Empire Buffet

Look, if you’re taking the time to read this review, then what you’re looking to eat is a Chinese buffet. And you’ve found a good one.
I’ve been to a few in the area, but this one reminds me of the one that I frequented before I moved back to Syracuse. It has so many veggie options, stuffed mushrooms, mushrooms in oyster sauce, string beans in garlic, cheesy spinach, as well as chow mei fun, clams, bacon-​wrapped crab (krab, probably), cheese wontons, pork dumplings, peanut butter chicken, and the classic chinese dishes that you’ll find at most buffets. The sushi was a highlight — not only do they have sushi sitting out for you to take as you’d like, they will also make sushi for you on the spot. Nice touch.
If you’re looking for a decent place to get your Chinese food fix (you know the drill — a taste here and there at the buffet without spending $$$ on takeout to get a little bit of everything), this is the place to go.

I’m not really sure what a lot of the reviewers on here were expecting, but empire is a great, cheap kind of dive type buffet, And I mean that in the best way possible.
They have all the staples you’re looking for, and it’s busy enough that the food is getting replaced before it sits for too long. I try to avoid going in the last hour they’re open since things aren’t really getting refilled, but I love this place.

The place was not that clean. Food was not that good and tasted like it was left over. It IS an inexpensive buffet so I guess that explains that.

hostesses were unfriendly and cold. Food is greasy, salty and sugary. Not authentic Chinese I remember.

I bring this review as I sit on the toilet for the fourth time today. :-(
This place as any buffet is quantity of food and not quality. Things looks pretty dry and looked like it had been sitting for a while and nothing tasted fresh. The only thing that was fresh was he crab cheese wontons. I could have killed someone by hitting them over the head with the rice crispy treats.
I was on the fence about going here because of Unilocal and should have headed the sparse reviews.
They where so under staffed many dirty tables that where not cleared and to get refills took forever.
When leaving I almost stepped in a big pile of vomit right at the front door. How hard is it for them to rinse that down?
It was a total disappointment. Go to Five Guys across the plaza. Same price far better food.
Oh the ice cream was okay, at least it was not a total fail there.
Synopsis: Great place when on a diet. Puke your brains out when leaving. Crap your brains out the next day!
Owners of Empire Buffet I’d be embarrassed of last night.

Favorite chinese buffet, and take out too! The walnut chicken/​shrimp is always so good!

This is my and my wifes favorite Chinese buffet place.
Definitely the cleanest buffet I’ve ever been in. Most are small and cluttered, but this one is huge and always clean and bright. Plenty of space, so you’ll always be sat. Good for groups.
The staff at the front are always usually very nice. The rest, the servers, are usually pretty indifferent. Not that they need to do too much for a buffet, but drink refills can come pretty slowly.
The food is great. Huge selection. Stuff you find at every buffet like lo mein, general tso’s chicken, egg rolls, etc, but plenty of other stuff for the more adventurous like peanut butter chicken, Hong Kong pork chops and BBQ chicken on a stick. Plenty of American fare as well for kids and the non adventurous, pizza, chicken tenders, buffalo wings, etc. They have sushi and dessert options as well.
Prices are fair. Pretty cheap actually if you do a lunch buffet Monday thru Saturday. $ 7.49 for a lunch buffet, I believe dinner and Sundays are around the $ 12 mark.
Best buffet in the CNY area.

This place use to be good when they first opened. Whether it’s changed hands it’s gone way down hill. Ended up in ER with food poisoning real bad. I reported this place to health dept to check them out this is the first place I ever ate and got sick at. Eat at your own risk if your partial to vomiting and sitting on the toilet a lot something is wrong with this place

Not very bad, Very clean, quite, not the cheapest but a little worth it, the food tastes good. I wish if they could add more food to the menu! same food every time is not fun.

Possibly the worst buffet experience I’ve ever had. Everything tasted like it had been out for days. Everything was flavorless and chewy, straight from heat lamp hell. The General Tso’s «chicken» was all breading and gristle. The rice was dry. The vegetables were soggy and over-​salted.
I tried many other things off of this large and diverse buffet, but not a single thing was memorable. It all tasted the same: bland. In fact, almost everything tasted like — in order to combat the bacteria that inevitably grows on food that is kept lukewarm (it wasn’t even hot) — the entire spread was sprayed with disinfectant, giving it a slight bitter taste. Starting about half an hour after our meal, I felt sick for the next 12 hours. Not food poisoning-​level sick, but facing that direction.
Buffets are a tough sell to begin with for a person like me, who can’t eat a mountain of food in one sitting. But good ones are worth the $ 15 or so you pay for entry. This one wouldn’t be worth half that. Needless to say, I will not be returning to Empire Buffet.

We have been coming here a few times a year, for the past several years. We visited Empire Buffet last night again and received the same consistent friendly service and enjoyable food quality that we have almost always gotten. I personally believe that Empire Buffet has the best selection and quality of food in the Syracuse area. They are consistently making sushi, which on a buffet scale of 1 to 10, I would rate a strong 7. I’ve had better quality sushi at a few other Chinese food buffets over the years, but not very many. (My recommendation to the restaurant: Branch out and put a couple of higher end sushi offerings in your selections and keep changing them up. It would be nice to see more variety in the selections.)
The selection and quality of the rest of the dishes was still a strong 8 out of 10, which I still feel is the best in this area.
At approximately 7pm last night, the restaurant was approximately 60−70% full, which it typically is each time we come here, which means to me that there are a lot of people eating here, they are just not writing reviews.
We hadn’t been here for a while and after reading the several latest bad reviews I was concerned about going here with my family last night. Once we got here and seen that they were still doing a great job, the concerns immediately went away and now don’t exist.
It’s a very difficult job to offer as many dishes as they do and to maintain the quality that I expect, but they have been achieving it consistently for several years. No they are not perfect, so we have experienced some quality issues over the years, but they have been few and very far between.
We are looking forward to our next lunch or dinner here!
Enjoy!

As far as buffets go, it wasn’t bad at all. Actually for a Chinese buffet had crab legs and they kept refilling them instead of the ones that only have 2 or 3 and then they bring out two or three half an hour later. Very good dessert selection I wasn’t just stuck with ice cream or jello there is a lot of different kinds fresh fruit all in all not too bad is it just not 5 stars either

Do NOT eat here! Take this very seriously. Got the worst food poisoning I’ve ever had. Seriously, someone should call the health department on these guys. First they ignored me for 10 minutes while I stood there waiting to be seated. I also got dirty plates from the buffet stack at least twice. Their soup bowls at the buffet were full of bleach water still. Never once refilled my drink, which was just water. Food was just gross. Customer service by «Irene» up front was awful. If you need to go to a Chinese buffet, the one next to Delmonicos is better and friendlier service. New Ling Ling in North Syracuse is also better. Plus I have never gotten sick at either one.

Worst Chinese buffet ever! I have been to many buffets and this one I barely took a bite of multiple foods and each one made my stomach turn. The only thing I liked was the potstickers, white rice, and deserts.
One of the guys in my group ended up in the bathroom after trying a few items… He was in there a while if you know what I mean…
The only good thing, sad to say was the pizza (and that is being generous).

I never take it as a good sign when Chinese buffets have items like pizza and mac and cheese, but there is enough of a selection here that you will find at least a few things you like. The most authentic Chinese food, like salt and pepper chicken is okay, but nothing stellar. A lot of the meat, like the chicken-​on-​a-​stick, is chewy and past its prime, same for the sweet and sour chicken. Surprisingly, the best thing on the buffet is the sushi which was very fresh and nicely rolled. For ten bucks, this isn’t the worst Chinese buffet in the world, it just needs some more fresh dishes with vegetables.

BEWARE… after eating here as soon as we walked out there was someone throwing up right in the parking lot. giving the restaurant the benefit of the doubt I though it was just a random occurrence, little did I know I’d be home vomiting my guts out later that night. This place isn’t worth the a night of food poisoning… Be CAREFUL !

I struggle giving this place a negative review because I truly do enjoy the food here. It has potential to be better. I find it disappointing that they limit you to 5 crab legs at a time almost as much as I find it disappointing that the pan is always empty. It’s a buffet, there should always be ample servings to go around for all of the dining guests. And on top of it this place rushes you out. It’s a rare occasion to get a refill. i do love the sushi bar though. Variety is fantastic

I’ll start off by saying the selection of food was very good. They had a lot of variety and most of the food was very good and the prices were very standard.
Pros: Their Korean Chicken, Coconut Shrimp (Which they called Walnut Shrimp), and Black Pepper Chicken were all very good!
Cons: Their Peanut Chicken was very dry and unflavored, they’re sushi was just so-​so nothing to rave over, and their general tso’s chicken tasted more like honey chicken and had absolutely no spiciness to it.
All in all, it was good but it wasn’t an amazing buffet.

I was surprised! Empire Buffet was so much better than I expected!
After trying New Ling Ling which had 3 ½ stars, I was like if Empire buffet has 2 ½ stars, it is probably worse but I like the name Empire because somehow I think it sounds like a good buffet so me and my family went to try it out!
Empire Buffet’s appearance is so much better than New Ling Ling’s. The lighting was great and the environment seemed so clean!
They have an amazing variety of fruits to my surprise and many other foods. I really liked their dumplings which are different from a typical buffet. The chicken broccoli was also really good! They had fresh sushi, which I really enjoyed!
What was really unique — fried frog legs! They were delicious! It literally tastes like chicken. I say give it a try! They look like chicken tenders.
As for dessert, I had the lotus bean paste buns! I ate so many of them! I loved it!
There is so much food at Empire Buffet but I can’t name all of it.
For a buffet in Syracuse where there is a small Asian population and few Asian marts, for less than $ 12 a person is a great deal!
I highly recommend anyone to go there!

When it comes to Chinese food, I don’t expect much (you’d think that would mean I would avoid it all together) but I have an occasional craving for the stuff and almost always cave in.
I was pleasantly surprised by my first visit to Empire Buffet. The restaurant was spacious, well-​lit, and seemingly clean. There were more people dining in than I had expected. There were several buffet tables with plenty of options. We chose to take out our food from the buffet, for $ 4.99/lb. The price was reasonable but it sure was easy to go overboard.
I chose fried rice, lo mein, an egg roll, and sesame chicken. Sushi was also available but wasn’t labeled (as far as I could tell), so I decided against it. The sesame chicken was good, the rest mediocre (for instance, the lo mein was lacking in vegetables).
Because Empire Buffet had a good selection and was just as decent as any takeout that I’ve had in the past and I was comfortable with the atmosphere, I will go back.