QUEENS — With so much great food in Queens, picking just one item off the menu can often seem like a daunting task.
One good way to sample the many tastes the borough has to offer is to sink your teeth into the array of all-you-can-eat buffets found across the borough, from Long Island City to Eastern Queens.
From delectable sushi in Bayside to a delicious hot pot in Flushing and mouth-watering Indian dishes in Jackson Heights, the possibilities for sampling cuisines from around the world are only limited by your imagination.
DNAinfo.com New York compiled a list of some of the more interesting all-you-can-eat choices in the city's most diverse dining borough.
Why choose one dish when you can have them all?
Sushi Village, 32-50 Francis Lewis Blvd. in Bayside
This sushi restaurant in Eastern Queens has two extensive all-day, all-you-can eat Japanese menus, made to order, for $19.99 on Monday through Friday, and $21.99 on the weekends.
Patrons can choose from a long list of sashimi, sushi, maki or special rolls on their raw menu. Popular items include the pepper salmon sashimi, the spicy tuna and eel avocado rolls, and special rolls such as the Dragon, an eel and cucumber roll topped with avocado.
Off the main menu, you can start with an appetizer like gyoza and shumai dumplings, then work your way through the fried shrimp tempura or the salmon teriyaki.
Udu Cafe, 37-04 Prince St. in Flushing
Housed inside Mapo Szechuan restauant, Udu Cafe is its shabu-shabu counterpart, offering all you can eat hot pot all day during the week for $25 a person. On Friday through Saturday, the price is the same before 4 p.m., then $29 until closing time.
Don't worry thirsty diners: the price includes a free soda or draft Coors Light.
The food is served raw, with a boiling broth used to cook the food. Popular dishes include the sisiter su hot pot and the thai style yum yum broth, which are both spicy. But if you're looking for a milder taste, try the seaweed or vegetarian broths.
There are four different kinds of meat — beef, pork, chicken or lamb — as well as seafood such as squid, crab, baby octopus and mussels.
Patron Alexandra Wang, from Flushing, likened the experience to a family gathering.
"We usually have non-spicy and spicy," Wang said. "Everybody puts their chopsticks in the broth."
Jackson Diner, 37-47 74th St. in Jackson Heights
Jackson Diner is one of the most famous Indian restaurants in Jackson Heights. And not only does it offer some of the best traditional Indian food around, it also boasts a popular lunch buffet from 11:30 a.m. to 4 p.m. every weekday.
Besides favorites such as chicken tikka masala, Jackson Diner serves a sag paneer, which is a vegetarian dish made of spinach and cheese, as well as a lamb rogan josh, a lamb dish cooked in an Indian paste called kashmiri masala.
If there's still room left in your stomach, spring for the masala dosa, which is an Indian-style crepe filled with peas, potatoes and onions.
Aanchal, 45-12 23rd St. in Long Island City
For a more modern take on Indian food, head to Long Island City, where Aanchal offers a buffet for $9.99 from noon until 3 p.m. Monday through Friday.
Aanchal, which opened last June, also has staples such as tikka masala and tandoori chicken, but also rotates dishes throughout the week.
"We change the menu everyday," said manager Bobby Dcruze, 33. "Meat, or non-meat."
Menu items have included gobi masala, a potato and cauliflower dish, and paneer butter masala, homemade cottage cheese cooked in a yogurt-tomato sauce. On Fridays, the restaurant serves a mango mousse for dessert, which is not on the menu.
If you want to add an appetizer to your meal, Aanchal features a coconut shrimp cooked in honey and yogurt, as well as a flaky fried samosa.
Krystal's Cafe and Pastry Shop, 69-02 Roosevelt Ave. in Woodside
Krystal's features all-you-can-eat Filipino at the more-than-reasonable price of $8 every weekday from 11 a.m. to 3 p.m.
The buffet menu fluctuates daily, but popular choices include lumpia shanghai, a fried pork spring roll; the pritong manok, a Filipino fried chicken; and adobong baboy, a traditional Filippino dish consisting of brown pork in garlic sauce.
The restaurant also offers dessert with your meal: finish off your day with a helping of leche flan, a flan dish made of milk and egg yolks.
