The Wonderful Buffet Post

      OMGWTFBBQ here we are being all stealthy at Wonderful Buffet!   

   Humble?  Yes. Working-class?  Definitely. Don't come here if you like all that fancy folded napkin shit.  This place is all about the food.    

I've wanted to do a post on this place for years! I finally remembered - AND had my phone ready at the same time, so here we go!

Right as I began snapping I was caught by the head waiter, but he only gave me a stern look. I in turn did a speed run around the steam tables so as not to make things weird - but not until I'd polished off way more food than I needed or intended. No I won't tell you how many times I went back around. Just don't, you know, just don't fucking judge me.  You'd have done the same thing. 

Why this place?  It's humble, it's charmless, and it's a Chinese buffet- which usually means nothing good.  

Thing is, Wonderful breaks all the rules. First of all, it's not really a Chinese Buffet. It's Pan-Asian, with no fixed menu, and the selection changes all night long, whatever the chefs feel like putting on the line.  Everything is made fresh, in-house, and it's the best Asian food you've ever had in your life.  

To the left we see a Bikerly elbow. I'm sitting here taking a picture of the first thing you see as you enter - the check stand, and all their Good Luck/New Years stuff, and their pop and so forth. The booths and the other fittings are from old Burger King dining rooms. Aside from a few silk flowers and a couple of pictures, this is all you get in the way of decor.

No frills whatsoever. 

 It began life as the Chinese Palace back in the 1980s. The inside was done up in 'Rental Furniture of the Eighties' - style, all mauve and black lacquer. The walls were covered in enormous, sugary, electrified murals that depicted landscapes. In each one there were whirling disks of patterned mylar to give the effect of falling cherry blossom petals here and raging waterfalls there. And that's about all the place had going for it; and you couldn't even truly appreciate that without being really, really stoned. Which I was once, while we were seated next to a mural that had flying birds and clouds that travelled around, and a dude poling across a lake in a little boat. I was so miserable.

They sold out to Mr. Wonderful, which is not his real name, and the first thing he did was have the roof tiled and the corners tipped. Then he painted it all a lurid yellow and red. He gutted the interior, burned the murals (I hope) and looted an old Burger King for dining room fittings. 

Mr. Wonderful has done nothing since then but make piles and piles and piles of money. 

A view of the steam tables from my seat. 

 We found this place back when we were riding a lot.  

When you're touring around, a buffet restaurant is just what you want, you see. You come in off the road and you're blown out, you're tired, you have things to think about and things to talk about, and you don't want to dick with waiters and menus, dammit, you want to EAT and SIT THE FUCK DOWN. 

We had just come in from touring lower BC, and took the Blaine border crossing in on the Guide Meridian. We saw the place and thought 'Hey! This will be a nice change from eating school lunch food in a casino'.  Not expecting much.  And boom, this happened, a bolt from the blue.  The food was so good, so amazingly good, so unbelievably good, we were whispering!

It's stayed that good, too. Mr. and Mrs. Wonderful aren't fucking around. 

A little closer. As you can see, this place is about eating delicious food, period. No corny decorations, no presentation, none of this multitudes of wait staff, white tablecloth, salad-fork B.S. 

Crawfish and steamer clammies.

This stuff comes out in every 5-10 minutes. That's how fast it turns. An hour from now this spot  might hold oysters on the half shell and rendang, or baked salmon from Puget Sound and butter chicken.

This sushi had been freshly laid on ice when I first got up with my camera. In the space of five minutes this is what's left of it. The poor sushi chefs are always working back there as fast as their fingers can go, trying to keep up with the demand.  

I mean look at this. All this just came out from the kitchen. Out of shot people are getting up from their tables and heading over, so I'm really moving here trying to stay ahead of the crowd. 

     Let me state here that I haven't covered more than a quarter of what's on offer - and neither does their takeout menu, if you happen to look them up.   There is stuff here that you never see in other places, Malaysian, Filipino, Japanese, Indian, you name it.  I was flying through and filling a plate at the same time, and I had certain things targeted, as may be obvious.

Speaking of target items, here's the New Zealand Green Mussels. They'll be gone in ten minutes, and I will be largely to blame. 

Not targeted items, but interesting nonetheless. This is their American corner, just four pans big. Here we see giant kielbasas for some reason.  French fries, cheese pizza and toasted garlic bread are also present. The Wonderfuls aren't real worried about what constitutes 'Murrican food, and I love them for that.

Black pepper chicken foreground. Potstickers to the right, General Tso's top, and Broccoli Mushroom  Chicken left. I am about to make a dent in that Black Pepper Chicken. It tastes like the pepper as a fruit - no heat, just that perfume of pepper, mild and sweet. That, lemongrass and citrus. It is amazing.

Hot and sour soup, chicken broth, drawn butter and egg drop soup, corn and fried chicken, and sweet and sour sauce.

   I wish I could convey to you how absolutely astounding the food is here.  I mean you sit back and marvel.  And here it is in a forgettable box on the side of the road in Bellingham Washington, being served buffet style.  

   That is some trippy shit.