Dimassi’s Mediterranean Buffet

In theory, Mediterranean buffets should be as popular and easy to get right as Indian or Chinese buffets – between rice-heavy plates, salads, vegetable dips, breads, and desserts, it doesn’t seem like there’s a lot that could go wrong. So we were surprised when we visited Dimassi’s Mediterranean Buffet in Cerritos, currently the closest city to Orange County with a restaurant concept like this. (An Anaheim location is opening in late 2024.) It turns out that a lot can go wrong with a Mediterranean buffet – enough that we may have been cured of ever wanting to experience one again.

If there’s an opposite to food being made and served with love, this Texan chain appears to personify it. In Cerritos, a former Mimi’s Cafe was hollowed out into several cafeteria style dining rooms, which we found insanely understaffed: Instead of being greeted on entry, we saw signs to seat ourselves anywhere, serve ourselves, and just pay a flat fee on the way out. It was unsettlingly impersonal in a way that feels like the future of dining out for people who don’t appreciate or want to tip servers.

As per the posted rules, every adult customer may ask an employee – if you can find one in the buffet line – to hand you one lamb shank; everything else, including the most syrupy rose water we’ve ever tried to drink, is all you can consume. Hot but overly thick pita bread is brought out to the buffet on occasion, and the chafing dishes are silently replenished when they run low on gyro meat or other Mediterranean basics.