Great Mandarin Woburn

Great Mandarin in Woburn's Four Corners area has been here forever and are doing a lunch and dinner buffet containing mostly traditional American-Chinese dishes. If you want Pork Foo Young with gravy this is the place for you. The lunch buffet used to be $6 something and was OK for that price, but they are now $7.75. Admittedly, I haven't been here since I started the blog 1.5 years ago so I shouldn't be surprised about the price increase.

It's a pleasant enough room with a row of booths at my end. Unfortunately, the stuffing in the seat has seen better days..

You have a choice of the three traditional soups and the Hot & Sour soup was actually both even if it was lacking a bit on the hot part.

The deep fried chicken wings used to be worth the price of admission alone, but this time I think they had been out a little bit too long since they had started to dry out. A deep fried onion ring sneaked onto the plate as well. It's a bit bizarre custom to the eat the wings with duck sauce mixed with hot mustard, or in my case, hot mustard with some duck sauce stirred in but I quite like it.

If you are really lucky they might have the Salt and Pepper Shrimp at the buffet and they did today. Crispy little nuggets with some sliced jalapenos thrown in make this a real delight. The beef in black pepper sauce was also surprisingly good with a nice flavor. Of course, the beef is the normal over tenderized beef that you get in most Chinese places. Sure, it's tender but it's also mushy. My refill was exactly the same again.

All the traditional dishes are present on the buffet with the first part being mostly apps and four mains at the back and condiments in the middle. Everything is nicely labelled and the service is pleasant.