Kim Son Buffet - BEST & BIGGEST Vietnamese / Chinese Buffet in Houston, Texas? A Must Try!!

all right guys welcome back to dj steve tv the channel is about interesting places people and things today we are in asiantown bel air houston this place is famous for asian food we are at the number one the famous the mother of all buffet restaurants kim sun buffet and ballroom today we'll give you a tour inside behind the scenes and we're going to talk to one of the owners and talk about the operations here come on in [Music] [Music] uh kim sun buffet is one of the biggest vietnamese chinese buffet in i want to say all of texas so you'll come here you see authentic vietnamese and chinese food cooked fresh for you and on the weekends it's nothing but seafood as well so if you haven't tried if you haven't been to texas make sure you come to texas and this is a must place to visit so now let's go and get started i'm gonna introduce you to tina tina is gonna tell us about the formal stuff right she's gonna let us know about the location the hours etc and then we'll get into the personal big stuff tina hi my name is tina and i'm the owner of kumasan restaurant and i run ballet here bel air been open since 2005. okay my address is 10603 bella boulevard we're located in chinatown in houston tina when you say you're one of the owners tell us like how many owners are there tell us the history about the owner you you mentioned because this is this is very interesting and tina will tell you that it's our uh family history right so how many uh who's who's mom and dad and how many brothers and sisters do you have um a lot of people don't know the word kim's son kim is my mom son is my dad okay so that's why it's kim's son i have six brothers okay and three of them are in the family business and the other two is um is a dentist and the other one runs on business so how did you get started in in this operation here at this location we have three uh stanford jefferson and here okay so the one in stanford is the one in i call it sugarland right sugarland correct and then you have one in downtown which is the one in jefferson yes and that is pretty much the original like that's like the number two of the kim sun right exactly it's pretty big well we have a ballroom upstairs in the dining room downstairs that's the original one and okay and then you have this one here yes don't you have other kim sun locations if i recall i think you guys have a kim sun uh in memorial city area as well right yeah yeah yeah cafe okay yes okay noodle okay awesome okay now tell us about your operations or why why why are you here why why did you leave jefferson and why did you come to berlin well um actually when we kind of changed over things around here um my brother decided he wanted me to come up here and help out because it was they were busy with other stuff and um they wanted a family to be here to take over and look at everything because it's a big place and um we do also catering outside catering so meaning that if i want to have a party at my house you guys can provide the food if there's corporate events you guys provide the food and there's weddings outside of this ballroom you guys can provide that absolutely so all the tables wow that is cater from 300 to 500 600 okay so basically if you have a uh a smaller party like myself you know like under 50 people you can come in order the food and they'll get the party tray for you if you have a large event they'll actually go on site bring the entire crew and cook on the spot and serve on the spot as well so that's that's good okay but uh yeah this is the concept of of us scooping the uh for our customer is was because of kovitz okay uh when we decided to open it again and we were allowed to open again um we kind of in the process of the whole thing we're thinking what should we do to make it safer for everybody because they're about the time and everybody was still scared so we came up with the idea how about we serve to customers so they don't no one had to touch the tongs and all the spoons and stuff like that flavor and but um it worked out really well at first to be honest we were thinking let's do this until you know a year or two or whatever until the thing is over with whatever and um but actually it turned out really good a lot of people love it i mean they asked us to keep it like this okay because they feel safe and it's i think it's cleaner i jump all the time with customers they're like you have a lot of customers okay please just give me one you know um i don't want to waste it yeah and i would joke back with them how many before just one and i just scooped them too many ways you know i mean it's it's not just about and just keep in mind that you know if it's still a buffet so if if they give you too little too much you can come back as i want more or and you can't say i want investment i'm never going to run out of food yeah so what are your busiest uh times and days is it the weekends it's lunchtime is it dinner what is a crazy time lunchtime uh from about 11 00 to 11 30 to every day or friday's the business when is the busiest wednesday is sunday so sunday yes i i figured it would be like maybe friday okay sunday sunday sunday lunch or dinner dinner or both actually yeah it's kind of so sunday is the day so we're we're thinking people in houston they know kim sun right i think everyone and their grandma knows kim son more importantly let's say people that have never been to houston never been to texas and they come here for the first time what would you recommend them try first black pepper crop black pepper we are really famous for it for the location what we see versus from the back so when we go in the back in a minute here what is it that that has concerned you the most what what is it that you check back there every single time you go back there what is it that you look for versus what is it that you look for in the front so what do you what do you look for in the back when you go back there um i look for the quality of the food yes yes of course when when the after evening the chef come out sometimes you know um when we're so busy it's rush you know and and mistakes are make and um i'm there to look at the food sexual is the sauce is the right color or the the um they put too much of this and that in there and it's not the same as before because consistency is my main theme yeah you know i mean i need it to be the same every single time when it comes out you have to in this line of business right in a restaurant it has to be consistent because if i come here for fun it better takes the same every single time exactly else it won't be good right that's my my my number one thing so that's what i do in the back and make sure everybody is you know working working and then versus the front what is your number one thing in the front is it appears customer service customer service yes okay i mean i like to be um inside sometimes you know helping scooping the food sometime and i like to talk to customers i like to introduce people to um to all the new food or maybe i know that you know they would never ever touch that food before like they've never seen that food before they're used to eating like you said genocide chicken but i've got a lot of people who try curry chicken you know and stuff like that that is out of their comfort zone what is the most exotic or most authentic vietnamese dish you have here i mean all of them to me i think they're very authentic i i would find this these kind of dishes in vietnam so it was very surprising it's amazing that you guys have it all in one spot we have um we have on weekends saturday and sunday from 11 to 3. we have about five six dim sum item we put on buffet just to give it to customers you guys also have dim sum here right we used to use that yeah when we opened back up again we decided you know we let's concentrate on the big buffet because we have so much thing changing and then concentrate on getting the wedding started again so it was too much um so we kind of like okay let's just not do that but instead we can still give you because that's on hold you haven't canceled that's not so just like about it so just to let you know pre pandemic i want to say kim sun dim sum was one of the places to go to on sundays on saturdays and sundays this whole we still have it over separate location it's just not a bullet bill so so in bel air only this whole area in the lobby uh lobby area on sunday mornings there's like lines of people just waiting to get in to get it to get a seat for the dim sum and they would actually take a number they would sit there and wait and we're talking about by sunday noon the whole ballroom instead of having wedding guests their whole ballroom is filled with dim sum eaters so that's what they're famous for along with the buffet along with the ballroom along with the wedding so so i'm very surprised that they they canceled or put the stuff to them some but it's good to know that they still have them some items here so yeah we think we got some items on a saturday and sundays just okay okay so this is our noodle station uh we have bunga way um boom rio and xiaolong and other good stuff so we have basically in here we can do like about uh 15 items all together each day so um so how does this work so a customer come here and they will stand right there don't send them down or something you see all those numbers there okay the reason is because it's so loud because of the hood that they came here so we i went ahead and put the numbers so customers so they just pointed them out okay okay so and the number ties to a noodle item yes exactly so that person would do everything here and then there's a one person over here would pour the soup or other vegetarian vegetable and then we'll give it to customers there and this is unlimited so they can have it lemonade you can have 15 bowl of away if you want to or each item each you can try each one of them so what's your favorite boom is your favorite yes and what is that it's right here it's it's um it's with tofu and crab meat right here okay with crab meat yeah crab meat and then tomatoes husks can you eat it with the white vermicelli it's really good okay so one of our series we're gonna come back and we're actually gonna like eat one of these items okay you're gonna like tell me the ingredients and everything these items okay all right so this is our vietnamese side um which is where we're over at the noodle this is the venusaur we haven't sell banana this is like one of my favorites inside in english and what you do is you wrap it in the lettuce and you dip it in the fish sauce to eat so it's really really good so this is similar correct this is similar as carbon cop is a similar item yeah the the flour is similar but it's not um and you have shrimp inside you do the same thing that people eat it with the lettuce and the fish sauce you know what's so amazing when i had this is that i cannot believe that you guys can keep it so crunchy all the time how is that what's the secret in like making a crunchy because normally normally you order a restaurant when it comes out by the time it comes out it's not so crunchy anymore it's kind of soggy it is it's the perfect amount right of temperature of the oil so you have to do it right if it's too too hot then it's going to be you know of course going to be burned and stuff like that so i say that we have two people back there that they're going to do pretty good wow this is awesome okay and right next to it we have uh with this kind of stuff we changed daily but uh today we have uh boom tecnu it's really good it's white vermicelli with um barbecue pork and the shredded pork right here very nice and of course the egg rolls okay yeah and we have spring roll here in the traditional rice cake and all the stuff right here so this is all the traditional vietnamese food okay you see that sometimes mommy you know the mom will cook at home you know i mean for a party and stuff like that we have um yes and we change this daily sometimes you know we have other kind instead of the disc okay wait but on on the weekends or something you guys actually have like oysters and stuff right correct correct okay yes yes we have oyster and we also have crawfish and um it was been doing pretty good uh hopefully we can have a couple more weeks because you guys if you want to do all you can eat oyster all you need crawfish make sure you come to tennessee okay so we have all the stuff for this fried rice rice noodles we have udon beef broccoli the chinese broccoli it's a beef saute and this is pork chops and this is similar to genocide chicken if you do like gentle but it makes it um like szechuan sauce to it but it's really good and these are the two our most popular dishes at lunchtime curry chicken curry chicken you dip the bread into the curry and we also have the simmer pork with egg oh my mom makes that that is a traditional vietnamese dish there my mom makes that yes you'll see this at every single vietnamese house very nice and this is the mekong sifu and these two items here we change all the times especially the soup you know we change daily uh different kind of soup but those are two that sticks with it we cook we cook as it goes okay and every single time when you see we come out of the of the kitchen with this in hand you see when you're probably seeing me sometimes i've run out with the kitchen with like with this in hand it's because we just cooked it okay so you know so so it would change it all the time and our if we run out of food we change something else but we cook this as it goes yeah you cook it ahead of time where you know you scoop and you bring it up here now we don't do that if you guys never had vietnamese dessert the best place to try vietnamese dessert is at kim sun because if you don't like it you can try something else this is awesome you tried different items okay so this is awesome to try vietnamese dessert so vietnamese dessert is called jaya right yeah yeah so tell us what are the different items so it's just a different kind of beans we have mung beans and regular when i think of beans i don't think of it as dessert i think of it it's like uh not sweet are these sweet beans these are all sweet and this is like a tapioca okay coconut yeah and we have seeds and um i see something okay yeah so jello okay yeah people know what is this right this is coconut coconut milk coconut milk so normally people they put in like two type of beans the red tapioca some cello some pandan jello and then um like coconut and then we'll put icing them so when you guys come here make sure you haven't tried vietnamesekia all you have to do is just pick a couple of items three or four items if you want put it on a cup and then put some coconut milk on it and some ice and just give it a try right you'll like it you can put on every single and you can try every little thing in the cup if you want to a lot of people just want to try and this is new here what is this this is uh yes this is new these are made fresh every single week we do it the beginning of the week this is thai tea and this is matcha tea okay and this is corn milk oh wow this is really good i was home um because i was i left vinam when i was young but i was told this was very popular in vietnam okay um she actually she would cut the corn out and grind and get the juice from the pork and that's how i became this with adam wow and it's really good actually you know um yeah a lot of people like this older customer they love love love i'm going to give that a try here okay and then the last item we have here is just the fruits yes so this used to be out in the open but now you guys actually package this right yeah at night uh we turned this into uh where the sushi is but in the morning we have dessert oh so at night so instead of having the uh the dessert the fruit bar yeah for lunch at night you have this as a sushi bar correct okay we have some more um oh more desserts here okay more authentic vietnamese desserts dessert is this tradition of a dessert like white bean you know and stuff like that and of course they have the coconut milk you just grab one and just pour it into the cup and you eat it with the coconut milk can we go behind the scene sure okay come on guys [Music] [Music] oh man this is the real deal here and he's they're doing this every minute [Music] tina what is this here this oh my gosh i know what this is this is exactly what i was telling you earlier that they make it fresh and then the secret is how to make it crunchy [Music] [Music] and these are the items that he puts in there while he's cooking right okay so if you come here and a lot of people they love this but some people are vegetarian so they can't have meat um you would all you do is you can tell the waiter um i wanna sell or whatever and i don't wanna oh and they we can specially for you okay so if you're a vegetarian you can actually customize your order by telling a waiter that i don't want meat and they'll actually come back here and they'll make it minus the meat just because it's on the buffet what we have daily it doesn't mean that we can kind of making something else for you and this is the outcome and this is what we bring and serve outside correct so these the the crew here is cooking this i mean non-stop no only time we say stop is when we close at three and for two hours we're back over five let's start again at five oh wow okay but this is run bell this is how we prepare it in the front so when we put the bulb in here we steam it and let it come out so you take it from here it's very delicate because if you do it with a spoon it's going to break off [Music] tina thank you very much for the behind the scenes tour it was amazing i have one final favorite to ask you i want to come back and i want to eat some of these items with you and you explain what they are can we do that please absolutely all right what i want to do is i want to get one of your favorite items or maybe your top five items and we eat it together and you explain to us what the ingredients what makes them so famous and let's have that shot huh okay thank you very much tina we'll see you again okay thank you that's it guys please subscribe and like our channel we'll be back soon thank you

Channel: DjSteve TV

Views: 42,667

Keywords: Vietnamese food, Chinese food, Buffet, Houston, Texas, Chinatown, Bellaire, Asian town, Biggest buffet, Best buffet, Kim son, Dimsum, Pepper crab, Crawfish, Seafood, Pho, Must try, Biggest, Best, djstevetv, Vietnamese in America, American Buffet, Largest Buffet, All you can eat, Must try in Houston, Must do in Houston, HTX, Kimson, djsteve, Foodies, Vietnam, egg roll, Little Saigon, noodles, pho king, seafood, oyster, gulf coast, asian eats

Id: kcbC0SfttPM

Length: 20min 58sec (1258 seconds)

Published: Mon Sep 13 2021