I do love a GOOD buffet, and quite frankly, around here 'good' is the keyword that is usually missing.  Pittsburgh has plenty of troughs called buffets, and for one price, stuffing yourself silly makes the low quality generally overlookable.  \n\nBy far, the BEST Asian buffet in da burgh is indeed Hokkaido.\n\nAt first glance, the menu board lists a price that makes you say 'this had better be worth it!', but once you get inside and experience the magnitude of the offerings, from the usual blase to some more unusual dishes, and you load your plate up again and again with tasty treats, you realize 'Yeah, it was worth it!'\n\nFirst they have a salad section. You can have a simple salad to sate the 'inside the box' eaters, or you can have a woodear salad for the more adventurous. There's kimchee, squid salad and even marinated spicy chicken feet.  \n\nSlide over a bin, and you have the peel and eat shrimp, crawdads and other such goodies.  \n\nOne more to the left begins the hot foods that are more akin to the general offerings at a Chinese buffet, like General Tsaos Chicken, Sprite Beef, rice noodles and stir fried rice, Rose Chicken, Frog Legs, and a variety of other hot dishes and stir fries.\n\nNow we're in the corner where the line tends to clog over the crab legs.  I don't get that one personally.  SO much work for so little food, but the line for the crab legs is always a pain - but hey, squeeze by them, avoid the flying crackers, and now you're at the soup station.  Clam Chowder, Hot and Sour, Egg Drop, Wonton...they're all there.\n\nJust to your left now is the 'do it yourself mixins' bin, next to the Hibachi grill.  Here, you pick the goodies you'd like, hand them to the cute little Latino behind the grill, and he hops and chops and grill your desired ingredients into a hot steaming mess of yum.\n\nOne more step to the left, and you reach the heat lamps keeping the 'total inside the box' eaters goods warm...polish sausage and a roast beef or pork.  \n\nOnce again, step to the left, and you've got the appetizers bin.  Crab Rangoon, pot stickers, chicken-on-a-stick, stuffed mushrooms, quesadillas, fried shrimp, stuffed crab shells, sesame buns, and even pizza for the 'Ewww, I don't like that other stuff' people.\n\nAfter you put your first three plates down on the table, return to this same spot, shuffle to the left, and you're at the Sushi station. Oodles of varieties of little rice balls with raw and cooked goodies stuffed in the middle, with all of the sauces to make your tongue screech with heat, or tingle with salt. \n\nChew, rinse and repeat.  It's a buffet.  \n\nFinally, just before the hallway to the bathroom, all the way down at the end, is the dessert station. Cakes, fresh fruit and a chocolate fountain, ice creams, and dessert fungus and lychees,\n\nTheir soda products are COKE (hooray!), but they also have brewed iced tea, the hot green teas and regular teas.  \n\nThe staff of 'waitresses' are more like glorified bus persons (they have very few cute Asian guys on the floor - they're mostly in the back doing the stir-frying), but they do keep your glasses full and empty plates scooped away.\n\nI've eaten here many times, and I'm always impressed by the amount of Asian people eating here. You will also see more than a 'few' people who obviously eat here regularly - and they're a good reminder that this is something to do 'once in a while'.\n\nI have never been disappointed. The food is always fresh, and very flavorful, and there is a little something for everyone - all tastes can be sated.\n\nThe funniest thing I ever experienced at Hokkaido happened before the strip mall was even completely built. On the outside of the building was a HUGE vinyl banner proclaiming (and indeed, I quote): \""COMING SOON - JUMBO SEAFOOD BUFFEET\""\n\nFortunately, their lack of a proofreader was NOT an omen of things to come.  Hokkaido does everything else right.