Great Moon Buffet ~ Maplewood & West St Paul, MN

Cuisine: Chinese
Restaurant Features: Lunch Buffet, Dinner Buffet, On-Site Parking

Locations: Maplewood & West St Paul, MN
Addresses & Maps:

Maplewood- 2950 White Bear Ave Maplewood, MN 55109 (651) 704-9801

West St Paul- 1200 South Robert St.  West St. Paul, MN 55118 (651) 554-0558

Hours: Sun-Thur 11am-9pm  Fri-Sat 11am-10pm

Atmosphere:  Both the Maplewood and West St Paul locations are located within strip malls.  Each restaurant has a large, open space for the dining areas.  Silk Kimonos adorn the walls and here and there you will see silk plants as well.  Rectangular-shaped wooden tables are placed close together throughout the space, easy to accommodate larger groups.

There are four large buffet islands, with additional tables for dessert and also a separate stir-fry section at the West St Paul location.  Each buffet island has about 10-12 food items.

The West St Paul location also has a custom stir-fry area.  Similar to Khan's, choose your frozen sliced meats, Vegetables and sauces and the chef will cook it up in front of you on the Mongolian BBQ.

Menu: Appetizers include Egg Rolls, Cream Cheese Wonton, Cheesey Potatoes, Sweet Biscuits, Sesame Cakes, Pork Sausages, Egg Foo Young, Roast Duck, BBQ Ribs, and Steamed Dumplings.

Soups include Hot & Sour and Wonton.  There is also Lo Mein, Fried Rice, White Rice, Rice Noodle and String Beans.

Chicken dishes include Black Pepper Chicken, Roast Chicken, Sesame Chicken, Moo Goo Gai Pan, Chicken with Broccoli, Chicken Chow Suey, General Tao's Chicken, Sweet & Sour Chicken, Chicken Wings, Chicken Sticks, and Chicken with Cashew.

Pork dishes include Mopo ToFu, Hunan Pork, Butter Potato, Double Cooked Pork, Hunan Triple Delight, Pork with Mushrooms, and Boneless Ribs.

Beef dishes include Beef with Broccoli, Mongolian Beef, Beef with Mushrooms, Peppered Beef, and Beef Ribs.

Seafood (most items served at dinner only) items include Mussels, Fried Codfish, Salmon, Popcorn Shrimp, Butterfly Shrimp, Salted Shrimp, Coconut Shrimp, Shrimp with Lobster Sauce.

Desserts include Soft-Serve Ice Cream, Cake, Fresh Fruit

Price guide: Lunch Buffet $8-9  Dinner Buffet $11-12
What I Ate: My visit was at lunch time with a group of colleagues, but I still wanted to try a selection of foods.  I had Cream Cheese Wontons, Boneless BBQ Ribs, Steamed Dumpling, General Tao's Chicken, Sweet & Sour Chicken, Fried Rice, and a Rice Noodle dish with veggies.  The cream cheese wontons were the biggest I have ever had! They were stuffed full of a cream-cheese mixture that was slightly sweet.  The steamed dumplings were very good, with a flavorful pork/onion mixture.  The meats that I tried were okay, but I would not say these use high quality meat.  The Sweet and Sour as well as the General Tao's Chicken was kind of fatty and gristly and the batter was soggy. 

I wasn't quite satisfied with what I actually ate from my first plate, so I opted to wait in line for my own custom stir-fry.  I chose beef, broccoli, pineapple, onions, pepper and mushrooms with noodles and several scoops of all the different cooking sauces.  There is only one cook making stir-fry and he only cooks one dish at a time, so I had to wait at least 10 minutes for my plate.  I was only able to get a few good bites in before it was time to head back to work, but I was very happy with my stir-fry dish.

Service:  At Great Moon you must pay for your meal before you enter the dining room but from that point forward, there are many servers available to take drink orders, clear plates, etc.
Overall Impression:  Huge buffet with many options, but I would say food is just slightly better than mediocre in taste and quality.  Make-it-yourself Stir-Fry option at West St Paul is a big bonus.

Comments

[Dana Leigh]

1.

I used to go to this place in Maplewood when I worked right next to it. I never really liked it and considered it to be the Asian version of Old Country Buffet, being that the quality of food is not that great, but I always like the variety of buffets.