Omnivore - Sampling Buddha in Midtown

We hit Buddha on Sunday night. This new restaurant is in the 100 Midtown Building (100 10th St., 404-874-5158). The name is creating some confusion. Its menu calls it “Chinese Buddha” but the press materials all call it simply “Buddha.”

We found the food much better than the average intown Chinese restaurant catering to American tastes. There’s a lengthy menu of vegetarian choices, including lots of faux meat dishes. I couldn’t face that, but did try some superb vegetarian dumplings.

The restaurant also serves some Thai and Malaysian specialties and, besides the vegetarian choices, these are the only unusual dishes on the menu. We both selected Malaysian entrees — baked squid for Wayne and softshell crab for me.

The place is quite a looker. There’s a window on the kitchen that turns everything in view red — a cinematic touch.

More in a forthcoming issue of the paper.