Because every restaurant is more than just what’s on the plate

Type: Chinese Buffet

Price: $

Location: 927 E North St, Rapid City, SD

First Impressions

Chen’s Buffet on East North Street doesn’t ask much of you. Find a table, grab a plate, get to work. The room is clean and well kept, and nobody’s trying to dress it up into something it isn’t. If you’ve lived in Rapid City long enough, you probably remember this spot under a different name, maybe two. Some version of a Chinese buffet has been here for years. There’s Christian radio playing overhead. I have no follow up questions.

What the Room Is Saying

Clean tables, solid chairs, and better maintained than you might expect. It’s a big room, the kind that could seat a lot of people comfortably without feeling cramped. On a quiet Monday evening it was mostly empty, and that was fine. No hovering, no rushing. You could take your time, go back up as many times as you wanted, and nobody was making you feel like you needed to hurry up and leave. Just a place where people come to eat. That’s not a criticism.

The Reason You’re There

The buffet line is longer than you’d expect, and a lot more varied. Seafood shows up in a big way, shrimp prepped a couple different ways, oysters, crab, a seafood bake. More than you’d typically find on a Monday night at a place like this. We didn’t work through all of it, but what we tried was good. The variety alone makes it worth a walk down the line before you start filling your plate.

The mushrooms were a standout. Big and flavorful, they worked with whatever else you had on your plate. I went back for more. The peanut chicken is worth trying too, a little different from the usual rotation. Then there are the bananas. Fried bananas, bananas in that glossy red sauce, Chen’s does both. Regular readers know how I feel about bananas. I wasn’t passing those up.

The One Thing

Both the hot and sour soup and the egg drop soup had been sitting long enough to develop a thick crust across the top. Not a little film. A crust. Our guess is it was the gap between lunch and dinner service, that window every buffet has to manage. Before we finished our first plate, staff came through and swapped both out completely, then brought fresh wonton soup out with them. Nobody asked them to. The wonton soup was good. Worth noting.

Try to time your visit around lunch or dinner service if you can. That’s when everything’s moving and the food is at its best. Show up in that in between window and you might catch things that have been sitting a little longer than they should. It’s not a dealbreaker, but it makes a difference.

Victoria’s Taste

“What got me was the shrimp. Not just one kind, but several, and they were all worth trying. A lot of buffets give you one shrimp option and call it a day. Chen’s didn’t do that, and it made the whole seafood section feel like someone actually thought it through.”

What Sticks With You

For the price, it’s worth going. Two people, full plates, a couple return trips to the buffet line, and you’re walking out having spent under forty dollars. The food isn’t going to be the best Asian food you’ve ever had. But you won’t be mad about it either.

The Christian radio is still a mystery. We’re choosing to let it go.

Final Bite

The room at a buffet doesn’t really factor in. You’re there for the food, and there’s plenty of it. That’s the whole review right there. One free tip to Chen’s and every other buffet in America: give me something to rest my silverware on between trips. Not the table, not balanced on the edge of my plate. Just a small holder so the part that goes in my mouth doesn’t end up touching everything else. Call it a silverware caddy, call it a buffet rest, call it whatever you want. Just make it happen.

Taste the Room pays for every meal we review. We don’t accept comped food, and restaurants aren’t notified of our visit in advance. It’s how we keep our reviews honest and independent.