Oct 18

Woorijip Korean Restaurant – New York, NY

12 W 32nd St

New York, NY 10001

Rating: ★★★★☆ 

Located in the heart of Koreatown in New York City, Woorijip serves up various popular Korean dishes in various forms. When we arrived, the lunch buffet was still being served. A dinner buffet is also available. Looking past the buffet table, you will find various prepackaged Korean favorites in individual containers at affordable prices. A microwave is available at the front of the restaurant in case your food is cold. When we entered, almost every table was occupied.

While going through the buffet line, we picked up the kimchi pancake, kimchi, kimchi fried rice, ja jang myun, japchae, house fried rice with shrimp and beef, and sauteed pork. We also ordered a package of kimbap with beef. The kimchi pancake was a bit soggy, but tasted good. The kimchi was good, but you taste too much thick pepper paste. The kimchi fried rice also contained peas and corn. The rice had a perfect amount of spice and kimchi. I liked how there was a good balance of rice to kimchi. The ja jang myun actually has flavor and was not just saucy. The noodles would have been better if more meat was included. The japchae tasted good and had flavor, but had too many vegetables. The house fried rice with shrimp and beef was flavorful and simple. This fried rice also included egg and went well with many of the above dishes. The sauteed pork was extremely juicy and flavorful, but had too many onions. The kimbap had fresh seasoned beef inside and tasted delicious.

Overall, Woorijip serves up a large variety of popular Korean dishes at very affordable prices. Today’s lunch buffet only came in at $3.99 per pound. Given another opportunity, I would like to revisit this location to try out more of the prepackaged food or come back for the dinner buffet to see what else is offered. If you like Korean food and are in New York, you cannot leave without trying Woorijip.

Oct 14

Chao Phra Ya – Hendron, VA

2465 Centreville Rd J1

Herndon, VA 20171

Rating: ★★★★☆ 

In search of some Asian food near Dulles Airport in Northern Virginia, we ended up at Chao Phra Ya in Hendron, VA. Chao Phra Ya shares its parking inside the very busy shopping center, so we ended up parking fairly far. As we entered the quiet restaurant, we noticed that there were a few other people eating at the restaurant. We were quickly seated by by the server and were provided with menus while taking our drink order. The menu is printed in an innovative laminated newspaper format.

Today, we decided to order the Tom Yum soup, stuffed chicken wings, chicken larb, red curry with pork, and panang curry with chicken. The tom Yum soup tasted fresh and was quite sour and lemony. The small soup also included many chunks of fresh tender chicken breast meat. The stuffed chicken wings tasted extremely fresh and each piece had crispy skin. The filling is different here because they do not use noodles at all but do include crab meat, shrimp, and mushrooms. Without the noodle, the stuffed chicken wings tasted extremely meaty but went well with the sweet and sour sauce. The chicken larb came quite spicy since we ordered it hot. Like the other dishes so far, the larb was very fresh, did not have too much juice, and came with lean meat. Although the larb tasted very good, we noticed that there was not a lot of rice powder used. The red curry with pork was quite sweet and creamy with a hint of spice. The curry was fresh, but did not seem to have a lot of meat and had too many bamboo shoots. The panang curry with chicken was actually spicier than the red curry and also tasted fresh. This curry was much sweeter than the red curry and contained a lot of chicken. Both curries tasted amazing when served with rice.

Overall, Chao Phra Ya serves up delicious tasting Thai food that is fairly authentic. Prices are a bit higher than what you would expect in California, but they are reasonable for the portions received. Service was consistent and the waiter continuously refilled our water glasses. If you are in the Dulles area and are looking for Thai food, Chao Phra Ya will satisfy your cravings.

Oct 11

Duff’s Famous Wings – Deprew, NY

550 Dick Rd

Depew, NY 14043

Rating: ★★★★☆ 

As one of the biggest names in buffalo wings in Buffalo New York, Duff’s Famous Wings serves up those famous wings in various sauces. Unlike their main competitor, The Anchor Bar, Duff’s does not claim to be the original buffalo wing. Located a few miles from the Buffalo Niagara Airport, Duff’s Famous Wings provides ample seating with various televisions broadcasting the latest sports. After seating ourselves at a table, a server came by to take our order.

Today, we decided to order Duff’s daily special, which included 20 wings, large fries, small pitcher of soda, celery, carrots, and Duff’s bleu cheese. Since we wanted to try out more sauces, we ordered an additional 10 wings to end up with 30 wings. We tried out three sauces: hot, medium, and spicy BBQ. The wings themselves were very fresh and steaming hot. Most wings were of decent size and some wings were fairly large. The meat was also tender and juicy. Since Duff’s wrote on their menu that hot was very very hot and medium was hot, we had high expectations of the spice level. The hot wings were fairly spicy, but had way too much vinegar taste. The medium wings really did just taste medium and not hot at all. I did like how the medium did not have as much of a vinegar taste. The spicy BBQ was not spicy at all. You can really only taste the BBQ sauce. The meal came with a large bowl of fresh fries that was fairly impossible to finish considering the number of wings ordered.

Overall, Duff’s Famous Wings serves up high quality fresh wings at decent prices. If you are a person who can take heat, do not be deterred from ordering at spice levels of hot or higher since you should not believe their advertising about how hot their hot sauce is. Service was pretty good and the waitress came by every so often to see how we were doing. If you are in the Buffalo area and want to try their wings, then Duff’s Famous Wings would be a good choice.

Oct 07

Ka Hing Kitchen – Markham, ON

4300 Steeles Ave E

Markham, ON L3R, Canada

Rating: ★½☆☆☆ 

Located inside Pacific Mall right outside Toronto, ON, Ka Hing Kitchen sits in the “Gourmet food” area on the second floor of the plaza. After walking down the various aisles of random goods on the first floor, any food sounded good at this point. Having reviewed the largely displayed photo menu on the wall, we decided to order from the small shop.

Today, we ordered the shrimp & egg over rice and the BBQ Pork & Fried Chicken over rice. Each entree came with a complimentary cup of real fresh soy milk, which tastes different from the soy milk you get from American supermarkets. The shrimp & egg over rice came with large amounts of small shrimp and plenty of smooth scrambled egg over the rice. Unfortunately, even with so much shrimp and egg, there was no flavor at all. I felt like the dish was not salted at all. For the first time ever, I had to add soy sauce to the dish to make it more palatable. With the soy sauce, the dish tasted OK, but I felt like I was just eating shrimp with soy sauce. The BBQ Pork & Fried Chicken tasted much better. The BBQ Pork was lean and flavorful and the fried chicken had crispy skin and was tender. Both dishes arrived piping hot and tasted fresh.

Overall, the food is quite mediocre, and one dish lacked any flavor whatsoever. It was nice to have some soy milk with the meal, but that does not overcome the food quality. The prices are quite low for the amount of food you actually get. However, if you end up at Pacific Mall, you will find other food stalls throughout the floor that will probably make better tasting food.

Oct 04

Thunder Falls Buffet – Niagara Falls, NY

310 4th St

Niagara Falls, NY 14303

Rating: ★★☆☆☆ 

Located near our hotel, at the Seneca Casino Casino Resort, the Thunder Falls Buffet serves up various types of food including Asian, Grill, Mediterranean, Pizza, and Dessert. Costing only $26 per person for a Saturday night, the price seemed fairly acceptable, especially having a buy one get one free coupon in hand. After paying, we were guided by a hostess to our table where our server took our drink orders. Oddly enough, the hostess asked if we wanted to sit in a smoking or non-smoking section, and I of course chose the non-smoking section not knowing that smoking sections even existed in restaurants still.

Having went around the buffet, we were able to try various types of food offered. The rice in the Asian station was quite hard and did not taste fresh. I avoided the remainder of the Asian station because all of the food looked old and unappetizing. The salmon was juicy with a nice crust. The fried chicken was one of the highlights of the meal as it was both juicy and fresh with a crispy crust. The mac and cheese did not have much cheese on them, and there was not much flavor except from the plain pasta. The pineapple BBQ chicken thighs were juicy and tender, but you could not taste any pineapple, only regular BBQ sauce. The swai fish was extremely dry and salty. The prime rib was available from the carving station with a pot of au jus on the side. There was a large chunk of fat from the prime rib received, but neither the au jus nor the meat itself had much of any flavor. I felt like the meat and au jus were not seasoned at all. The meatballs were dense and had simple Italian seasoning, but did not taste special at all. The penne pasta was plain, but the tomato sauce did taste fresh. The pepperoni pizza was doughy and you can taste a Cesar flavor in the sauce, but was plain tasting overall. The chicken noodle soup came with lots of tender chicken, but you can only taste the celery. The pasta bar was interesting, but there was a long wait with only one person cooking and quite a few people in line. I ordered a shrimp spinach Alfredo pasta, which came out tasting delicious, but extremely buttery and unhealthy. The soft-serve vanilla ice cream tasted very cold and was not completely white, but went well with the Oreo crumbs. Other than the ice cream, the cherry chocolate cake tasted moist, and various other options were available such as pie and creme brulee.

Overall, the food at the Thunder Falls Buffet was quite disappointing. There were hints of good tasting food amidst a large quantity of disappointing food. Having tried out much better casino buffets, I was quite disappointed in the quality at this establishment. While waiting for the pasta bar, I noticed staff taking food out of heating ovens where large trays of food were already cooked and ready to be dumped into the trays. Since the food was already prepared, most of the food did not taste fresh. If you are in the Niagara Falls, NY area and are looking for lunch or dinner, I advise you to look elsewhere if possible.

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