west Little Rock's Market Place Shopping Center, mostly because of the amount of space it takes up -- four storefronts in the east side of a double strip center divided by Market Street -- and the fancy decor passersby could spot through the windows as the place was in the process of being put together.

In addition to five buffet stations, the restaurant also offers, as the name suggests, sushi; a Mongolian grill; and a "barbecue" where you can get to-order grilled steaks and chicken. All of it is included in the buffet tab -- $8.99 for lunch (11 a.m.-3 p.m.), $10.99 for dinner (from 3:30 on and all day Sunday), with age-based discounts for kids.

The new operation hasn't exactly dashed those hopes, but as Chinese buffets go (and don't let the "Asian" part of the name fool you, aside from the sushi, the buffet selections are almost entirely Chinese), this one sits right about in the middle. It's not dreadful (and we've eaten at a few of those) but it's not outstanding, either.

It has come a good long way since our first visit, right after it opened, when the selection was meager and just about everything was cold, the absolute bane of buffets. Most recently, at least half of what we pulled off the buffet was at least warm when we got it back to our table (all four soups were consistently hot), and there have been a few dishes we've not encountered elsewhere that we would actually go back for.

The buffet area is done up in attractive tiling with sophisticated lighting. About two-thirds of the expansive space is seating, a maze of alcoves and dividers with a couple of more or less private dining rooms. The programming on the handful of strategically placed flat-screen TVs appears to be ruled more by whim than anything else -- pro football on Sunday suddenly gave way to bull-riding; on earlier visits, when children of employees were evident, they were turned to the Cartoon Network.

The buffet stations are not entirely logically arranged by category -- most buffets, for example, group all the fried stuff together on one station -- but it all makes sense and you can chart a course among them fairly easily. As with most Chinese buffets, chicken entrees predominate (being comparatively inexpensive), but there's a decent selection of seafood (including crawfish) and beef items as well.

What we'd recommend, if it matches your taste as well as ours (some of this stuff is on the menu, so you can order it made-to-order or to go):

• The spiced beef, medium-thick slices of roast beef modestly spiced, but adding some of the garlic-based sauce elevates the kick.

• Honey mustard chicken, lightly battered in a sweet-ish sauce with a hint of mustard.

• Chili shrimp, medium-size shrimp with visible red-pepper flakes in the comparatively light sauce.

• The hot and sour soup. We've had better, we've had worse, but this one does pretty well -- it's moderately spicy, though with not enough vinegar, really, to qualify as sour, and with plenty of tofu, pork and other goodies suspended in it. (Stir the pot thoroughly before ladling it into your plastic buffet mug.)

Of course, if you really want to guarantee your food is hot, you can order off the menu (prices are modest but not the bargain the buffet is), or you can turn to the Mongolian grill, where you can pile a plate with raw fixings -- beef, chicken, shrimp and quasi-crab for protein; lo-mein noodles; eggs; broccoli, mushrooms and other vegetables.

The grill master takes your choices and dumps them onto a flat grill; you let him know your taste preferences -- very spicy, medium, mild, none; salty, medium, mild, none; well done, medium or "mild" -- and he adds oils, salt, spices, etc. to make that happen. Our plate of grill-sauteed beef, chicken, shrimp, noodles, mushrooms, broccoli and sprouts turned out as good or better than anything on the buffet, and better than some dishes we've ordered about the town.

We didn't work in enough visits to order a grilled steak, and we passed up the sushi -- rolls, no nigiri -- as there was no way to tell how long it had been sitting out.

There are nearly 100 items on the menu, though we'd bet the kitchen may never actually cook many of them. The menu also lists about five dozen sushi rolls that, assuming you can find a sushi chef (and we didn't always see one on duty), you can have made to order.

Service was excellent -- our drink glasses never fell below half full before somebody was volunteering to refill them, and we've never seen just-vacated tables cleared and cleaned so fast.

Weekend on 10/13/2016