Amanda on Buffets: This is Not the Pride Lands

The attraction to buffets is a magnetic, dangerous force. Those who love them are laboring under some delusion that buffets are the promise land, a Mecca of chicken wings and soggy pound cake. It’s a sick trick that buffets are pulling on us, and I’m here to put a stop to it.

And when I talk about buffets here, I am not talking about your rich uncle’s buffet-style wedding. I am talking about the shopping center buffet with the $5 all-you-can-eat lunch special. I am talking about Sizzler before Sizzler vanished with the rising prices of green Jell-O and grade D meat.

There are two fiscally sound ways to approach buffets. The first is like a rowdy frat boy spending all his summer job earnings on a weekend in Vegas: take whatever comes your way, whether you like it or not, and get your money’s worth. But with this mentality, terrible things start happening. I find myself eating French fries dipped in hot fudge, just because I have the option of doing so. Dave starts eating fried frog legs. The crusts of horrible, microwavable pizzas with sour cheese litter plate upon plate across the table. It’s not a pretty scene. It’s one you might see in a bad symbolist film about the deterioration of pride.

The other is what I like to call the “Jane Doe Method,” named after someone close to me and Dave who asked not to be identified in this blog post:

• Choose a target. In this case, Dave and I were in college and a chain buffet had just opened up a few miles away from campus.
• Prepare materials. Jane came down to our school one Sunday equipped with a large purse and multiple one-gallon Ziploc freezer bags.
• Identify desirable items. While most of the food was too vile to think about ever reheating, Jane scoped out the one passable dish, grilled steak made to order.
• Acquire substance. Jane slyly dumped multiple platefuls of steak into the plastic bags in her purse.

While I am a vegetarian and am revolted by the idea of eating the flesh of a dead animal, from a buffet or otherwise, Dave ate some pretty decent steak for dinner every night for the next week.

But there’s a problem with these two methods. One is unhealthy, disgusting, and soul crushing. You do not leave a place where you ate four pounds of mashed potatoes mixed with what looked like cheese whiz but tasted like crayons without sustaining some physical and mental damage. The other is in a moral gray area and could be considered illegal. So what is the best way to approach buffets?

The answer is don’t. Avoid them at all costs. Take your money and buy a modest amount of quality food anywhere else.

Everything in moderation, except puppies.
And Office reruns.

At buffets, you are not really paying for food. You are paying for the joy of your inner-Mufasa telling you that everything the light touches is yours. But ladies and gentleman, this is not the Pride Lands you are being offered here. This is a shadowy place akin to the elephant graveyard. This is where food comes to die.

Don’t be deceived. Save yourself from the possible food poisoning, the calories, and the potential embarrassment of being stopped and questioned for carrying a sizeable amount of dead cow in your purse. If you don’t want to cook, for the love of God, just order a pizza instead.









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