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.









Suki has the purple collar by Ingo Di Bella is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution 3.0 Unported License.

Dave on Buffets: A Feast Fit For Kings

As an avid eater of any kind of food, I have a strong passion for the buffet. Whenever I see an all-you-can-eat establishment, I see an invitation to a unique cuisine experience that will serve dishes from around the globe and allow me to shove as much of them as I can down my gullet. Buffets are a great way to get to experience new foods and combinations for an affordable price.

The Land of Milk and Honey.

There are many reasons why you should be excited about any form of buffet. When you go to a regular restaurant you have to take a list of a thousand dishes and narrow it down to just one, but at a buffet it’s a free-for-all where you can chow down on practically anything found on the planet. When you walk into a restaurant you have to go through a whole process of being seated, waiting for a server, choosing a meal, and waiting for the meal to be plated, but at a buffet your feast fit for a king begins minutes after stepping through the door.

Buffets also give you the chance to work your inner creative slob. This is the only place where you can try eggs over eggplant, mac and cheese salad, Jell-O with string beans, or gravy over anything. Your dish is not a just a dish, but a canvas to create the perfect combination.

The key to getting the full experience of any buffet is to make sure you get at least four times what you pay for. To ensure such a task I perfected a fool proof, easy to follow technique for any fellow buffetist to use. The technique revolves around one important principle: eat as fast and as much as you can before your body can realize that you are full. If you can master that simple technique then your buffet possibilities are endless. Below are a few more simple techniques that may also help:

• Practice getting out of your chair and on your feet faster; speed is everything.
• There is little time to read what each dish is, so it is best to go by sight and smell.
• Use the whole dish to your advantage. There is more space than you think on one plate.
• Choose your beverage wisely; water is easier on the stomach than soda is.

Chicken, shrimp, pasta, pizza, steak, fish; you could have any one of these for dinner but why have one when you can have them all? That is the beauty of a buffet, instead of asking yourself which to eat, you instead ask yourself how much of each to eat. Sure, all the food may be mediocre, but for the price that you are paying, you have already subconsciously prepared for something very short of a gourmet meal.

There are a number of complaints I always hear from people who don’t enjoy a night at the buffet, but one specifically: they always feel sick after eating too much. I will admit that even I say this, but to me it is not a complaint, it is an epiphany, a moment of victory where I know I accomplished the goal that I have set myself. Yes, it is uncomfortable, but the pain is the same pain I imagine Bill Gates feels in his arm when he lifts up his wallet.

You may see a buffet as a place that is unhealthy, disgusting, and leaves you wondering what you ate (I get the same complaints about my cooking). However I see it as a golden ticket to a smorgasbord of unlimited opportunity. And sure it may be a little unhealthy, but hey, all that walking to get your food has to burn some calories…right?



Buffet fit for a king by Bev Sykes is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution 3.0 Unported License.