Yes EB, that's exactly what I'm looking for, the Americanized Chinese buffet, complete with the king crab legs and overweight customers, haha. I was a bit embarrased to come right out and say it. Will give Ruby Rouge a try sometime.
I probably should have said "Americanized" rather than "traditional", but obviously you knew what I was talking about. The truth is, in Montreal I have never tried the buffet style restaurants you are alluding to, only the dim sum restaurants (namely, Ruby Rouge and Le Maison Kam Fung), which are also buffet style restaurants in the sense that they are serving many different kinds of dim sum in carts that come to you, with Ruby Rouge having the added feature of a stand alone buffet with a small selection of various dishes and some desserts.
So I do not know whether, in Montreal, they would have the "Americanized" style of Chinese restaurant buffet with the requisite crab legs, egg rolls, fried dumplings, pork fried rice, lo mein noodles, wonton soup, barbecued pork ribs, etc. and very overweight people consuming the same. Your post made me laugh because we have such a restaurant not far from the office I work at and I eat there very occasionally, and the last time I went there every customer in the restaurant was at least 30 pounds overweight, and a few were quite obese. These buffet restaurants, which are generally average in the quality of food they are serving, seem to attract those more interested in quantity than in variety or in quality. When I eat at a buffet restaurant it's usually because I like the variety of the food served. At the restaurant I alluded to, I often see customers that have eaten 10 plates of food. These are people who likely have serious undiagnosed eating disorders, but that is an issue for another thread.
I know there is a Chinese buffet resto on de la Gauchieter east of St. Urbain. I waked in there one time, looked at the food in the buffet, was unimpressed, and walked out, fearing an experence like what Rumples described with Maharajah. Personally I prefer dim sum, but I understand that many American tourists would like to eat at a good Americanized Chinese buffet because you can eat a lot of food at an economical price at most buffet restaurants like this, which have become very popular for this very reason. I doubt you will find one that is any good in Chinatown, whether you might find one elsewhere in the downtown core or outside the downtown core is another question, and one the locals need to provide some info on.
