Fortune Star Buffet Restaurant Butler: Fresh and Cheap!

I am a sucker for a good buffet.

The Fortune Star Buffet and Grill (at 330 Butler Commons, Butler) gives so much more than you'd expect for $6.75 (lunch buffet).

My first plate (of many)

There's a monstrous selection of food
At the salad bar, I'd go for the chilled shrimp, hard boiled eggs sprinkled with paprika, olives, sliced beet, cherry tomatoes, lettuce.

At the next three hot food bars, I'd continue loading up with spinach & cheese, greasy ham pie, white fish, stuffed shrimp, salmon with ginger, stir-fried mushrooms, pork dumplings, buffalo wings, bbq pork, crispy spring rolls, egg rolls, broccoli chicken, beef and steamed mussels. The steamed mussels are succulent and flavorful.

The hot food bars also offer fried rice, lo mein, spicy sausage links, pizza, wontons, sesame chicken, General Tso's chicken, three kinds of soup...

There's a guy who'll hibachi / grill fresh-to-order your selected raw ingredients (shrimp, beef, vegetables, noodles, etc) with your choice of sauces and LOTS of garlic.

The sushi bar has a pretty good selection of sushi rolls, although not sashimi, and my favorite seaweed (wakame) salads liberally drizzled with sesame oil and sesame seed sprinkles.

The dessert bar is well stocked with an assortment of fresh (oranges and bananas) and tinned fruit (usually longans, litchi, peaches), chocolate and banana pudding, marshmallow ambrosia (I think!), two to three selections of pies.

Dessert bar #2 has about 8 flavors of self-scoop ice cream to choose from. And there's also cream puffs, coconut cookies, coffee cake.

The food
It's fresh, attentive cooks constantly replenish the food. It's also good - surprisingly not too salty. Although you will probably still feel very thirsty in the hours that ensue as the food has MSG (monosodium glutamate) in it.

Gracie's Verdict
Fortune Star Buffet gets Gracie's 'Three-and-a-half' Stars, for good food and lots of it, at an unbeatable lunch price of $6.75.  If you compare with Eat n Park's $8 'soup and salad' buffet (and any other buffet really), Fortune Star wins hands down for value.

Burger Hut Butler: Om Nom Nom

I'm drooling even as I type up this review.

These burgers are amazingly good for the price (starting at $3.35). Possibly even close to my all-time-current-fav Five Guys.

My expectations were low because Dy picked the place. And I didn't think Dy would pick a good place.

It's so nice to be wrong sometimes.

My order
I got the hamburger plain, with no embellishments.

The food
My order arrived in about 10 minutes, even with the busy lunch crowd.

The bun was ordinary, but the patty was anything but. The coarse-ground chunky patty was extra-lean yet juicy. Burger afficionados, you know it is not easy to cook extra-lean patties properly without simultaneously drying them out. Hats off to the cook. The pickle spears were crunchy, and mouthwateringly tangy, the meaty slice of tomato was flavorful.

Gracie's Verdict
Burger Hut gets Gracie's 'Four Stars'. The food is fresh, tasty, and so very cheap. I will be back soon to get my next fix!

This reviewed Burger Hut is located at 104 Point Plz, Butler. An apparently better sister Burger Hut is in downtown Butler and this is now on my to-try list.