Welcome to the magical world of Teppanyaki. You’re greeted by bubbling fountains and a rainbow of fluorescent lighting. This was probably the biggest Chinese buffet I’ve ever gorged on. Everything was great, and the variety was astounding. It might have been Chinese food, but THIS is Amurrica.
Joshua H.
Rating des Ortes: 3 Florissant, MO
I was hesitant to eat here after reading all of the negative and neutral reviews however for the money I decided it was a gamble worth taking. I will start with the food. It is a cheap $ buffet with decent food. They do have hibachi, and fresh sushi. The frog legs stood out as above average. Overall 4 stars compared to other similar buffets. The service however sucked. I have a shellfish allergy and asked the spanish speaking grill cook on hibachi to cook my food separate from the others piled with shrimp. Needless to say he smiled, nodded, and then plopped it in between two the shellfish dishes to cook. When it came to filling up our drinks the waitress was no where to be found. We have 3 children and do take our time eating. That being said in the hour we were there she was seen only once before dropping off the check. She was hovering over me waiting for me to sign the receipt. I refused to sign it immediately which irritated her. After I signed it she was hasty to get the signed receipt back to see her tip before we even got up to leave. I did leave a small tip but would have left nothing if I would have known how rude she was going to be about not receiving a better tip. Overall I will probably return for a solo lunch trip only because of the price. I will never return with my family, and I suggest you don’t either.
Buddy I.
Rating des Ortes: 1 South Hampton, Saint Louis, MO
Went there tonight. Baby roaches were crawling INMYFOOD! The manager was called over. He offered a 10% discount!!! He asserted that the exterminator was just in their store and assured them their bug problem was done. He actually said, «maybe it was just an accident.» Nobody is implying that they put roaches in the food for fun, but the fact that there are bugs in the food makes it dangerous. Avoid at all cost. Note – previous visits were lackluster at best. Will absolutely never return to this place! If I could give it zero stars I would!
Dale W.
Rating des Ortes: 2 Saint Louis, MO
This place was a good buffet when it opened, but it has dropped in quality a lot. –a lot of the food is cold and not fresh –the food doesn’t taste good anymore –the hibachi doesn’t look fresh, service is slow and it tastes awful Not sure what happened but this is a no go place. Waste of money.
Luther L.
Rating des Ortes: 1 Fenton, MO
Being close to the office — we frequented Teppanyaki pretty often when they first opened a few years back. Over time, quality declined, mostly due to lukewarm and room temperature food, and we stopped going regularly. This afternoon, my team and I decided to make a visit to see if anything had improved since our last visit. We walked in and were quickly seated, we put our drink orders in and quickly b-lined to the buffet. The three of us meandered around the buffet for a good 5 minutes looking for any food that not only food that looked edible, but also actually existed. A good half of the steam table spaces were empty, or contained just a few remainders of food, most of which appeared to have been there for quite some time. I found enough to fill my plate, and headed back to my seat. I immediately noticed I wasn’t the only one having trouble looking for lunch, as my coworkers both had less than 1⁄3 of their plates full. We each took a few bites, and nearly everything we had was room temperature, and in a few cases almost refrigerator cold. Nothing on our plates was edible, and we decided for our safety that we might as well pay up and leave. We made our way to the counter, and the person that seated us only 5 minutes earlier was at the register. He asked if everything was okay, and we commented that the food was cold, and that very little food was actually on the buffet. The cashier snickered slightly, and continued to charge full price for our lunches. Honestly, it was worth $ 10 to decide that we shall never return. TLDR: Cold food in half empty steam tables — Avoid this place in the future!!!
Cyborg B.
Rating des Ortes: 1 Saint Louis, MO
Food and customer Service sucks! They’re pretty good in telling you to leave even if you are not done eating.
Richard V.
Rating des Ortes: 3 Saint Louis, MO
This place was okay the food was not bad. Its what I would consider buffet food should be nothing like omg this is awesome but the food was not gross the fish items wasn’t rubbery. The rolls were very nice buttery warm and soft. We were greeted as soon as we walked in and sat right away. the waitress was prompt with refills for a buffet style area considering she had like 30 tables
Margo C.
Rating des Ortes: 1 Saint Louis, MO
Crab legs were the lure. Now, I knew a $ 12.99 buffet featuring Crab legs was going to most likely dissappoint. Man– I hate it when I am right! My husband who encourages these outings concured with my critique. The place is quite garish, with it’s over– the– top lighting, complete with mood changing bulbs, and glittery overhead light fixtures. Shall I say, Las Vegas meets Home Town Buffet Oriental Style — Gone Wild! Too bad they did not follow through with the dinnerware. Melmanac plates, cheap silverware, flimsy paper napkins, and plastic drink cups were the table settings. The Crab legs were thee most skinniest legs I have encountered. I gave up after 3 legs. The cracking, forking, fingering, sopping up the juice running down my arm,(with the cheap napkins that left paper bits all over my hands) just wasn’t worth the morsels of meat coming from these throw backs. I squeeled with laughter when my husband took a bite of some mystery shrimp and threw it down and made a puke face. He said it tasted like it was filled with liverwurst. Now that I think about it, and sit here laughing with myself, that may have been worth the admission price alone. I dabbled in the Honey Chicken and General Tso Chicken which was so-so. I resorted to the fresh fruit, and was thankful for it. The dollar store of buffets.
Stan G.
Rating des Ortes: 4 Crystal City, MO
I have eaten here 2 times, and both times contrasted with each other so I will base this review on the better of the 2. on my first visit here I was completely blown away by the buffet, the food choices were endless it seemed. There is a wide variety of food, ranging from your traditional fare, to fish dishes and even some sweet BBQ ribs. They also have a nice grill where you can get some grilled items and they also have large sushi collection as well, I’m not a sushi eater so I passed on this table. their signature name dish Teppanyaki Chicken is my favorite so far, with a taste similar to kung pow chicken. I tried several of the traditional dishes as well as some of the fish items before building myself a delightful salad and then commencing with the dessert portion of my meal which was a treat in itself.
Steven B.
Rating des Ortes: 3 St Louis, MO
I’ve been here twice and my 3 star rating is the average of the two visits. My first visit was a solid 4 star experience. I visited during their opening week and our lunch was well worth the price. They kept the food fresh and the variety was extensive. As Travis stated, it was very bright and clean. My second visit was Christmas day, we couldn’t decide where or what to do that day and finally we just thought Chinese. We called and they were open till 7PM. We got there around 3PM and they were busy, busy. Being busy, was no excuse for lack of table service and dried out and poorly presented food. You’d think they’d be on an A– Game being a holiday, but they got only 2 Stars for Christmas. Also, we saw no signage for the higher price for the holiday buffet. Normally a holiday buffet offers extra features, but this buffet looked no different then the lunch I experienced their opening week. I guess I shouldn’t bitch to much about the higher price, they at least gave both of us the SENIOR discount. I do not look that old… lol.
Travis F.
Rating des Ortes: 4 Las Vegas, NV
This is probably one of the brightest, cleanest places I have been, the food was good and it was fresh. Some buffet places are dark and gloomy sort of but this place was bright and clean! Makes a first impression stick out!
Hernando W.
Rating des Ortes: 1 Saint Louis, MO
I would like to say I enjoyed a nice foreign meal, but alas, I was not privy to it. My wife«Biff» and I were looking for an afternoon meal last Thursday, and preferably one from the Great Orient. We took a seat and anticipated a member of the waitstaff to take our order. We waited for quite some time, angering my wife«Biff» who is a lady of decorum. I could not stand to see her anguish, so I took my troubles to one of the help. I’m quite proud of being a man of the world, but this fellow was difficult to understand. Apparently there is a cultural difference at play here — they expect their patrons to remove themselves from their seated position and become their own servers. How preposterous! How could any civilized nation stand for such humility? It is most barbaric for one of great manners to, in essence, become their own waitstaff, in someone else’s establishment. My wife«Biff» and I went home and instead treated ourselves to Freeze-Pops. Hernando
Rachel L.
Rating des Ortes: 3 Saint Louis, MO
Its not worth the money, there are way better Chinese Buffets out there. The black pepper chicken though is great. Only reason I still come here is that my toddler loves the décor and the fish pond.
Matt J.
Rating des Ortes: 2 Saint Louis, MO
Well, here we go. There is no doubt that the décor was nice. However, this is just another big Chinese buffet restaurant with fancy looking but awful food. The sushi tasted very stale and old. We went there around 12, and it is the time for lunch, but the food is old. Large selection is always a A+ but you need to keep everything up. Service was not that great either. Never check back on us. I might give it another try since they are a new buffet.
Lisa C.
Rating des Ortes: 3 Saint Louis, MO
God, I swore I wouldn’t visit another buffet-style restaurant after the awfulness of Emperor’s Wok, but somehow I ended up here. You know why? It’s cheap and it’s not Emperor’s Wok. And I know I’ll get castigated for this, but there were a few folks of Asian ethnicity eating here. Is that supposed to make me feel better? Probably not, but it did anyway. All you get at every other buffet in the city is a bunch of overweight slobs looking to clear out the steam trays. There. I said it. So…I’ve never seen so much imitation crab(don’t they call it Krab?) in my life. But the black pepper chicken was okay, and the noodles from the«hibachi» station were not bad. And I could have eaten the whole tray of snow peas, which were fresh and crunchy. There is probably something for everyone here. Look, folks. This is Americanized Asian food. You get what you paid for. You paid ten bucks for all-you-can-eat. Expect just that.
A E.
Rating des Ortes: 1 Saint Louis, MO
I am so surprised to see any good reviews on this place. I would describe their food as disgusting. My favorite dish, general tsos chicken, tasted horrible. I couldn’t even eat it. It tasted like honey with no spice and it had a slimy quality to it. When I tasted the other chicken dishes they all tasted almost exactly the same. The only thing I liked were the spring rolls. The sushi is made from super cheap ingredients and tasted like crap. I don’t expect rock lobster or something but can’t what they use at least be fresh tasting? They have a lot of choices but when everything tastes horrible that kind of doesn’t matter. I even waited patiently to try their banana pudding and it had the most horrendous fake banana taste-awful! As for their dessert? Fake tasting ice cream in little pre-packaged Styrofoam cups. So disappointing. If you are only going to have one dessert option, which I don’t mind, it should at least be halfway decent. I will never, EVER return to this gross buffet. EVER.
Sarah S.
Rating des Ortes: 3 Saint Louis, MO
This isn’t my normal type of place, but my husband’s family has a tradition of going to a similar buffet in the town where his grandparents live, so when this place opened, they decided to check it out and I was invited along. The place out of town was not my cup of tea — it seemed like there were slabs of meat everywhere and was just overwhelming. But I decided I’d try it, for at least the good company! The décor is pretty fun… I covet the waterfalls and pond in the front! They need to throw some koi in there. They also have crazy sparkly ummm. sculpture? See pic. It’s very eye catching. The place is huge and you don’t feel crowded walking around the buffet. It’s only $ 9.99 for dinner, and they have coupons in a lot of the money mailers that I get all the time, so I found one for 10% off. We were seated right away and went to check out the buffet. It’s gigantic — easily the biggest buffet I’ve ever seen. It has every Chinese dish under the moon, plus a Mongolian grill where you can make your own bowl, a sushi bar, a salad bar, a fruit bar, a dessert bar, soups and loads of American food. As a vegetarian, I was pleasantly surprised. The salad and fruit bars were both huge and very fresh. They actually had good tasting fruit too, though not in season. I also had vegetable lo mein and veggie fried rice. There were veggie eggrolls and non veggie ones. Also soups, a couple vegetable dishes(like green beans), and some American food that was vegetarian: mac n cheese, cheese pizza, corn fritters, rolls, mozzarella sticks and more. Everything I had tasted fresh, though a couple dishes were lukewarm. Some were very hot too. It was ok food. Nothing that blew me away, but for its purpose(all you can eat and a huge variety), they did it well. Service was just ok too. Our water glasses went empty a few times and we had to ask for refills. They did a really good job of clearing plates, however. I would go back with my husband or his family, though I wouldn’t seek it out on my own.
Kelly B.
Rating des Ortes: 3 Saint Louis, MO
I returned to Teppanyaki today for two reasons. It is cheap and I was there. Honestly, It is JUST another buffet. I can’t really qualify calling 7 different varieties of imitation crab rolls wrapped in rice with another ingredient or two sushi. I can’t call 8 versions of shrimp with Americanized Chinese sauces and 2 extra tablespoons of sugar Chinese food. Bacon wrapped imitation crab roll is not likely served on any continent east of the United States. It is clean and if you want to stuff your face with along side a bunch of very large people for a price that is hard to beat, go here. They do have a grill in the back where you can have your choice of poor quality meats and decent veggies and a little more control over what you are digesting. I will probably be back in the very far future to stuff my face for ten bucks again, but I will not lie and say I feel satisfied by the food. In fact, I feel like a beached whale right about now. Food coma cometh.
Chrissie C.
Rating des Ortes: 5 Saint Louis, MO
Went here last weekend with my girlfriends — we have always been a bit fan of Joy Luck Buffet, but this bad boy blew it out of the water! For $ 10 it is all you can eat — Chinese, sushi and hibachi. The selection of Chinese Food was amazing, and the quality was the best I have seen in town! The sushi roll selection was pretty good for what I am used to at other Chinese Buffets, and the hibachi was so yummy! I agree with Jessica B. on the bacon wrapped crab — so good! I also enjoyed their Honey Teriyaki Chicken and their Lo-Mein noodles! Oh so good! Make sure to swing by and give it a try!
George N.
Rating des Ortes: 2 Saint Louis, MO
Overall a very impressive facility, clean and spacious, easy to maneuver in and around the food stations. but I thought the food was kind of «boring», and I was a bit disappointed. Thought there could be more variety to offer; I came on an off hour perhaps, I felt the food was kind of blandish, seemed like everything I ended up eating tasted all the same. I guess things were lacking a «kick». The bright side is that there is another Chinese Buffet in town, and they are hard to come by. Everything else was great though, the service was pleasant. But do pop in for sure, see what all the hype on Watson is about.