Appetizing Muse

Since moving to the Inland Northwest four years ago, my husband and I have only had three bad experiences at local restaurants.

The first was a Mexican eatery that also sold imported Mexican foods and other items, as well as "homemade" tortillas. The restaurant food was dry, tasteless and overpriced. To top it all off, the owner tried selling us a $6 pack of "homemade" tortillas that had been previously frozen to which we said "no thank you." I can make real homemade tortillas from Quaker's Masa Harina de Maiz at a much cheaper rate than any store offering. Anyway, this particular Mexican restaurant has since gone out of business.

The second disaster was the Noodle Express. Rather than go into the details about that fiasco, please read my entries describing the event: Noodle Express No More, Noodle Express Part #2, and Noodle This.

The third food calamity came today when we visited Kay's Teriyaki Plus Buffet. Wilbert and I have wanted to try the restaurant for more than two years, but we never quite got around to stopping in until today.

The buffet runs from 11:00 a.m. to 2:00 p.m., Monday through Friday. We arrived at five minutes to 2:00 p.m., asking the cashier if we were too late for the buffet special. He told us no, and then charged us full price for the luncheon special ($6.99 per person). The buffet was nearly empty, and even if it had been full the choices were limited. There were four entrees (beef & broccoli, chicken and vegetables, and breaded pork and chicken with sweet and sour or almond sauce), a funky-looking soup, fried rice, and egg rolls. There may have been more, but if so it was unrecognizable or was gone from the buffet by the time we arrived.

The "fried" rice was nothing more than dried-up white rice with a splash of soy sauce, the soup had a scum-layer on top, and the egg rolls were small, greasy and burned on the ends. I tried the rice and set it aside, and then tasted the chicken and broccoli (of which there was very little to consume). The chicken was dry and bland, and the broccoli was soggy with leaves attached. I tried Wilbert's beef and broccoli and cringed; the meat tasted sour and slimy.

Needless to say, we didn't stay long at Kay's Teriyaki Buffet. To put it in crude fashion (which I try never to assume but this time words fail me), the place sucks. The food is lousy, the service is lousy, and the prices charged are ludicrous. They even have the gall to charge .25 cents for soda refills. Granted, we came late in the day but the cashier should have informed us the buffet was closed rather than charge us full-price for a scanty selection, not only in quantity but simple quality.

We'll never go there again, obviously. I was fuming by the time we left, but now I can say in hindsight it was a lesson learned and one that I will pass along to family and friends in the area.