China Wok – Lakeland, FL

 

Friday I took a much needed trip to Lakeland to visit with my friends James & Roberto.  James and I took architecture classes together at UF, and he has been one of my closest friends ever since. 

 

For dinner that night we did takeout from their local China Wok restaurant.  It was the typical Chinese restaurant with coy fish painted on the wall and a golden Buddha statue.  Their menu was huge!  I decided on the “Happy Family” – one of their specials with a little bit of everything, including roast pork, scallops, krab meat, chicken, shrimp, and beef with water chestnuts, snow peas, broccoli, baby corn, and bok choy. 

 

Both James and his brother ordered the Chicken Lo Mein combo platters with pork fried rice and egg rolls.  James’ mom had the spicy Hunan Double – beef and shrimp with broccoli, snow peas, bok choy, green pepper, red carrots, onions, water chestnuts, and bamboo shoots.  And Roberto chose the Chicken Chow Mein. 

Since we spent over $25, we were eligible for a freebie!  We picked a quart of the sweet & sour soup. 

 

It took a few minutes to get our food, but I’d rather know that it is freshly made than get my food immediately and know it was just microwaved.  We brought our meals back home for a lazy Friday night watching Masterchef Junior (I think I may have gotten Roberto addicted to that show…)

 

I will say that my “Happy Family” deserved its name – I was very content with my choice.  It had a nice variety of meats, and the portion size could feed a family!  For takeout Chinese food, it was some of the best I’ve had.

 

 

China Wok is located at 3686 Harden Blvd, Lakeland, FL 33803 and is open 10:30am – 10pm Monday through Thursday, 10:30am – 11pm Friday and 11am – 10pm on Sundays.   

Tampa Buffet

When we eat out, I tend to choose the restaurant about 90% of the time since I’m pretty particular about where I eat.  But last night I gave Lance the choice of any restaurant he’d like, and he picked the Tampa Buffet. 

Maybe I’m a food snob, but a Chinese buffet wouldn’t normally be my top pick of restaurant if I was given free rein to choose.  But Lance was pretty excited to try it out. 

It’s located in Britton Plaza next to a Dollar Tree and Cici’s Pizza – not the most romantic of date spots.  The exterior is lit with eerie green fluorescent lighting, so I didn’t really have high expectations.  We walked in, and it actually had a nicer entrance than I was expecting with a waterfall and large fish tank.  But walking past that, it just looked like a standard cafeteria. 

I will say that it’s the widest selection I’ve ever seen at a buffet before – they had row after row of nearly every Asian dish you could imagine.  My plate ended up being filled with a half dozen types of chicken – including teriyaki, bourbon, sweet and sour & General Tso’s.  The chicken dishes were all pretty good – but I guess you can’t mess that up too much.  We also enjoyed the crab rangoons. 

However, I wasn’t impressed at all by the seafood selection.  The mussels looked amazing (some of the largest I’ve seen) but didn’t taste quite right.  And the sushi was bland and disappointing.  I guess I can’t expect gourmet sushi at an all-you-can-eat buffet though…

The other issue I had was the loud dance music coming from a private party in an adjoining room.  I don’t normally want to hear the Cha-Cha Slide while eating dinner.  

In general, it was a decent meal, but nothing memorable.  I think the problem I have with most buffets is they focus more on quantity than quality.  Of course, if you talk to Lance, his review would be a complete 180 from mine.  He loved his meal and would go back there again in a heartbeat. 

Tampa Buffet is located at 3904 S Dale Mabry Hwy, Tampa, FL 33611 and is open from 11am – 10pm Monday through Sunday (dinner buffet from 4 – 10pm).