Chinese Buffet Price Wars in Mentor, Ohio

If you are out in Mentor near the intersection of Mentor Avenue and Heisley Road and need a lot of food at a cheap price you might want to take advantage of the prices being offered at two nearby Chinese Buffets that seem to be in a price war (map of the area is here).  I have tried both and while neither is outstanding, they do offer pretty good food and right now the prices are low.

First up is Great Taste Buffet at 9440 Mentor Avenue, just East of the intersection.  Great Taste is the larger buffet with more variety and a slighly nicer decor.  Prices are currently $4.99 for Lunch and $7.99 for dinner.  The front section of the restaurant has several buffet stations set up and the overall food quality is better than most of the Chinese buffets I have tried recently.  Most of the food is well cooked and pretty well seasoned.  The highlight for me was the homemade dessert custard pies.  Decor is pretty standard for this type of place, a bit flashy and starting to get dated, but you don't come for the ambiance.

Phoenix Buffet is at 9354 Mentor Avenue just West of the intersection in a storefront set back from the street.  Phoenix is much smaller and has less of a variety, but is offering the buffet for $3.99 Lunch and $4.99 Dinner.  The buffet is a single long line in the middle of the space, but they manage to squeeze in a good variety of good food.  The highlight here for me was the small fried shrimp with a spicy coating, nicely fried and with a nice zip they were a real treat.  The food is actually pretty flavorful, it might be that having to produce a smaller variety of items allows them to do a better job.  The decor here feels a bit old and very generic, but it is hard to beat the food you get at this price.

My recommendation would be in favor of Phoenix, but that is more for the price then anything else.  The food quality is about the same, flavor slightly favors Phoenix, but variety and decor favor Great Taste.  Either way this is a good way to fill up without spending much money.

Groupon and other Deals

As you may have noticed, I am a big believer in some of the discount deals that you can find, especially with the economy the way it is.  I have subscribed to the Cleveland feed for Groupon and have already made a couple of purchases, Luxe and Cafe Tandoor (which should have reviews once I get out to check them out) and the Cleveland Rock Gym.  Groupon (link is here) is an interesting concept, they only have one offer each day and it is only available for that day.  The offer is only good if a certain number of people buy it, but I haven't seen that being an issue.  The offers are usually for more than 50% off of a service or gift certificate to a restaurant or store in the area.  A couple of things I really like about it, once the deal goes through and they process your order, you just download the pdf file and then print it out, so no mailing, no waiting, other then they usually require you to wait at least 1 day to use the certificate.  There are no additional or handling fees, the price listed is what you pay.  They have featured a nice and interesting array of local businesses, no national chains so far.  Once you sign up and give them an email, you will get daily emails in the morning so you can keep up with what is being offered that day. Definitely worth checking out at this link. 

You might also want to check out the sale going on at the WNCX website, where they are offering a bunch of $50 certificates for $15.  There are some additional fees and you have to read the terms of each offer carefully, but there are some good deals here and I have used this to get some really good food at a discount.  The link for the sale is here.

Give these discounts a try and let me know what you think.