EAT: HARLEM SOUL FOOD BUFFETS 2020

Harlem Bespoke: An Instagram follower on our Cinema Bespoke page recently mentioned that they judged a restaurant by the Mac n Cheese wondered how the local soul food buffets stood out.  Manna's set up the a soul food empire in Harlem starting back in 1984 and has since expanded to several locations which serves up some really good, seasoned fried chicken and braised vegetables like the spiced collard greens.  But how does the mac stand out?  Everything was in our opinion a  little too on the mild side with not that much tangy cheese kick to it.

Jacob also has a couple of locations uptown with everything served up in recyclable plastic trays like Manna's and the chicken is also quite crispy and flavorful.  There were no drum sticks available on our visit so the actual portion were a bit of a miss.  We also liked the well prepared vegetable sides and some might say it is all familiar since the owner reportedly worked for Manna's many years ago. With that said, the mac an cheese also lacked a bit of flavor.

An outlier option came to mind with this Mac N Cheese quandary and that was the Whole Foods on 125th Street.  Most of the other Whole Foods buffet dishes are of good quality but somewhat democratic in flavor but could the Mac be on point?  We especially like that the containers used on site are all cardboard which is preferable to plastic and that the bechamel sauce was less congealed than other buffets visited.   Along with the better sauce consistency was the tangy cheese flavor we had been missing out on and Whole Foods is the hands down standout for at least the cheesy pasta category.

HarlemBespoke.com 2020