Hibachi Grill & Supreme Buffet – West St. Paul, MN

D.Rough and I have driven by this place a ton of times since it opened a couple of months back. Ever since, we’ve seen a lot of cars in the parking lot – a LOT. It has to be good right? We looked online to see what people were saying about. Some didn’t have great things to say about much else, aside from the sushi. Word on the street was that the amount you pay is absolutely worth the amount and quality of the sushi you will get at the buffet there. D.Rough and I were not in a cooing mood, so we thought we’d give it a shot.

The inside of the place is very bright and welcoming. And surprisingly, there were a ton of people inside – more than we even expected, since we didn’t realize how expansive the inside of the place really is. And a very diverse crowd of people. All types of ethnicities, party sizes, body types, social class, and every other combination of characteristics you can think of are here. That bodes well in our book.

We got seated and immediately set out for the appetizers and the sushi. I started with some cream cheese puffs, bacon-wrapped crab sticks, fried egg roll, fried spring roll, and a bunch of sushi. You have to get your wasabi and ginger at the end of the sushi bar and bring it back to your table, so don’t forget to do that. I think I did pretty well this first pass. Actually everything on the plate was better than edible. I wasn’t expecting much going into this whole event, but I was pleasantly surprised with the quality of sushi and the quality of the appetizers. Nicely done.

I was sort of surprised most of the dishes appear to have some Asian influence. I say this because the last giant chi-buff I went to had all kinds of American dishes on it. Of course, this place does have pizza, cheese sticks, roast beef, and a couple of other things, it didn’t’ appear to be the main emphasis of it all. We opted not to try the Mongolian style area where you pick your ingredients and have the cooks stir fry it. Maybe next time.

Now… time to try some entrée-style dishes. Sesame chicken, black pepper beef, orange pork, green beans, champagne chicken, lo mein, rice noodles, a pan fried dumpling, and a cheese stick, just to say I ate one. The cheese stick was pretty …uh… not good (trying to be nice). I immediately warned D.Rough she shouldn’t even try it. She was sorry she didn’t listen to me this time around. The chicken dishes were just alright. Nothing jumped out at me as awesome and the same went for the other things on this plate. The orange pork had a weird after taste and the beef was a little stringy for my liking. The noodles ended up being dry, somehow, but had a decent flavor to them. The dumpling was slightly better than average and I thought about going back to get more. The green beans were the best thing on this plate this time around. Very flavorful without being greasy or heavy. I really liked these.

I went back for round three and loaded back up on sushi – sadly, I was excited about sushi and forgot to take the photo, so all I got was a few random left-overs at the end of it all when I remembered. I did get a couple vegetarian dishes, since the green beans were good. I thought maybe they excelled in vegetable cooking and they surprisingly did alright. The broccoli dish I got was quite good, as I recall. And of course, more sushi. Hahahahaha.

I needed to wind down my eating, so I went up for some desserts. I got a small slice of cheesecake, which wasn’t the greatest – might just not have been cold enough in the container to make it firm. And of course, the soft serve ice cream machine always finished a chi-buff experience on a good note for me. Especially when they have sprinkles! I got a giant oreo, as well, but that wasn’t for me – I’m not an oreo guy.

Overall, I was really impressed with the sushi, especially for buffet-style sushi. It’s definitely worth the money to eat a bunch of sushi there, I assure you. The appetizers were good and also the vegetable items were pretty good. The meat entrée dishes were a little bland and didn’t seem to be top quality. That being said, I think D.Rough and I both agreed we’d go back here when we needed a sushi fix close to our house and didn’t want to go any place fancy. Again, totally worth it and the people working there are really nice.

Top 5 things about the Hibachi Grill & Supreme Buffet
1. Sushi
2. Cream cheese puffs
3. Bacon-wrapped crab
4. Green beans
5. Brocolli dish

Bottom 5 things
1. Cheese stick
2. Orange pork
3. Black pepper beef
4. Dry noodles (twss)
5. Sadface on the cheesecake

1201 S. Robert Street
West. St. Paul, MN 55118