About Home Buffet

Here is what the local press is saying about the wonderful dining experience at the Home Buffet!

Home Buffet has something for everyone
Jimmy Cheng and his wife Shirley Kwok Cheng opened Home Buffet on Railroad Street Sept. 1, and they've been incredibly busy since that first day.
At 3:30 p.m. last Friday, a small group of customers waited to be seated, while others sat in the spacious dining room enjoying a late lunch. The buffet tables -- three in all, with a salad and soup bar, a steam table with prepared Chinese dishes such as sweet and sour chicken, chicken with broccoli, lo mein noodles with vegetables and fried shrimp, and another hot table loaded with egg rolls, fried dumplings and shrimp toast awaited hungry diners. Takeout from the buffet is sold by the pound -- $3.25 for lunch and $4.25 for dinner, with an extra charge for more seafood items. Soda, coffee and tea are available, along with desserts and soon, ice cream will be served.

If a person doesn't want the buffet, which serves an all-you-can-eat lunch for $5.95 and or dinner for $9.95, and food is served from 11 a.m. to 9 p.m., there is an extensive menu of traditional Chinese, Szechuan, Cantonese and Hunan-style dishes including General Tso's chicken, Hawaii Five "O", Moo Shu vegetable, pork or chicken, Subgum Wonton or the popular Four Seasons, a combination of seafood, pork, lobster and chicken with vegetables.
"You can sit down and order from the menu, whatever you want," Mrs. Cheng said. "It doesn't have to be from the buffet."
As she spoke, a middle-aged couple headed for the buffet table and returned to their seats with wide smiles and loaded plates. Minutes later, four young adults asked for a table and headed for the salad bar.
"It's been very busy, non-stop," Mrs. Cheng said, as she rang up a customer's order. She explained that her husband has been in the restaurant business for nearly 20 years, and that he focused his attention on take-out "most of that time."
"He just got tired of it, and his customers kept saying 'You should open a sit-down buffet' and so we did," she said. "When we were in the take-out business, we also wanted to offer more kinds of food. What we heard was people saying, 'We have to go somewhere else now, because our kids don't like Chinese food.' So we have other things on the menu so that everyone can have something they like."
"For the children we'll always have hot dogs, chicken tenders, and popcorn shrimp, things they like," she said. "We will also have pizza from time to time. Each day we'll have something new and different."
On Friday the "different" menu included sliced prime rib, fried fillet of sole, creamed spinach and roast chicken with rice and vegetables. Saturday's menu was to offer spaghetti with Italian sausage, rosemary chicken and a baked fish dish, as well as mashed potatoes and roast turkey.
"Everything is made from scratch," Mrs. Cheng said proudly. "we have an American chef, a Chinese chef, and we will soon have a Japanese sushi chef. There will be plenty to choose." Both Mr. and Mrs. Cheng said they're pleased with the way they've started out.
"The first week has been very busy, and we were worrying every day, saying 'Have we forgotten anything?'" Mrs. Cheng said. "But so far, so good. It's going very well."
The restaurant is located at 24 Railroad Street and is open Sunday through Thursday, 11 a.m. to 10:30 p.m., Friday and Saturday from 11 a.m. to 11:30 p.m. To reach Home Buffet, call 860-350-1688.

--Emily M. Olson
Housatonic and Litchfield Weekend Life

One-stop buffet opens on Railroad Street
It's the day after his grand opening and Jimmy Cheng is a popular man.
Beginning shortly after he opens the doors at 11 a.m., friends fans and various well-wishers are stopping by to wish him good luck on his latest endeavor, Home Buffet on Railroad Street.
Most who know Cheng know him for his Chinese take-out food. He opened his first restaurant in New Milford, May Moon, in 1986, and most recently operated New Moon on the Green.
For Home Buffet, though, Cheng opted to go a different route, offering a full buffet of international fare.
You'll still find General Tso's chicken and egg rolls, but now you're likely to find them nestled next to clam chowder, pasta, chicken quesadillas and even prime rib.
"We would like to have a little bit of everything to meet each individual's taste, so a family of four or five can each get something they like," said Cheng's wife, Shirley, who is spending her vacation from her job as a quality control chemist at Givaudan helping her husband get the restaurant up and running. "Oftentimes when my husband was working at the takeout restaurant, a mother would come in and say, 'I've got to go to McDonald's to get a hamburger for my son.' So hopefully people won't have to make more than this one trip now."
They probably won't. Right there on the lunch buffet are hot dogs.
Home Buffet has been a long time in the making. The restaurant, at 24 Railroad Street in the former home of Connecticut Memories, was completely renovated over the course of a year.
Inside, the restaurant is light and airy.
Above the tables, the ceiling is recessed and painted a light blue with puffy clouds.
Little advertising had been done when they opened last Thursday with a dinner buffet featuring lemon roast chicken, prime rib, stuffed crab and alfredo penna primavera, but the restaurant still attracted a good crowd.
Many of the customers had stopped when they saw the "open" sign while plenty of others had been keeping tabs on the restaurant's progress, anticipating its opening for months.
During the next day's lunch buffet -- featuring vegetable lo mein, chicken wings, fresh green beans, homemade clam chowder and mushrooms in oyster sauce to name just a few dishes -- the restaurant wasn't packed, but it had a healthy-sized, and enthusiastic, crowd.

Amid the clatter of silverware one could hear exclamations of "This is delicious," "Oh, you have to try this," and even "I can't believe I'm so full."
Diner Nancy Chandler of New Milford is a longtime customer of the Chengs and said the couple has "always been very personable people and, to me, a pillar in the community."
"They really made this into an elegant place. They really did a good job," said Chandler.
She said that while the buffet may not boast miles of different dishes like she has seen at some Chinese buffets, it more than makes up for it in the quality of the food.
"What he's got is a good balance, even for children," she said, adding that "no matter how many places come in, they're still the best."
The Chengs said they made a conscious decision to limit the size of the buffet so that they could focus instead on quality.
Chef Rene Siguenza, with 12 years cooking in Italian, American and Spanish restaurants, uses fresh ingredients, including fresh, locally purchased herbs, when he cooks.
He also makes his own dressings for the salad bar, which features fresh-cut fruits and vegetables, and even New England clam chowder, a thick and creamy concoction that sticks to your spoon, from scratch.
Siguenza said that lunch and dinner buffets will feature different items and, additionally, the menu will be different from day to day.
The lunch buffet, he said, will feature lighter fare with a focus on seafood, salads and soup, while the dinner menu will have heavier items such as duck, poultry, pastas and potatoes.
Dinner is also the time patrons will find prime rib and crab legs, each of which will be featured a couple nights a week.
Additional items will continue to be added, said Shirley, noting that the restaurant's ice cream machine is expected to arrive in about three weeks, about the same time that the couple hopes to receive their beer and wine permit.
Home Buffet, 24 Railroad St. in New Milford, is open Sunday through Thursday 11 a.m. to 10:30 p.m. and Friday and Saturday 11 a.m. to 11:30 p.m.
Lunch buffets run from 11 a.m. to 3:30 p.m. Monday through Saturday and cost $5.95 or $4.25 for children 3 to 12 while dinner buffets run 4 p.m. to 9 p.m. and cost $9.95 or $6.25 for children.
The Sunday and holiday all-day dinner buffet runs from 11 a.m. to 9 p.m. at a cost of $9.95.
Home Buffet also offers a carryout buffet, a takeout menu, and catering.
For more information call (860) 350-1688 or visit www.home-buffet.com.

by Ryan Foust
NEWS-TIMES CORRESPONDENT

For Take Out, Catering Or Reservations Call:

TEL.	860 - 350 - 1688
	860 - 355 - 9256