A good buffet should make you rub your stomach and groan. A good Chinese buffet should make you do the same and enjoy it.
Just off State Street on Gilman, Yummy Buffet offers seemingly endless pans of food, and pretty much all of it is delicious. At just six dollars, the strength of this particular buffet is that it fulfills and supersedes the normal buffet experience.
In a normal buffet, the divisions between courses must disappear in the pursuit of a pile of plates. Instead of making the first plate heavy on one type of food, the second feature something else and other plates contain other concentrations of whatever is appropriate, the plates are merely successive bouts of pleasure. At the end of the meal, the plates at Yummy Buffet should resemble a rock outcrop with various remainders indicating the mood of the patron at some particular moment.
It's advisable to skip to the stir-fries as soon as possible. The offerings are gathered in one corner and are practically a garden in warming trays.The stir-fries are all heavy on vegetables and this works because they make a surprising punch to finish out the first plate.
Taking a heaping pile of several of the stir-fries will create a turf war of broccoli, onions and green peppers. Each is crisp and keeps coming back with a crunch that resonates through your molars. Any normal collection of stir-fries has the green overpowering the brown.
A second plate should include any combination of potstickers, crab rangoon and egg rolls. Each excels one its own, but come together as a satisfying trinity. The potstickers must be consumed with one swoop of the fork, the crab rangoon has substantial filling and the egg rolls fill out the name of the place.
Every plate afterward should have some combination of the offerings, which go far beyond what I've mentioned. The cautionary note about Yummy Buffet is that the plates tend to stack up too quickly and the temptation of the all-you-can-eat aspect is a little too strong. It is possible to beyond the normal confines of a human stomach, regret the portions and end up with a Yummy hangover. Fortunately it's a desirable sort of hangover.
Given the outstanding selection of food and its overall quality, it's hard to find fault with Yummy Buffet. One drawback is that it's a little too popular and can be a bit cramped during the lunch hour. Also, Yummy Buffet has enormous mirrors on one wall, forcing you to look at yourself when you're eating a buffet. And that's simply not recommended.
Ben Schultz is a senior majoring in English and history. He can be reached at blschultz@wisc.edu.
