Teppanyaki Grill and Supreme Buffet - St Petersburg, Florida

Teppanyaki Grill and Supreme Buffet

391 34^th St North
St Petersburg, FL 33713

 727 327-8886 

 

The Sunday paper had a single sheet, full-color advertisement for the Teppanyaki Grill and Supreme Buffet. That was a new one to me and I looked at the ad a bit more closely. It is indeed a new establishment. It has set up shop in the old Social Security building and boasts 18,000 square feet and seating for 500. I remember the Social Security building from a few years ago. There was a tiny, cramped little waiting room with no amenities and a pass-through window that was mostly closed. Once inside there was a maze of walkways, a seemingly endless warren of partitions and office cubicles. I was curious to see what the new occupants had done in remodeling. Among the other boasts in the advertisement was the phrase, “…something for everyone” and “The Largest and Most Elegant Chinese, Japanese and American Cuisine Restaurant.” That covers a lot of ground.

With something for everyone, the wife was amenable to trying it out if only to humor me. We called Martha. She has a liking for the oriental style foods. What with the recent closing of one of her favorites, Good Fortunes, she was at a loss for a new place to occasionally visit and take visitors. It looked like a good bet for everyone. The fact that the advertisement had several $1.00-off coupons was an added inducement.

It is a buffet-style restaurant. The lunch buffet Monday through Saturday (11:00 am to 4:00 pm) is $7.29 for adults and tiered lower prices for children depending on age. The dinner buffet (4:00 pm through 9:30 pm) is $9.99 for adults and lower priced for children. Sundays and holidays are all day dinner buffets (11:00 am through 9:30 pm) adults are $9.99 and children at reduced prices. We arrived in the late afternoon but in time for the lunch buffet. With the coupon a filling buffet meal for three, soft drinks and tip was just about thirty dollars; pretty reasonable for a dinner out.

The anteroom, the left over from the Social Security days, is still there. It is bare, devoid of furnishings or decor. Perhaps it now serves as an air-lock entry keeping the hot and humid air outside. In the future, if there is a need, some comfortable seats would transform the area into a congenial waiting room for overflow guests.

Just inside is a wishing well pool to help set the mood. Opening the central area and colorful lighting of what was an office complex helps to transform it to a large, festive arena filled with more than a dozen self-serve buffet counters. At the far end of the area there is a sushi station and a teppanyaki grill. Seating for up to 500 customers is along both sides of the complex. Being new, everything appears very clean and pristine.

The usual in a buffet is to pay at the door; so much per head and your drinks. Then you are free to roam the floor. Since The Teppanyaki Grill offers extra cost items, such as beer and wine, the customer is presented with the bill at the end of the menu.

With so many choices, the best strategy is to walk the aisles between the serving stations to see what is offered. Even a little dab of this and a little dab of that can be overwhelming when there are so many options to choose from. As much as I would have liked to, I knew I could never sample everything. Most of the stations are of an oriental flair. Others offer American comfort food items, fruits, salads and a large selection of desserts and ice cream. Perhaps they do have something for everyone.

My first round was a sampler, a little of this and a little of that until I filled the plate. It included, among other items, a teriyaki chicken skewer, honey chicken, beef and broccoli, salt and pepper you peel shrimp, some fried zucchini and some California rolls. First lesson: soy sauce, wasabi and the like are not table items. They are there at the serving stations but not always obvious. Also, small dishes or containers are also available; you just have to look around to see where they are.

The sushi, layered on top was the first to be sampled. It is decent sushi, machine made I believe, but the rice is well cooked and the grains are not compressed into an amorphous mass like some although it may be a bit stickier than you are used to.  The selection of sushi is makizushi; I didn’t see any nigirizushi. About a dozen varieties were offered; a small selection If sushi was to be the main course. A little dip in the soy sauce and the rice holds together (the hashi are also located at the serving station). Tasty morsels and considering you can make many trips to the sushi bar, an economical entrée.

The teriyaki chicken skewer tasted fine but it was a bit on the tough side and a bit overcooked. The fried zucchini was more crunchy than crispy, as well a bit over cooked although it did taste pretty good; it just needed to come out of the fryer a minute or two earlier. The salt and pepper you peel shrimp, one of their signature dishes, had a good flavor, not too heavy on the spices so you could still taste the flavor of shrimp. It’s just that it is messy, more suited to a New England Shrimp and crab seafood boil; good but messy. My favorite of that plate was the honey chicken; small strips of chicken in a slightly sweet sauce. These were cooked just right, tender and moist and the sauce slightly sweet and a wonderful adjunct to the chicken.

My second sampler plate consisted of some fried rice (I know, it’s a filler but fried rice is definitely one of my favorite foods), sweet and sour chicken (more about that to come) some shrimp, egg foo young and skewered meatballs. The fried rice was, as you might have guessed, a filler dish. Not bad just pedestrian, uninspired and needs some work to be a good dish. The shrimp were shelled and deveined 40 - 50 shrimp cooked in a slightly spicy sauce although I can’t remember the name. They tasted like shrimp in a slightly spicy sauce. Not bad but nothing exceptional. The egg foo young, hard to find in most buffets, was a bit over cooked but with a bit of the gravy top moisten the patty it had a pleasant flavor. The skewered meatballs were a bit of a disappointment. They looked very good. If they had been cooked on the skewer someone would have had to tend them very carefully to get them to cook so evenly although a bit overdone. The flavor was okay but a bit dry. A sauce or dip would be of great value. That brings us to the sweet and sour chicken. New York, or whatever style it is, is merely breaded and fried chicken nuggets with a red sweet and sour sauce on the side. So it is with every other local take out or buffet I have tried.  For me, sweet and sour chicken (or pork) is a much more involved dish that combines stir fried onion, Bell peppers and pineapple with the sweet and sour sauce and breaded meat morsels. A trip to the salad bar provided some raw peppers and some pineapple tidbit from the fruit bar. Although the chicken tid-bits here tasted okay (I suspect they are purchased pre-breaded and fried, just heat and serve) and the sweet and sour sauce was also tasty, I can’t rate the overall dish very high because it isn’t complete; a short coming shared by many restaurants.

Many restaurants that claim to be Mongolian have a raw bar where you select the items you want the chef to cook on the grill. This restaurant also has a raw bar where you select the items you want and then the chef will cook them on the grill while you watch. In this case the grill is rectangular instead of round and perhaps that is why it is called the Teppanyaki Grill. There is a nice selection of vegetables, onions, peppers, sprouts, mushrooms and such. The meat selection is limited to chicken and beef. The buffet counter is well iced and the selections seemed to be fresh (the meat is put out in small batches to preserve freshness).

To try out the Teppanyaki grill, I make a small selection of chicken and vegetables. The chef was very amenable even smiling so I could take his picture as he prepared my food. You are offered a variety of flavoring sauces for you food. It was small plate and I neglected to get a picture. However, fresh vegetable and fresh chicken cooked in front of you, to your order, is certainly better than previously prepared foods, kept warm while waiting to be served. In my case, the meat was cooked through, the vegetables had mouth feel but were cooked through and the sauce was quite tasty.

My dining companions, my wife Janis and our friend Martha, we all look favorably on the Teppanyaki Grill and Supreme Buffet. It does have its deficits but overall it is as good as or possibly better than other buffets in the local area, at least meeting that standard. My next visit I will probably spend more time at the sushi bar and teppanyaki grill although I will seek out some of that honey chicken and, well, I have to admit it, some fried rice too.

The local Teppanyaki Grill and Supreme Buffet seems to be part of a larger chain with many stores in the North and Midwest. I can’t seem to find a web presence for the parent company although many local TG&SB’s have web presence. Check your local facility’s inspection record.