If you live in Orlando, Tampa or West Palm Beach, Florida and are a fan of Asian cuisine, you must visit Crazy Buffet. Billed as an “up-scale Asian fusion buffet,” Crazy Buffet offers the convenience and variety of a do-it-your-self restaurant with the quality and ambiance of a mid-range sit down.

As you enter the carefully decorated and detailed interior, a stark contrast from the strip plaza it is housed within, the first and rather prominent fixture you will notice is the fresh sushi and sashimi bar. The sushi bar is worth the price of admission alone with its fifty or so varieties, freshly crafted by skilled sushi chef’s right there behind the buffet line. Moving along you come across the made-to-order hibachi grill and wok. Past these items are rows upon row of fresh seafood, including peel and eat shrimp, shrimp cocktail, oysters, snow crab, mussels and scallops. Seafood not your thing? Name a meat or vegetable and this buffet will likely have it prepared in traditional Asian style. Oh, I almost forgot the eight soup selection, full salad bar, fresh fruit and vegetable station and desserts.

For me, the mark of a quality ethnic dining experience is two-fold. First, the clientèle eating at the establishment should be of racial variety, but I do expect to see “natives” dining as well: Chinese at a Chinese restaurant and so on. The second is very similar in that I want to see natives present, but in this case they should be members of the staff. At Crazy Buffet I was pleased to see a healthy variety of both. My logic on this issue is that if it is a true representation of an ethnic or cultural culinary art, then those who are supposedly represented should be there preparing, serving and consuming it as well. They should want to. A notable example of a restaurant to tries so very hard to establish this yet prospers mostly in part to the credulousness and trend wannabe nature of some is the atrocious P.F. Chang’s China Bistro. I find that restaurant to be an abomination. But before I pull a Carson Kressley, let P.F. Chang’s not steal the limelight away from a place who knows how to pull it all together.

In addition to everything else, Crazy Buffet offers a full liquor bar that you can feel free to eat at, both spacious and cosier dining rooms of varied size, catering, banquets and a live piano musician. The service was mostly unnecessary, but dirty plates were never lingering and my beverage always freshly refilled. Dinner is $17.95 per person and soft drinks are $1.79. It is really an incredible deal considering what is offered. The only thing I would say could use an overhaul at Crazy Buffet is their website. JPEG compression destroys images! Hello?!

Conclusion: Go eat there now!

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