Crazy Buffet

When this place first opened about 10 or so years ago, it was a great place to eat. The service was spot on. The food was fresh and delicious. It was worth the money for a $ 17 meal, $ 10 for lunch minus certain things such as crab legs.
Now when you eat there, even sitting at the bar doesn’t guarantee you’ll get a refill when needed. The portions of sushi are very small, bland, and barely counts as sushi. I’ve had better sushi at Publix, which says a lot.
It seems as if they are doing just enough to get by. The dining experience suffers as a result. Unless I hear they have made a miraculous turn around, I have been there for the last time.

This place is closed as of 17 February 2014
We went to get a bite to eat and found them hauling out equipment…

Over a year ago I would have given Crazy Buffet 5 stars, but like many others have noted, their quality (but not the price) has seemed to steadily decline recently. It also seems to depend on what time or day you catch them. Some days they seem like their old self and the food is great, then other days it’s just not very good. They also used to put out coupons every week to make the price a bit more affordable, but they’ve even stopped that in the recent months.
They do occasionally have deals where you buy $ 100 in gift certificates and they give you $ 150 worth. Now that’s a pretty good deal if you plan on going frequently. We ended up buying a couple and took a few groups of people out with it.
As far as the food goes, they have a decent, but not huge selection of hot dishes. They spread the choices out with the large salad bar, cold pre-​made salad type dishes, sushi, ice cream, desert bar, liquor bar and a Mongolian style hibachi bar. They do have other items that most are unaware of like steak fillets at the hibachi bar. You just have to ask and they’ll fry some up for you. While this is a Chinese style buffet, it is run by Vietnamese. This is why you will see some Vietnamese style dishes on the bar as well, which include small bowls of Phở.
While they’ve been on the decline, I’m still a fan and still continue to frequent the restaurant for lunch or dinner. I hope they turn things back around to where they once were…

I was hesitant to have lunch here because I am not a huge buffet fan, and I am a sushi snob. My husband finally convinced me to go today.
I have to say I was pleasantly surprised! The place was clean and the staff was nice, and the food was… better than I expected it would be.
The sushi tasted fresh, they had a salad bar which was really well stocked, a cook to order hibachi bar, and also a chocolate fountain with yummy treats for dipping! They also have a full bar!
This isn’t somewhere we will go regularly-​I like my sushi a little more complex (aka specialty rolls) and I like a higher end atmosphere for dinner/​date night. But there is no reason I wouldn’t go back here again for lunch.

Yep, it’s a Chinese buffet located in the strip-​club district of Tampa…
A place where you go to continue your night of feeling like a High-​Roller with some High-​Rollin’ Chinese Buffet. You go gurl!
After all of the hype from my friends and co-​workers, I eventually broke down and gave Crazy Buffet a try.
These days, many Chinese buffets have sushi and a «fry it for you» station.
The sushi at Crazy Buffet is a little better quality than most $ 5.99 Chinese buffets, but still not as good as others would lead you to believe.
The atmosphere is nice because seating is broken up by partitions and rooms, instead of being one large cafeteria-​like set-​up. The bar is dimly lit, with the only lighting in the food area directed at buffet directly.
Other than the slight quality upgrade, there are a few interesting items… the main one being the Roast Duck Carving station. Which was my main reason for trying this place. The duck was pretty good for a «peking style» preparation. There is also hoisen sauce, scallion, and pancakes served. Just the unlimited duck might be worth the $ 15.99 buffet price.
Other items not normally found on a Chinese buffet that Crazy Buffet does have are:
–white fish with black bean sauce
–white fish steamed with ginger and scallion
–kalbi
–steamed white rice that actually tastes decent
–baby octopus
–mini bowls of phở tai
–tempura
The website stated that they opened at 11:30, but when we arrived we had to wait in the parking lot until noon. They actually open at noon on the weekend, so there is a small line out the door waiting for the opening. We waited almost another additional ten minutes for the servers to show up and seat us. It was interesting and the other people in my group would not stop complaining about the wait for empty buffet restaurant.
Since all of the parking is located in the back behind the building, it always looks vacant to me. But, I think that they actually do a ton of business.
My experience at Crazy Buffet might have been better than most because we arrived early when everything had just been made and not handled by too many customers. I actually brought a camera in and started taking photos. Then, I realized that I was taking photos of a buffet, and that is just silly…
There, I went there… now I can move on to next.

Questionable food prepared by incompetent staff served in a decent setting. We came at the start of the dinner buffet but we found many dishes to be not fresh. The tuna and salmon was sour and looked like it been frozen too long. The fruits were not fresh either. I suspect it was left overs from the previous meal. The food was also prepared by novices The sushi was prepared completely wrong. The spicy tuna was off, the sashimi was in squares and the sushi was oddly shaped and all tasted just off. When they have a Mexican preparing the sushi it is a tell tale sign that they didn’t even hire someone with training. The Peking duck was cooked well but cut completely wrong. I was also disappointed by them not having hot and sour soup and more traditional American or non Asian food. Overall the food served was NOT FRESH NOR VERY GOOD.
Overall the décor was pretty good for a buffet. it was rather modern and somewhat dark. the service was okay but its a buffet.
Interesting sidenote: they have a full bar