Asian King Buffet & Take Out (Pan-Asian)

Asian King is located in Mississauga, the municipality bordering Toronto on the west, at 2425 Truscott Drive in the Park Royal Plaza. It's relatively close to Clarkson GO station. Mishy and I were actually on our way to another place when we happened to see a parking lot sign for this one, so decided to change our plans. We were pleasantly surprised that Asian King is a meld of Korean grill house, buffet and sushi bar. It must be rather new as it didn't appear on my map; the lady running it indicated that either it had only open a couple months ago, or only expanded a couple of months ago. The grill tables seemed new. Sadly although a couple of take out customers came in, we were the only sit-down customers during our entire weekend lunch stay which was a long one. Unfortunately disposable chopsticks are used but it was noted that I bring my own. Pop is $1 AYCD and I needn't tell you how great a deal that is especially during summer; I heard a can being opened when I asked for a pop, so they are actually serving AYCD canned pop for $1, which is rather amazing. The soy sauce was not too salty.

From the buffet, Mishy loved the lemon chicken and said it was out of this world but indicated the wakame salad was odd tasting. Mishy didn't like the grilled beef but I thought it wasn't bad at all. She added that the kimchi salad was too spicy, but I didn't think it was any more so than usual. The chicken was quite good and the sauce made it better. The sauce was also good and is to be found in the yellow squeeze bottles that mustard is usually made available in.

Sushi is old-school pre-made and put out for self-service rather than being made-to-order and brought by wait staff, but it was still fresh. Avocado rolls were very good. Crab (surimi) sushi was good. Sweet tofu sushi was very good. California roll (albeit with no tabiko) was also very good.

Asian King uses electric grills rather than gas. There are a couple of advantages to this. First of all, there is little to no risk of grease fires from fat falling into the flame. Secondly the grill surface can be solid which prevents food from burning if it's directly exposed to the flame. The one disadvantage is that food that isn't flat takes a little longer to cook because there is less hot air rising from the grill than there would be from a flame. Pineapple was awesome when grilled, caramelized and sweet. Pork belly bacon was excellent especially with the sauce. Grilled short ribs (were they they Kalbi?) were good as well. Grilled fish was fantastic with great spicing, probably the best of the grill offerings.

From the buffet, General Tao/Tso chicken was very good, tasty, a little sweet but no complaints. Roast beef was good and peppercorn gravy made it so, but unfortunately it was dry, which we found with many of the offerings on the buffet because there are not enough customer so things are sitting out for too long. Chicken chow mein was good. Fried shrimp were good and had a nice plum sauce. Hot and sour soup was not the best and was a bit tomatoey, so it didn't completely taste like hot and sour, unfortunately this is becoming a trend with my recent run of restaurants, however it was still alright. Unfortunately the miso soup is not miso soup... whatever it is isn't bad but don't expect miso, though it actually looks like it. Happily the soups were saved by chicken corn soup which was good and actually as advertised. Chicken wings were good but again due to low customer turnover were somewhat dried out. Cheese wontons also would have been excellent but spent far too long under the heat lamps, as they don't use steam trays. They were the large triangular cheese wontons with good cheese filling. Hash browns were good to very good. and were not dried out. Spring rolls also unfortunately spent too much time under the lamps, they were to the point of almost going bad. Honey garlic spare ribs were good, not too dry. White fish was excellent in a nice sauce, delicately seasoned.

For dessert, blueberry, lemon, mango, orange and cherry shot-glass Jell-o's were amazingly good. Mango, strawberry, and vanilla ice creams were pre-scooped in the freezer into bowls; even though they were covered with plastic wrap unfortunately they had started to freezer burn on the surface. The strawberry ice cream has large pieces of strawberry and was quite good. Apple blossom was delicious and it would have been nicer if it was heated. Custard squares were good.

I liked most of the offerings at Asian King and it's unfortunate that some of the buffet items were dry only due to a lack of customers. The miso and hot and sour soup are due for a recipe change, however. Otherwise, and especially with the BBQ items, Asian King is an excellent value at only $17.99 for weekend lunch with the $1 AYCD soft drinks. Mishy and I certainly enjoyed our lunch there and we hope that Asian King prospers.

Rating: 8/10