Minado

Do you have an intense craving for sushi, and lots of it? If you want to gorge yourself on sushi, as well as many other Japanese dishes, then maybe you would enjoy Minado, an all-you-can-eat Japanese buffet.

Minado has five locations, including in New Jersey, New York and Pennsylvania. There is only one location in Massachusetts, in Natick on Rt.9. I stopped by the Natick restaurant last week with a couple of friends, my first time here. It is located within a shopping center across the street from the Natick Collection.

The restaurant is tastefully decorated and seemed very clean. The back of the restaurant had all of the buffet tables and grilles. It was quite an impressive set-up with obviously tons of different dishes available. The restaurant was only partially full which meant there were really few waiting lines at the buffet tables.

They serve beer, wine and sake. They have about a dozen different Sakes available, including a few that I really enjoy. I ordered the Hakushika Junmai Ginjo ($10/300ml), an old favorite which was at an excellent price. This Sake usually sells at retail for about $8-9 so it is a great bargain at this restaurant.

The buffet is available for lunch (Monday-Friday $15.95; Saturday, Sunday & Holidays $19.95) or dinner (Monday-Thursday $27.95; Friday-Sunday & Holidays $29.95). The buffet includes sushi, sashimi, maki rolls, yakisoba, beef & chicken teriyaki, tempura, gyoza dumplings, udon noodles, teppanyaki, salads, Alaskan snow crab legs, oysters, cocktail shrimp and so much more.

There was tons of food and lots of sushi, far more sushi in quantity and diversity than you find at other such buffets. If you like sushi, you easily can eat more than the cost of the meal. Even if you dislike sushi though, there are still plenty of other options, and you still will get your money's worth. This is probably a larger buffet than almost any other Asian buffet I have been to in quite some time.

Now, it does suffer a bit from a common malady of buffets, that the quality and temperature of of the food is not always the best. The sushi is generally good quality, though not exceptional, though also better than the sushi found at many other buffets. The oysters were ok, tending to be small. The tempura shrimp was very good when it first comes out but once it has sit for a short time, it loses much of its appeal. A number of the "hot" dishes were at best luke warm. I would say the food quality is generally average to good, but at this price, it is overall a good value.

Minado
1282 Worcester Rd.
Natick, MA
Phone: 508-647-0495