As I staggered outside into the crisp autumn evening, I struggled to remember the last meal I had eaten that had left me this satisfied. Careful not to make any sudden movements for fear of vomiting, I eased myself back into the car. Are you curious as to where a college student at Georgia Tech could find a meal so fulfilling? Unfortunately, I had to venture far from campus to find what I now consider to be my favorite sushi and seafood buffet, Nori Nori.
What comes to mind when you hear the word “buffet”? A rowdy atmosphere? Wasted food strewn all over the floor? The endless supply of food for a cheap price? At Nori Nori, the atmosphere is peaceful and the entire restaurant is kept very tidy. The endless supply of food comes at a relatively expensive price, though. At fourteen dollars for lunch and twenty-three dollars for dinner on the weekdays with slight increases in prices during the weekends, this is probably a higher end restaurant for most college students.
Stated in the “about us” page of their website, the mission statement of Nori Nori was to “redefine” the buffet by providing excellent service and food quality without sacrificing quantity. The last statement on their page reads, “experience the difference Nori Nori has to offer and you too will believe”. After some quick research, I found it interesting that “Nori” is Japanese for the word “belief”. It also is the name for dried, thin sheets of seaweed used to make sushi, but I do believe that the restaurant name has a deeper meaning.
So where exactly is Nori Nori? The restaurant is located just north of Atlanta in Sandy Springs where it proudly displays its name at the intersection of Abernathy and Roswell Road. My friend and I hopped into the car one Tuesday night, set the address of the restaurant into the GPS, and set out to for the sushi buffet many have raved about - only to be confronted by Atlanta traffic. Due to poor planning, we arrived much later than expected and in quite a famished state which may have affected my perception of the food...
The first thing I noticed was the immense fish tank at the entrance with a variety of plump looking fish. It was as if the restaurant were boldly proclaiming its use of only the freshest ingredients to make its dishes. That or they just wanted to dazzle their customers with a gigantic tank of marine life. Either way the elegant entrance to the restaurant paved the way to a delicious dinner.
Among the various buffet sections, the most popular by far is the sushi buffet. One of my personal favorites is the salmon tataki roll. The sushi chef lightly sears the edges of raw salmon slices before submerging them into ice, cold water. Served on rolls of rice and garnished with light condiments, these salmon tataki rolls are truly a taste of heaven. The chefs are capable of making well over fifty different kinds of sushi, though only around twenty kinds are available at any given time. But not to worry, the menu is constantly rotated giving customers a chance to taste a wide variety of sushi and the greatest problem for sushi lovers will be to know when to stop eating.
If you are not a sushi lover, there are a variety of other buffet sections to choose from. There is a soup bar that serves miso soup and udon noodles as well as an adjacent grill section where different kinds of meats are available. In addition, there are are a variety of skewers thoughtfully put together that blend flavors perfectly. There are even chicken wings on skewers! Your hands don't have to get dirty to eat chicken wings here! I also recommend the tangy, slightly sweet barbecue short ribs. Be warned though, the short ribs are tough and require quite a struggle to get the meat off.
I had originally gone to Nori Nori simply for their sushi buffet, but another type of seafood caught my attention during my stay. Crab legs! At many seafood buffets, crab legs are a rarity and if any are available they are often snatched away by the lucky customer who happened to be near when a fresh batch of them were brought out. But not at Nori Nori. There are mounds of fresh crab legs laid out on ice and I helped myself to more than I probably should have taken. Succulent and not too salty, they struck the right balance and were definitely one my favorites for the night.
Adjacent to the crab legs were oysters on the half shell decorated with herbs and lemons and a shrimp platter neatly arranged with a cocktail sauce dip. There have been rare complaints about the freshness of the oysters by past customers, but I tasted nothing wrong during my stay. Throughout the restaurant you will see that all the food items displayed have the aspect of visual appeal in mind. Many of the dishes available only contain a handful of the food present to create the effect that the dish was tenderly prepared and not made in large containers for the masses. Though this is visually appealing, it requires a great amount of maintenance work by the chefs to constantly monitor the food available.
After nearly an hour and a half, I persuaded myself that I still had room for dessert. The dessert bar had an assortment of bite-sized cakes, pastries and fruit. There is even a soft serve ice cream machine for those who desire ice cream. The bland green tea ice cream was the only disappoinment of the night for me. But other than the ice cream, the fresh fruit, plush cakes, and crispy pastries were a perfect end to the meal.
The main difference between lunch and dinner at Nori Nori is the food available during the two time slots. Because they only open for lunch for roughly three hours and dinner for around four hours, it is important to arrive early enough so that you are full before they start to take the food away. During dinner there are more premium varieties of sushi available as well as crab legs and oysters. All other items are common both to lunch and dinner. With nearly a ten dollar difference between lunch and dinner, I find that lunch is the much better deal for college students. Ten dollars is basically another meal elsewhere, or for a little more one can dine at Nori Nori again! And with a total occupancy of three hundred and fifty, Nori Nori will have no trouble accommodating even the largest of parties should you decide to have a party there.
Being two college students, I found that the service we received was no worse than the sharply dressed businessmen at the table next to us. The nature of a buffet style type restaurant is that the customers serve themselves, though our waiter happily offered to go out to the buffet and get us plates of food. Our drinks never were empty and our finished plates were taken up in a timely manner. Our waiter was friendly and tended to our every need as my friend and I gorged ourselves.
Rating: Four Stars
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