The One-Of-A-Kind Interactive Buffet Where Customers Create Their Own Recipes

All-you-can-eat buffets will always be popular with big eaters and bargain hunters (or at least the part of the Venn diagram where the two groups overlap), but lately there's been a new twist to the concept. One of the fastest-growing restaurant chains a few years ago was a DIY seafood boil restaurant called Crab Du Jour, while similar restaurants like The Boiling Crab are also thriving. There are choose-your-own-adventure Mongolian barbecue chains like Genghis Grill and Hu Hot, as well as popular Korean restaurant chains like KPot, where you can design either a bento box plate or a hot pot. One mini-chain called Fire + Ice, however, is fairly unique in that while it offers the same type of interactive dining, it features several different types of cuisine.

Fire + Ice has four locations, three in California (Anaheim, Lake Tahoe, and San Francisco) and one on the East Coast (Boston). All have the same kind of menu, though, as well as the same concept: Choose your ingredients and watch as they're cooked right in front of you. As this is a buffet restaurant, you're free to go back for seconds, and on your next trip, you can pick an entirely different type of cuisine. There are four main types to explore: Asian (your standard rice or noodle stir fry); Latin (tacos, quesadillas, and other tortilla-based entrees); Italian (pasta), and American (wings, barbecue, and burgers).

Sure, you can absolutely freestyle your order, and even mix-and-match: pulled pork pasta with pico de gallo? Sure, go for it. If you don't want to shoulder all of the responsibility for creating your own recipe, however, Fire + Ice has a number of suggestions posted on its website. These include steak and mushroom fajitas with rice or tortillas; fettuccine with marinara and meatballs; a ramen bowl with chicken thighs, broccoli, and teriyaki sauce; and a burger topped with macaroni and cheese and bacon.

Some Tripadvisor reviewers also mention their favorite combos — one user paired a cheesy chicken sandwich with potstickers, while another enjoyed bow tie pasta with an assortment of seafood and vegetables topped with Thai red curry sauce. Overall, the chain seems to have pretty positive reviews, although some find the atmosphere a bit too frenetic. (The best all-you-can-eat buffet chains aren't optimal for calm, peaceful dining.) Some diners may worry about food allergies since everything is cooked on the same grill, but a patron at the Anaheim location noted you can request your order be prepared separately in the back.