Tyler has two popular Chinese buffet restaurants; China King, and China Café. Both of these two restaurants are Chinese Buffets, that are fully stocked with sweet and sour chicken, orange chicken, sesame seed and all the soy sauce your heart desires.
China Café has some how stood the test of time even thought it’s neighboring building has been the home to many unsuccessful Chinese restaurants. The Chinese restaurant has been a topic of restaurant disappointments, but for some odd reason I have returned. I guess it must be the enduring sounds of broken English, or the fact that it is all you can eat for less than ten dollars, or possibly it is the lighted Chinese art that draws me back, I don’t know. Whatever the reason I know its not the food. The buffet is heated by hot water and if you are lucky you might be there when the water starts to flood over the buffet bar and run into the floor. I think that I have been there about five times that they had issues with the water. The best time to go to the Chinese restaurant is when it is the busiest. If you go to China Café during a slow time than you will never know how long the food has been sitting in the metal crates.
A few years ago Tyler welcomed another Chinese buffet restaurant called China King. I never have experienced a water problem at China King. Most of the food is surprisingly fresh compared to other buffets here in Tyler. That statement is not necessarily saying much about the restaurant.
As you walk up to the front door you will feel welcomed by five foot cat statues and fat Buda statues, and a nice smiling Asian man trying to communicate to tell us where to sit. The China King has a sushi buffet that will please you every raw fish desire. For the most part the sushi actually does not taste like a soft piece of rubber. Although you really will not see your waiter while you eating there, somehow your drink seems to be filled constantly and your dirty plates are always removed. I think that the waiters sit and wait until you are at the buffet to actually approach your table. But even though there is no interaction between the waiters and customers, we are expected to tip. I am necessarily a “cheap” person but I do not understand why there is no interaction. It gets frustrating, to say the least.
It isn’t a Chinese restaurant without the dessert part and cheap free ice cream. I don’t really understand what is Chinese about three different melons, Jello cut into small blocks and banana pudding, but it seems that every Chinese restaurant’s desserts is only filled with these things.
Even though I do get frustrated with the buffet experiences I do leave full and got my money’s worth, so I do guess that the restaurants did its job. Most people go out to eat for the comfort of being served on, which is lacking, to say the least, in the Chinese buffet industry.
When in Tyler you now have a couple more burger places to try out. Jucy’s opened a new more modern looking facility and sells the same good burgers but frozen chicken fingers and milk shakes made from soft serve icecream. Now Smashburger on the other hand has even better hamburgers, really good fries, and their shakes are made with Hagen Daaz icecream.