Broward's Asian buffets

I really like buffets.  Not so much because they provide diners with the opportunity to gorge themselves on food for one single price....actually, I don't like that aspect at all.  I love buffets because they allow me to sample a little bit of a lot of different dishes.  When it comes to ethnic cuisines, the buffet format is an excellent way to get a much broader idea of what makes that cuisine unique (or not so unique), as well as affording me the chance to sample some more exotic dishes - or dishes with unappealing or boring descriptions - without feeling committed to purchasing a large bowl or platter of it or feeling like I'm taking a risk.  It comes down to a matter of economy.  While I might pass up paying for a plate of stinky tofu or "special meat with good sauce" from a menu, I'll definitely try some on a buffet....that is to say, a good buffet.  While some buffets can be a great catalyst for exploring a new cuisine, many can paint a pretty grim picture of a cuisine and can offer a diner an unfortunate first impression.  Imagine if your first experience with Chinese cuisine was at a $6.99 All-u-can-eat in Hialeah?  Or if your initial foray into Japanese cuisine was picking at a dried-out and grey-colored tuna nigiri at a Chinese-owned sushi buffet?  A buffet can teeter on the edge of a finely sharped knife - one side offering a good representation of a culture's cuisine and the other offering nothing but disgrace to that culture...and possible food poisoning.

The important thing to remember about a buffet is that no matter the quality, it will never be as good as having a dish made to order for you.  A buffet will always be - regardless of price or opulence - about economy.  Whether you're at a $6.99 Chinese buffet or an elegant $150 brunch buffet, the whole point of a buffet is to get the most bang for your buck...or at least feeling like you did.  That being said, if you like a dish you sampled at a buffet, try ordering it from the menu either at that restaurant or perhaps at another restaurant.  Nine times out of ten, you won't be disappointed.

Now onto the buffets....

Bombay Grill

The first one I've completely fallen in love with and has become almost a sinful indulgence with John and me is Bombay Grill, a cavernous restaurant with a full bar, a private event room, and at least 4 flat screen televisions airing Bollywood music videos.  Supposedly they have an à la carte menu, but I've never been offered one, and I've never seen any of the numerous Indian families that dine here ever order from one.  With a South Asian buffet as extensive as that of Bombay Grill, I don't think there is need to order from a menu.  This buffet has to be the largest South Asian buffet that I've been to in the United States - bigger and more diverse than any buffet I've been to in NYC (and I always go to an Indian buffet when I'm in The Big Apple).  Saturdays and Sundays seem to be the best days to go, and if you choose to go, you'll be dining with ladies dressed in the finest shalwar kameez and saris, for a meal at Bombay Grill is a pretty big deal, despite the $14.95 price tag.  On any given weekend, there will be an offering of pani puris, masala dosa and idli from southern India, a vegetarian (usually South Indian sambhar) and a non-vegetarian soup, pakodas, samosas, and the quintessential Bombay street dish of pav bhaji...and those are just some of the appetizers.  There is usually a selection of three types of bread - naan, paratha, and usually a chickpea flour (besan) bathura - along with a huge steamer of fragrant basmati rice scented with whole spices and clarified butter (ghee).  There is chicken tikka, chicken boti, chicken malai, biryani, several dal (beans and lentils) dishes that can include tadka dal and dal makhni, a meat curry and several vegetable curries that often include kadi pakoda, a dish of fritters in a tangy yogurt sauce.  There are usually two desserts - kheer (rice pudding) and gulab jamuns - as well as a tank of hot masala chai.

Most of the food at Bombay Grill is good, and dishes are changed and replenished fairly often.  For an Indian cuisine newbie, this a great place to get a first taste.  The connoisseur will be aware of having sampled better interpretations of a few of the dishes, but I've yet to find anything wrong with anything that they've served.  Like I mentioned before, if you're fond of a particular dish, try ordering it the next time you're at an Indian restaurant and see how it is when it's made fresh for you.

Dragon Buffet

I rarely like to dine at a Chinese buffet.  Some of them have begun serving siu mai and potstickers, and I usually stick to those selections as I can never seem to enjoy the gloppy and soggy entrée selections at most Chinese buffets.  Additionally, after having sampled true Chinese cuisine - the food that actual Chinese (or more correctly, Cantonese) people eat - Chinese American food seems just too heavy and quite boring.   That being said, it was a great pleasure to discover Dragon Buffet located on University Drive just north of The 595 expressway for they actually offer a decent selection of authentic Chinese dishes in addition to Chinese American standards, sushi, and a tepenyaki mongolian barbecue type station for around $17.  John and I have only been there once this past Friday but we definitely plan on going back.

General Tso's chicken, beef and broccoli, and moo goo gai pan were the same as those that you find anywhere and not worth trying.  I'm convinced they were just there to satisfy diners who were either too squeamish or ignorant to sample their selection of nearly 10 different types of dim sum, salt and pepper frog's legs, roasted duck, or clams in black bean sauce.  I immediately gravitated to a platter of char sui bao (baked pork buns), a personal favorite of mine that were soft and overflowing with bits of sweet pork.  Steamed leak dumplings, siu mai, har gow dumplings, and potstickers were all very good.  Crispy fried salt and pepper frogs legs were tender and flavorful.  Thai-style pork chops were also very good, as was their selection of sushi rolls that included hand rolls, stuffed bean curd skins, and gorgeous pickled persimmon nigiri topped with a dollop of smelt roe.  The dessert section cheap red bean ice cream (pass on it) as well as almond grass jelly, rice past cakes, Chinese angel food cake rolls, and lychees.

I tend to shy away from shellfish at a buffet, so I did not try selections from their raw bar except for a piece of frozen-solid stone crab claw.  There were also steamed mussels, king crab claws, and raw oysters.  I guess they're okay as there were many tables going through mounds of them, but I believe that the real draw of Dragon Buffet is the selection of authentic dishes.  

Betty's Soul Food (Breakfast)

Having been in Broward County for only a few months, I've found there to be a lot of differences from Dade County in the gastronomic landscape.  One thing I've noticed that is perhaps lacking in Dade, but in full abundance in Broward, is the presence of places serving good - if not phenomenal - American breakfasts.  John and I wanted to go out for a good last breakfast of 2011.  Our first choice was Old Fort Lauderdale Breakfast House, which serves a fantastic American breakfast with top-notch products and is almost as good as the breakfast served at Roxbury Tavern in Sauk City, Wisconsin.  Of course, it being South Florida, quality usually goes hand-in-hand with a heftier price tag and heftier hype, which is why the only time we've successfully had breakfast at the O-B House was on a Monday at around 7:30 AM.  The combination of this restaurant having a small seating capacity, making everything to order, and having a substantial local following makes it difficult to to get a table on most weekends without waiting a minimum of 20 minutes outside in the South Florida sun.  This particular Saturday morning, we had the added obstacle of the street being blocked off for the Downtown Fort Lauderdale New Year's Eve celebrations, which was the deciding factor for us to change our breakfast plans.

The first thing that came to John's brilliant mind was Betty's, a soul food restaurant located on Sistrunk, which is the main thoroughfare of Fort Lauderdale's historically African-American (or Black, if you prefer) neighborhood.  John had seen it from the Tri Rail for over a year now, I've read about it in the Sun Sentinel, a coworker always raves about it, and a new friend at a party couldn't speak more highly of it.  Besides having a reputation for incredible soul food standards, the place is a culinary landmark for a community that arguably knows a lot about great food.  A drive along the newly-renovated Sistrunk (which is quaint and full of character) just past I-95 will lead you to Betty's Soul Food just on your right.  The facade looks like something straight out of the Deep South, which before the throngs of Latin American immigrants and Anglo snowbirds, was what a lot of South Florida looked like.  I loved it at first sight!

The inside of the restaurant is not big, but definitely not claustrophobic.  There is a counter, like any good diner should have, as well as an array of booths and tables.  The owners are very much Afrocentric and take Black pride very seriously, as witnessed in posters of Martin Luther King Jr, President Barack Obama, and a portrait of The Last Supper with important Black ideological figures (Marcus Garvey, Haile Selassie, Elijah Mohammed, Bob Marley, Frederick Douglas, Malcolm X, and others), which is where we chose to sit under.  The dining room was alive with patrons enjoying breakfast and a good mix of funk classics, Motown hits, and R&B singles.  I started with a cup of regular black coffee, and John had a glass of sweet tea, which had the requisite intense sweetness and almost syrup-like consistency.  If you've never had experience with soul food, this is definitely not a calorie-conscious cuisine, but definitely a flavor-conscious cuisine, and intense sweetness in drinks and desserts is very characteristic.  That being said, the uninitiated might feel as if they might go into diabetic shock while sipping on Betty's sweet tea, but the soul food connoisseur will have a satisfied smile knowing that he/she has got the good stuff.

As for our breakfasts, John ordered the chicken and waffle, and I had the salmon croquettes.  John's breakfast, which came out to just under $8, consisted of a freshly-made, thick and very fluffy round waffle served with two medium-sized pieces of dark meat fried chicken.  I don't get too crazy about waffles, unless they're  Liege waffles, but these were good and offered everything that you'd want from a waffle.  The fried chicken was moist and had an addictive well-seasoned and crunchy crust, although one piece was no more than a glorified chicken wing and didn't offer too much meat.  Regardless, the seasoning and crust more than made up for it in my view.  I'm guessing that if you would like a meatier piece, you can ask for a breast or a drumstick or whatever piece you prefer.  

My salmon croquettes (just under $9), which came highly recommended by my coworker, were fantastically crispy on the outside, just moist enough on the inside, and had an irresistible savoriness to them that was only improved by a few dashes from the huge bottle of Crystal hot sauce present at every table.  My over easy eggs were perfectly fried with golden brown crispiness around the edges and runny yolks that melted onto the plate with the lightest touch of my fork.  While many people find grits to be too plain (and perhaps gloppy) to decipher the good from the bad, Betty's grits are noticeably superior to most that I've tried.  The star of the breakfast spread, however, were the homemade biscuits, which were so buttery and flavorful that they required nothing at all.  The copious amount of butter in them, while keeping them moist on the inside, can turn them quickly soggy on the bottoms if not eaten quickly enough, but the flavor is so good that it would be foolish to nitpick at such a small detail.  

A full (and filling) breakfast for two came out to $20 and came complete with the heady feeling that well-made soul food can give you.  Upon perusing the menu, we found several lunch and dinner options that would definitely draw us back to Betty's, such as fried chicken, ribs (they have their own rib truck parked out front), oxtails, pig's feet, ham hocks, fried fish, souse, and many other classics.  Of course, all the dishes come served with typical sides such as collard greens, macaroni and cheese, okra, and others. Daily specials include neck bones, hog maws, and chitterlings.  And this doesn't include all the different specials tacked onto the walls.  Betty's Soul Food DEFINITELY warrants another visit...and maybe another after that....and then another, and another, and another.  If the quality and service stay the same, this might make my list of regular spots and give one more reason to be happy to live in Broward County.

Betty's Soul Food

601 Northwest 22nd Road, Fort Lauderdale, FL 33311-7756

(954) 583-9121 ‎