Any time Hubby and I have gone to the Krikorian Theatres at the BP mall, we have noticed the restaurant was packed, and there were always people waiting outside to get in. Then a friend at work had gone to eat here with her family and they really enjoyed it, and she said this place was always so busy, so ""It must be good."" Well, after reading the recent reviews, 90% of which are very negative, I must say we were EXTREMELY leery, but we decided to take a chance. I figured we could go in, look at the food, and if we weren't impressed, then we could go across the street to Panda Express. At 5:30PM, it wasn't nearly as busy as I had expected, and there were booths available, so we decided to dine there, even though there were no crab legs to be found.
The employees were courteous and most, but not all, spoke some English. The place was clean but very dimly lit. The bathroom was rather dirty - less clean than you might expect at even a fast food restaurant. Hubby said that the men's smelled like urine. I'm glad to report that neither of us saw roaches or other vermin scurrying about.
We loaded up a plate a piece, and finally found the crab leg pan which had 2 left, so we took them. We took the crab to our table and returned to the line to find a fresh, hot new pan, so we got some fresh ones. We had fried rice (good), green beans (delicious!), beef and broccoli (not sure if THAT was beef - yuck!), mushrooms (yum), sweet and sour ????? (good), sesame balls (interesting/good), stuffed shrimp (hubby really liked them), crab salad(he liked that too), noodles (BLAND as plain water!).
The most DISGUSTING THING was the plain cooked shrimp. They had a really soggy texture to them. I am always one to eat whatever I put on my plate (after all, there are children starving in 3rd world countries, right?) but these were just plain GROSS. I am not even ashamed to say I let them go to waste.
A first for me was the fried frog legs which to my surprise really did TASTE LIKE CHICKEN! Once I pulled off the tempura batter, there was a small morsel of meat on each leg. It was pretty good - I'm really glad I tried it! The highlight of the night was the crab for Hubby - Although it wasn't spectacular, but it wasn't bad either. I would say if you LOVE crab, and you want to come dine on CRAB and other seafood only, it would be worth the $15. I myself would prefer Panda express, where I can get my Orange chicken, fried rice and egg rolls and I don't have to guess whether it's going to be any good - and that's at half the price.
Overall, Hubby and I are in consensus - we're glad we checked the place out, but unless I was taking my little brother (the CRAB freak) out for his birthday dinner, we would not be returning to the Asia Buffet.
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