baby rambutan

*raffle! raffle! reminder *

finally we made it out to the Minado Seafood Buffet restaurant in Natick! we’d been “sitting” on a joint birthday gift card from the lovely and generous “GooGoo” (auntie) A. for almost a year. (although we missed the lunch sitting and decided to go malling next door at the “Natick Collection” and run an errand or two at the posh town of Wellesley.)

i must admit i had very little confidence in a sushi/sashimi buffet. it seems to be an irreconcilable notion, antithetical. buffet means food sitting in chafing dishes waiting to be scooped up, instead of being served at the exact point of readiness.
it seemed an impossible notion. how fresh could it be?

answer: incredibly so!
above is as neat a plate i could compose for my first nibbles. i just kept portions bite-size and sample-size.
one of my favorites was the ceviche of a seafood medley. hmmm. the salmon tataki with cilantro sauce. the salmon roe and uni rice rolls, the sushi and sashimi, although not quite impeccably-cut by samurai-knife-wielding sushi chefs, were of pristine quality.
for those who don’t eat raw fish (por que por que???) there are various types of teriyaki and lots of fresh salads (seaweed and jellyfish among them) and a hibachi grill too (which i ignored but husband said was more than passable).
the surroundings are kept clean, spills being immediately cleaned up and platters constantly refilled.
they need more oyster shuckers i think–the “raw bar” was the bottle-neck-traffic congestion area of the whole place.

this photo is for my #1son who could not dine with us (he’s not on spring break, but we promised to go back with him VERY soon)–the cute petits fours (tiny frosted cakes in carrot, green tea, mocha, chocolate, raspberry flavors) were just heavenly! carrot, green tea, red bean, and mango ice creams, pineapple sorbet, cookies and jello…my younger two were quite appeased after a hard day’s malling; i must confess my eyes glazed over after a half-hour at the stores .
i fervently hope we won’t be disappointed on our return visit.

Minado Seafood Buffet
1282 Worcester Road (cross street: Speen St.)
Natick, MA 01760
Phone: (508) 647-0495

This entry was posted on Saturday, April 26th, 2008 at 2:00 pm and is filed under eats out/take out's. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.