Ballard's China Star really is one super buffet

If you live, work or travel in Ballard, you've likely passed this buffet restaurant umpteen times. Maybe you stopped in long ago and left unimpressed. Perhaps you've been confused by a series of "Grand Opening" signs, figuring the place changes hands so often there must be good reason, so why bother. Maybe you Just Don't Do Buffets. Well change your tune and get over here. Service is terrific, the price can't be beat, cheap take-out is available and the Chinese food is far better than it has to be.

There's a reason this 6,000-square-foot buffet offers the vibe of a little family-run Chinese joint. His name is Jine Jiang, and he runs China Star with the charm and expertise of a man born and raised to do just that. Jiang, who hails from Fujian Province, grew up in restaurants owned by his father and grandfather, emigrated to the United States, where he worked for an uncle in New York City, and later, with his brother, opened three small Chinese restaurants in Eastern Pennsylvania.

When a friend offered the opportunity to trade up to a big buffet business — with 200 seats China Star is one of a growing handful of such outlets throughout the United States — he jumped at the chance. Jiang found Seattle's aquatic beauty and temperate climate appealing and was certain this Ballard spot was ripe for remodel and reinvention. China Star opened in November, and its reception from the Chinese community as well as local buffet buffs has been overwhelmingly positive.

Jiang's wife welcomes customers at the door of this pleasant-if-utilitarian dining room, directing them to a seat and offering a beverage. His brother-in-law and a cousin manage the kitchen, meticulously maintaining five buffet tables kept hot or cold and swiftly replenished with more than 70 items. His sister-in-law's aunt is among servers offering complimentary beverage refills or removing unwanted dishes from tabletops, leaving room for another round.

Lunch, served weekdays, costs only $5.79. Dinner, offered Monday through Friday and all day on weekends, is $8.99, with discounts for seniors and children under 12. And while it's a little-known fact, you can dine à la carte from a small standard menu.

Discriminating palates trolling for treasure know there's a science to buffet dining. Step one is the pedestrian equivalent of the drive-by. Before grabbing your plate, take a stroll, inspecting the goods, eyes peeled for personal favorites or just-out-of-the-kitchen additions to the colorful lineup. Step two is showing restraint at the outset. It's best to go back again and again (everybody else does!) rather than sitting down to a heaping plateful of General Tso's tomato shrimp Hunan beef spinach lo mein foo yong.

There are those who might begin at the salad bar. I am not one of them, preferring to assuage my taste for greens with fresh sautéed spinach. That said, check out the cold-table offerings, which, at dinner, may include industrial-quality sushi (don't bother) or peel 'n' eat prawns (don't miss them). Here you'll find the basic salad setup: iceberg lettuce with all the trimmings plus fresh fruit — a worthy alternative to the dessert buffet where commercial-grade cookies and pastries, Jell-O and puddings are supplemented by a self-serve, soft-serve ice-cream machine.

Forget the faux-golden egg drop that tastes distinctly of bouillon, opting for a decent wonton soup or well-balanced hot-and-sour worthy of seconds. Not that you'll want to fill up on soup when fried foods are treated with great respect, and chicken scores big points in all its many guises. There's tender, crisp-skinned Peking chicken; marinated, barbecued chicken-on-a-stick; chubby fried-chicken wings and gently wokked five-flavor chicken.

Bowing to American tastes is a mildly spiced General Tso's chicken and sweet-and-sour chicken kindly presented (as is its skippable skinny shrimp counterpart) with its neon-red sauce on the side. Kids can fill up on pizza and French fries at dinner while their baron-of-beef-loving parents might take a serious knife to a pink-hued haunch of roast beef, remnants of which are reconstituted at lunch in a forgettable "garlic beef." The pan-Asian offerings include a respectable chicken teriyaki, pan-seared gyoza and a toss of fine rice noodles that would not be out of place at a Little Saigon cafe.

If seafood is your weakness, there's a serviceable baked salmon, several shrimp dishes, tender green-lipped mussels and, at dinner, steamed crab legs that (having watched a Chinese grandma seated nearby make short work of her large pile) I regrettably failed to sample.

Reliving fond memories of my East Coast Cantonese-restaurant-going childhood, I could happily make a meal of crunchy egg rolls, scallion-filled vegetable egg foo yong and beef with broccoli. Or fill up on fluffy fried rice and barbecue spareribs hinting of Chinese five-spice. By day the ribs are replaced with boneless barbecued "honey pork": every bit as good as the bone-in rendition and one of many stars at China Star, which lives up to its billing as a super buffet.

Nancy Leson: 206-464-8838 or nleson@seattletimes.com