My brother Dave is a restaurant purveyor, and he once specialized in Chinese restaurants. Dave memorized the funniest lines from portly stand-up comic John Pinette's hilarious bit about being banned from the all-you-can-eat Chinese buffet. Dave launches into the outraged Chinese restaurant-owner routine whenever the family gathers -- especially when somebody goes back for seconds on the Thanksgiving pumpkin pie.
Asian all-you-can-eat buffets have long been the butt of culinary jokes. When I first heard about the all-you-eat Korean barbecue restaurant called Korea Garden Grille, the subject of this week's Café review, I thought it sounded like a terrible idea. That's because I was envisioning a buffet line of barbecue that was already cooked. But when I saw that the meats and seafood on this buffet line were raw, I realized what a brilliant concept it really was. You select exactly what you want and cook it yourself at the little barbecue grill built into your table.
Korea Garden Grille may be the best all-you-can-eat Asian buffet I've ever seen.