Camellia Buffet
- Price Range: $$
- Accepts Credit Cards: Yes
- Attire: Casual
- Good for Groups: Yes
- Takes Reservations: Yes
- Delivers: No
- Waiter Service: Yes
- Outdoor Seating: No
20 Reviews for Camellia Buffet
Korean all you can eat BBQ for $20 (dinner). The meats were all well marinated, but I liked the beef "flap meat" the best. The panchan were good too. The lettuce leaves to wrap were very fresh and they even have a variety of sauces to dip with. The fresh pineapples for dessert were great, as was the sweet rice drink.
If you speak some Korean, spill it out, you will be rewarded.
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I love Korean BBQ and I think if I was pregnant (or in another image-unconscious state), I'd come here to take advantage of the $11.95 lunch buffet more often. It's not hard to eat your money's worth, which is more than I can say for other places--*cough* Buffet 100 *cough* Makino Chaya.
There's several different kinds of meat like beef short ribs, beef rib-eye, chicken, and pork. All are delicious--no surprise there--they look and taste like they're soaked in the same sauce. I like to grill them with onions and mushrooms until the edges are carcigenic--ok, maybe just caramelized. Hehehe.
I try not to fill 'er up on the vegetable sides (they look like they've been marinating in the pans for a while), but the long rice is pretty safe and tastes fine. I wish this place offered Yummy's side vegetables--yeah, they're westernized and sugarized, but deelish nonetheless.
My only gripe about eating at this restaurant is I can't go anywhere but home afterward. Not only do I smell bad but I feel like a whale, so then I have choose either a shower or a nap. Not fun--neither is paying to cook my own food, but yakiniku makes for great bonding.
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The best Yakiniku buffet on the island! The meat has a lot of flavor and their other side dishes are good.
The only crappy thing that happened to me at this place was when I had my graduation party here....and the lights went out. That also meant the a/c died, but we could keep grilling. It's just that we were grilling in the dark and it was freakin H O T!!!! That was one grad party that me or my friends and family will never forget.
But I still love this place and I'll still give them a good review.
Parking can be a problem and street parking is always full!
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Camellia has the best bang for the buck if you're a meat eater. The best time to eat here is lunch time. Price of admission for dinner is more but doesn't offer you any real extras. Soft serve ice cream doesn't warrant the extra charge. Don't eat here if you plan to go out afterwards. You will smell like a BBQ plate lunch all night. Some of my friends don't care for this place but I think the taste of the marinades is pretty competitive with other BBQ places. All you can eat makes this place a winner for me since I'm a pure carnivore.
I've been going to Camellia for years now, probably a couple times a month if not more... The fellas and I think that it's a hell of a deal, either for lunch or for dinner... The cook-it-yourself buffet has kal-bi, flap meat, bbq ribeye (bulgogi), chicken and spicy pork. There's a cooler for the Korean vegetables, and an area for rice and soups...
They finally corrected the typo on the flap meat bin- It used to be called FALP meat, so, for us, it'll be called FALP forever!!!
Selfishly, I should write that this place sucks, so nobody goes to Camellia and gets the place mad crowded, but I'll be nice. In return, please, please just get your food and get out of the way! We're coming through for more (again!!!)
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I only went here because my dad loves the joint! Unfortunately, he had a toothache during our visit and really couldn't enjoy Camellia like he has in the past...
Interestingly, the restaurant opens @ 10:30am for lunch.
I'm not a big fan of cooking my own meat when I go out for a meal, but in this case, it was okay...
There is such a large variety of vegetables that a person who isn't really into meat can have a satisfying dining experience...
Am I the only one pissed at this place. I mean, cook my own food, what the hell is that? nah nah. This place is great. I kinda have a fear of food poisioning, but hey, that will be all my fault for not cooking it right. Do you suppose that's how they make their money: save money on insurance because customers can't sue if they get sick? I mean, it's all on the customer to get it right. nah nah. Good fun this place.
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I can't believe it took me so long to try this place. Anita L. described the selection very well. Like her, I was very impressed with the panchan variety. Shameless omnivore that I am, I think I had 3 helpings of the stuff. The meat was very good; didn't really need to add any sauce, since the marinade it was in made it absolutely delectable on the bbq. Wife and I went here for lunch while grandma was watching the kids. I was in heaven! A nice touch is that the gas burner is recessed below the surface of the table. In some places, it is raised up above the table, creating a real hazard if you have kids along. You'll still want to keep their hands away from the heat source, but at least it's easier to do so this way. I think it was $12.95 per person for lunch buffet. Don't go for the atmosphere, go for the food. And don't wear your Sunday finest. You will indeed need to wash your clothes and take a shower after you eat here, unless you relish smelling like Eau de Barbecue!
4 stars for price, selection, food, and smelling like bbq when you leave.. -1 star for parking, smelling like bbq when you leave.
I like to make sure all the salmonella is scorched off my meat and I can't do that when someone prepares it for me. Solution: Camellia YAKINIKU! If you get there before 2:30 (?) it's only $12 for the buffet, which includes all parts of the cow and chicken, served cold and raw of course, several types of grill-able vegetables and the delicious chrysanthemum drink.
The only crappy part is that the Korean owner will give you the death grip if you don't finish your food, so take small and frequent portions - as indicated on the signs they post in their restaurant.
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$17.95 per person.
Yes you heard right, all you can eat Korean BBQ on an island where a gallon of milk will cost you $6 is only $17.95. Apparently the meat they use must not be imported and home grown on the adjacent parking lot. There's no explanation to why this possibly could be so cheap when they have a wide bevy of meat, vegetables, and side dishes to choose from.
Meats include chicken, beef, kabi short-ribs and my favorite, spicy pork. I went with a group of 8 and we just went absolutely to town. Basically, we all grabbed a different plate of meat and brought back our spoils to the self-cook grills with relatively strong beverage service from the waitresses.
All in all, it was a cheap and tasty way to get a good case of the meat sweats. You know what I'm talking about! That's good eating!
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I love going to these Korean joints and cooking my own food. You leave smelly, but you also leave full.
Camellia's has awesome bulgogi and "flap meat" that lead a small but excellent selection of raw meats, as well as a huge selection of veggies and other Korean specialties.
Service is pretty good. They're pretty on the ball about changing your grill when it gets dirty.
But one other great thing about this place, at least the night I went, was the orange Jell-O. It was perfect. The red Jell-O was good, too, but for some reason, orange was the star for dessert.
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Kal-bi and ribeye are the best here! So good! if you go for dinner they'll have sashimi, but not much else changes for dinner (oh yeah, there's a big sign on the ice cream machine that tells you it's for dinner only).
This place is best for two to four people. I've gone with 2, 4, and 8 people at a time, and with 8 people you're split between two burners and your party kinda gets split that way.
The last time I went the kim chee was sooooo good! and they had some really spicy poke...it was really spicy, but good.
Like every else says, don't have anything fancy planned for after you eat there...you will smell of bbq all day long...
Parking can be a problem, but one time when the lot was packed they had the make-shift valet going on which really was nice!
Whoa...is there a meat shortage somewhere in the world? Because it seems like this place has all of it in their buffet. There's a lot going on in here. You'll find a mix of Chinese, Japanese and Korean foods in the buffet, and they're all fairly good. The best part for me was the yummy, unending pile o' meat. Lots of meat. TONS of meat. Did I mention they had a lot of meat?
All in all, a good place to enjoy a massive amount of Korean food.
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I came here several times when I was growing up in Hawaii and really enjoyed it. The food tastes great and it's a ton of fun to cook with your friends. Still, you can just go to Yummy's and forget all the work. One downside is that you smell like the food you cooked when you're done: delicious.
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This is the all-you-can-eat Korean BBQ in Honolulu.
Their vegetables/appetisers are also good as well as the whole bill.
After spending a long day at a beach, it isso good to be full with nice BBQ.
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My mama's favorite buffet...I love cook-your-own-meat places, and I love Korean food, so this is a great find. Note: Don't take food if you can't finish it because they may charge you extra for wasting food. They have all kinds of marinated meats, all the veggie sides you could want, tofu, soup, and dessert. It gets super crowded so you may want to make reservations. It is a fun restaurant.
However, don't wear something that needs dry cleaning and put your hair up, ladies, because you will come out of this place smelling like a barbecue with legs.
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the price isn't bad and theres a good selection of kim chee, meats, and dessers. i think i would have enjoyed this place a lot better if my friends and i didn't go towards closing. the staff was pratically waiting for us to finish after business hours. i'd go back again .
After reading all the reviews on here about Camellia Buffet I thought about trying it out. So it was quite ironic that when hubby came home from work today he brought a 10% off coupon a co-worker had given him for Camellia Buffet. They had told him that this was THE best place for Korean BBQ.
So we got there pretty early, before 5pm. There were already a few tables there. I think my eyes popped out when I saw the panchan variety -- there must've been about 15-16 different items on display. The meat was just okay, only 4 kinds -- chicken, marinated beef, kalbi and a regular steak kind of meat which was not marinated.
On top of that there was sashimi (okay 1 type of fish), miso soup, seaweed soup, regular rice, sweet rice with red beans and also red bean porridge. Fruit, jello, ice cream are also available for dinner.
The panchan was so impressive I didn't even get to sample everything there. 3 types of cabbage kimchee, daikon kimchee, cucumber kimchee, taegu, 2 types of bean sprouts, watercress, tofu, mac salad, broccoli, seaweed and I can't even remember the rest.
Definitely a good bargain because it's only $16.95 for adults for dinner. For us, 2 adults and a child, the bill came to under $40! I would say that the meat variety is far better at Palace BBQ in Santa Clara, but then if you are not a huge meat eater like I am, I was just in awe of the panchan that they have here.
And oh, yes, I smell like a BBQ right now.
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We were pleasantly surpsied to find this buffet. We thought it would be a standard Chinese buffet, but instead it was an all-you-can-eat Korean BBQ where you cook your meat yourself at the table. Delicious marinated beef, chicken and spare ribs hot off the grill and cooked the way you like it! The buffet includes a wide array of side dishes -- kim chee, seaweed salad, sprouts. I loved the noodles (jab chae) and the potatoes.
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