With all due apologies to the hundreds of restaurants in the area that serve buffets I can’t stomach it.
Oh yes I am guilty of the occasional trip to the salad bar. But those endless mazes of hot and cold buffets are too much for me in so many ways.
First of all the whole concept is a little bit on the unappetizing side. Food is supposed to come out the oven or pot and onto my plate. Not sit like a car in a showroom waiting for someone to pick it. And when you do choose something that looks appetizing doesn’t it always seem like it doesn’t taste as good as it looked?
A buffet is all you can eat. I have been to some buffet restaurants that have some regular customers who definitely have had all they can eat and all you and I and some third world nations could eat too. Now I am not a skinny guy so I can’t say too much here but some of these buffet gals and guys need to show a little restraint at the restaurant. And a little mercy to their stretch waistbands, if you get my drift.
Now here’s my major maladjustment when it comes to buffets. Other people. Other people who I don’t know are in close proximity to my chow. These are folks who for all I know clean sewers for a living. Or who don’t wash their hands after going number two. While they don’t, I hope, actually touch the food they certainly touch the serving utensils and then I get to touch them by proxy. Ewww.
Even the best buffet is set up so you have to reach over some of the offerings to get to the steaming pile of stuff you want. Hope nothing shakes loose from someone’s sleeve.
And then there’s the kids at buffets. Don’t get me started. I once saw a pre-teen aged urchin pile his already used plate with some food, change his mind and PUT IT BACK! And when I spoke to the little creep about this his mother yelled at me! “He’s been taught not to waste food†she shouted at me. Yeah, right.
Do you know what they call those little awnings over buffets? Sneeze guards. Think about that for a moment. The designers of the buffet concept actually expect the food will be protected from sneezing Buffet goers the size of a water buffalo’s by that contraption?
One popular buffet style restaurant in the back mountain that is now a pile of dirt in an empty lot lost my business early on. It was set up so the buffet line ran along the kitchen and had one way sliding glass mirrors so the cooking and serving staff could see the buffet and replenish it and you couldn’t see them. Except for some reason I could see them. They were looking at the customers, making faces at them and generally doing rude and obscene things behind the scenes. Pretending to pick your nose and then handling food has never seemed funny to me. I never went back.
I’m not even going to mention my sneaking suspicion about some buffets. I will just say one word and let you figure out the rest.
Recycling.
