By Marcus Dietz

    Most diners would pay good money to enjoy peel and eat shrimp with cocktail sauce, all the crustaceans their tummies can devour. And who wouldn’t pay ten bucks or so to hit an all-you-can-eat sushi bar with California rolls?

    Now toss in fiery Mongolian barbecue with a choice of four meats and an endless line of vegetables and sauces that allow guests to create a virtually infinite combination of dishes, again all-you-can-eat. Heck, the show is as good as the meal as the chef deftly waves a stick across the grill to scatter, steam and saute the meal, walking in circles just as if he was a miner during the gold rush working an arrastre.

    Any one of these selections is worth the cost of a meal, but at the recently-opened Chinatown Buffet guests get them all plus so much more. Salad bar, a wide selection of Oriental delights—none of which are found at Chinatown’s sister restaurant Mandarin Garden, it should be pointed out—soups, and much more are available for lunch, dinner, even Sunday champagne brunch with endless bubbly, at prices extremely fair for so much fare.

    Not surprisingly, Chinatown Buffet morphed into one of Big Bear’s busiest restaurants after opening its doors in the old Sugar Bear restaurant location a few short months ago. What we did find surprising on a recent visit was how many children were dining there, but since those under age 10 eat for half of the already-reasonable prices parents can fill their tribe for what works out to essentially fast food prices. Adults gork out at dinner for just $10.95 during the week, a buck more on Saturday and Sunday, with weekday lunch $6.95, $7.95 on Saturday and $8.95 for Sunday champagne brunch.

    For those prices guests could just land on the California rolls and shrimp and go away happy—wife Sandy and I almost did just that, piling prawns onto our plates liberally and sampling each of the four different sushi offerings, me applying plenty of wasabi. Yet to do so means passing up some tasty, unique offerings owner Barry Wang and staff come up specifically for the buffet, dishes like Mandarin chicken, seafood delight crammed full of shrimp and other delicacies, tasty Taiwanese pork chops with oyster sauce (one of the real hits!), chile chicken and much more.

    Some dishes are regular offerings but others rotate so guests find something different on every visit. Baked mussels made an appearance when we were there and were very tasty as were huge salt and pepper shrimp, but Wang said to expect salmon, crab legs and scallops in the future, whatever he finds at the fresh Los Angeles seafood markets he visits every week.

    And certainly it would be near-impossible to duplicate your dish off the Mongolian barbecue even if you wanted to. Begin by piling your plate high with chicken, beef, pork or lamb, as much as you desire. Then select vegetables like carrots, celery, cilantro, noodles and other goodies. Pick from a variety of sauces like oyster, szechuan or just lemon water, depending on how spicy you like it. Then hand the plate to the chef and watch as the show unfolds.

    Some guests come specifically for just the Mongolian barbecue, no doubt remembering Wang’s restaurant of the same name that was popular for years, but again that’s missing the whole point of Chinatown, which is variety...lots and lots of variety. Crunchy egg rolls, sho mai potato stickers that are kind of like dumplings, zippy sauteed green beans (tasty!), chicken strips on skewers, egg flower and hot-sour soups, barbecue chicken, and more line the buffet, ensuring something for everyone, right down to frozen yogurt for dessert.

    Some of the things Mandarin Garden is noted for carry over to its sister restaurant; we noticed the buffet was cleaned constantly and food rotated so it was always fresh. And the killer mai tais and tropical cocktails like scorpions served in four different sizes of shells we’ve come to love at Mandarin are also at Chinatown Buffet. The mai tais, colorfully garnished right down to miniature umbrellas, are Hawaiian-like, and conjure up images of the islands.

    Also available are Long Island ice teas and a Long Beach version we’ve not come across before. “It’s the same as a Long Island except it’s made with cranberry juice instead of Coke,” Wang explained. Interesting, fodder perhaps for a future report.

    Chinatown Buffet is at 40989 Big Bear Blvd. Call (909) 866-7887.