Munch lunch at a Chinese restaurant, brunch at a Holiday Inn, or dinner at a wedding reception, and chances are good you will come face to face with the The All-You-Can-Eat Buffet.
If you’re a Buffet Amateur like me, your pupils dilate and your mouth starts watering as soon as you spot the long table full of steam trays and criss-crossed table cloths. Soon it’s game on, and you grab a plate and pile it high with some bread, a few salads, and a couple rolled-up salamis or a bowl of Won Ton soup. For plate number two you tackle the entrees, scooping up sticky heaps of Kung Pao chicken, soggy French Toast, or paper-thin slices of roast beef soaking in dark mushroom gravy. Then you go back for a third plate, this one featuring a tipsy mountain of desserts — maybe some assorted squares, a thick, gummy slice of cheesecake, or some fluorescent pink, freezer-burned ice cream sliding around your plate.
Then as you lay bloated on your chair, your buttons bursting, your eyelids drooping, you face a final decision: Do you go back for The Fourth Plate?
The Fourth Plate is almost always a good idea before you do it and a bad idea afterwards. It’s the helping after the helping after. It’s the Greatest Hits Plate, a star-studded collection featuring the most popular items from Plate 1, 2, and 3, coming together for the reunion tour, the last hurrah, the final dance at the dinner table.
The Fourth Plate is also a famous mark of a Buffet Amateur, because it can be the sign of someone who realizes that Plate 2 was the best plate and they really just want more of Plate 2. For years, I scarfed down The Fourth Plate at the Indian buffet near my college. Buttery, pillowy-soft naans piled high, thick and creamy Butter Chicken, and spicy, simmering lamb in a hearty broth. It was just too much. I caved in every time and walked away with a curry-busting gut and a samosa hangover.
Since then I’ve been tutored on the art of mastering the all-you-can-eat buffet. Everybody’s got their own techniques, but here’s what I’ve learned over the years:
1. The Walk-Through. Don’t do what I used to do and blindly take a spoonful of everything. No, you’ve got to do your Walk-Through First. You’re a detective, popping open steam tray after steam tray, looking for recent fill-ups, traffic around popular items, and sure winners like omelet stations or a guy in a chef’s hat slicing big slabs of meat. Now’s also time for some Belly Space Analysis, where every item’s Tasty Deliciousness is weighed against it’s Projected Stomach Volume. Bread, soup, and salad rarely pass the Belly Space Analysis test. Skipping those means you just gained an extra plate and are on your way.
2. Drink Later. Sugary drinks just fill you up with carbs and cost extra. If you can postpone your Pepsi, then you’ll save belly space for the hot goods.
3. The Sampler. My dad is famous for the sampler plate. Within minutes of arriving he’ll dot a big white plate with small portions of every entree and proceed to say “Hmmm,” a lot while scooping up tiny forkfuls of each to see what will make the cut. You have to have willpower to pull off The Sampler, but it can be very rewarding. You know you aced it when your next plate is just piles of your two favorites. Good on ya.
4. Staggered Trips. If you’re with friends, don’t wait until everybody is done their first plate before uniformly filing up for a second trip together. No, go separately and act as each others eyes and ears out there — whats new, what’s hot, what’s fresh, what’s not. Your friends are doing their job when you see them running back to table to scream “They just brought out more coconut shrimp!” Also, be sure to designate someone at your table to be The Lookout. They should be seated with a clear view of the buffet and raise alarm whenever they see someone coming from the back with a new steam tray.
5. Big Plates Always. Be watchful of the small salad and dessert plates lurking about. Find your secret stash of full-size dinner plates and use them, know them, love them lots. The big plates will let you spread your meal around, and avoid piling things high, which generally results in meat gravy getting all over your salad.
6. One More Egg Roll. When the check arrives, take your time. Slow it right down now and see who still has room. Since you’ve been so busy scarfing your food and staggering trips, now really is the best chance to catch up with your friends. Then after ten or fifteen minutes, someone will likely cave in and say “Okay, one more egg roll.” This is buffet victory.
With these tips plus your personal experiences, you too can master the art of the all-you-can-eat buffet. After that, there’s really no stopping you. So eat all you can, my friend.
Eat all you can.
AWESOME!
Great post, tks !
Ha – great post! I love that you even QUESTION the fourth go round!!
Ahh. What beautiful memories of the days when the buffet was heaven for me. I’m getting fat just thinking about it..
I have just sat through a lunch and watched Tony ‘9 plate’ in action. A masterful display. Some people just have an innate ability to put into all into practice.
Sorry, my previous comment should have read…”Tony ‘9 plate – one soup – and I had a little nibble on the prawn crackers on the way out as well'”
Ah so. I see now that my first plate has always been my downfall. Going for the Sampler technique, wish me luck!
I like to go for the stuff that does not look like salad first.
I quit eating buffet meals a long time ago. They will cost you more later on. You have to buy all the drug prescriptions for all the physical ailments you will be suffering from. Or you may have to get a gastric bypass to lose all the weight you have gained. Or you may die of gluttony. Become a sensible eater.
It is (buffets) too expensive for me, for the most part, anyway…Portions at restaurants are huge, even if it isn’t a buffet. They bring the plate and I stare at it wondering how I will eat it all, then it all goes down. After that I wallow in discomfort and shame wondering why I sin thusly, yet, I do it again. Problem is, we are from people who used to work 12, 14, 16 hours a day at physical toil and could accommodate (sp?) all that food. Now, we are sedentary, and machines do all the hard work but we want to eat as our ancestors did.
Country Buffet’s comestibles barely qualify as food, BTW…I like to do Chinese or some other ethnic buffet if I go.
Have you ever been to a HuHot buffet?? It is a Mongolian joint that has every possible kind of meat and seafood, uncooked. Then you add what type of noodles you want. Next you move on to the vegetables and other fillers. Then you add a minimum of 5 ladles of sauce, from about 20 choices ranging from sweet teriyaki to fry your mouth it’s so freaking hot. Then you carry it over to the giant circular grill and wait your turn to watch them cook it. It’s pretty awesome and lunch is 7.95 a person and dinner is 12.95. It is all you can eat and it’s fun just trying to find your perfect combination. Also comes with your choice of soup or salad if you’d like, unending rice and drinks. YUMMMMMMM!
Best. Blog. EVER!!!!
I hate buffets. Stale food left hanging around too long… Its cheap but crap.
this is really funny. I am definitely a sampler. I try a few things and then pick my favorites.
I love this. I’ve actually started a blog about some advanced techniques, as they apply to the many different kinds of buffets. Want to be a guest contributor? runthebuffet.blogspot.com
I really like buffets, unfortunately they don’t like me and many start taking the food away so I can’t have anymore…
One in Reno NV took all the food away before I could get dessert and I was only on my 7th plate. :(
Excellent, made me feel bloated just reading!
Buffet strategy is important in getting “bang for your buck”. The post makes many valid points.Golden Corral,our favorite buffet, has a wanted picture in their lobby of our family. Their food is tasty and restaurants clean, so we frequent them often. Everyone in our family is schooled on how to get their maximum taste and value.
Also, remember your manners please. I know there is so much food and so little time, but there is no reason to shove. Scarf on!
Ok, I love AYCE Chinese buffets, too, but where in the US can we ever find AYCE Greek buffets? I did some growing up in Chicago, and they had them sometimes. But now I live in WV (which is not as 3rd-world as some people think), and there’s practically NO Greek food. In Jefferson County, the county nearest civilization (MD/VA), there are now scores of new restaurants that didn’t exist 10 yrs ago, but nothing Greek and definitely no Greek AYCE. Any nearby (within 25 miles) suggestions?
stellar advice :) stay away from the rice in addition to the bread, soup, and salad. i’m a big fan of the preliminary taste plate to avoid wasting food and bellyspace. download worldwide soccer manager 2008 thanks!
Это здесь, если я не ошибаюсь.
Номер не пройдет!
Awww this reminds me of the Easton Buffet. Brand new buffet that is fucking delicious. Never had a fourth plate there………yet.
Omg… Me and my parents go to the Panda Buffet all the time. But oi! All you can eat?! Sounds good for me! Normally I start out with a few light food choices, then get a little heavier, and then pig out on the heavy stuff. Really, really heavy stuff. Then I get dessert and still leave room for the fortune cookie.
Greatest Hits Plate! LOL
Mmm, buffets.
Another hint? Keep a water bottle in the car for when you leave and stay away from salty meals.
I’ve learned the hard way how expensive a soda can be and how thirsty you can get.
Interresant de vous lire, merci
it’s = contraction of “it is”
its = possessive pronoun
A few of us went to an all-you-can-eat pizza buffet one year for a friends birthday (we were all skint) and 2 years later still we cannot believe the fact that at a buffet she wasn’t paying for she had one measley plate, a slice of pizza and a few fries. Ridiculous buffet behaviour.
hahaha, will you marry me, neil? i giggle and/or shed a single tear or two every time i read one your AWESOMEs. you, my friend, are a master of words. mrs. dorsman gave us YOU–our treasure chest in our proverbial fries, if you will…
This is awesome. I read this over a year ago but I have been reading your site on my google reader… so i decided to come see what the actual website is looking like post book-launch. I saw your top 5.
And this is awesome because every friday my boyfriend and I go to the indian buffet and it is SO ridiculously hard to resist that last plate. We get there at 2 and I’m always full until lunch on Saturday. I’ll have to remember these tips for next time!!
As another buffet aficionado, I felt a surge of kinship reading Neil’s techniques. Just last week I was at the Mandarin in Brampton, ON where I successfully accomplished the fourth plate with no terrible effects. I’d recommend a few further suggestions:
1. I agree that carbonated drinks are totally out, but regular amounts of water (and green/jasmine tea at Asian buffets) are essential for feeling good after. There is something in particular about the tea that seems to help with the added digestion.
2. I dislike foods touching that I wouldn’t eat together normally, and so I’m really not into sauces poured on top and intermingling with other dishes. If there is a sauce I want, I ladle it into a small soup bowl and bring it to the table for the duration of the meal. Having the sauces in separate bowls also means that foods on the plate don’t have to be so spread out, making their consumption of plate real estate more efficient.
3. I don’t know what to call this rule–buffatalism?–but it’s related to Kim’s observation about freshness. Freshness–so hot it burns the roof of your mouth–is supreme, and so any dish you happen to personally observe being refreshed in the last five minutes before filling your plate deserves top consideration over the who-knows-how-long-that’s-been-there foods. Even if it’s not normally your favourite dish, or a complete mystery, the arcane wisdom of the buffet has spoken and should not be taken lightly. (Of course, foods you hate are disqualified beyond an acknowledgment that the buffet gods are clearly frowning on your decision to take another helping.)
I also love Kim’s idea about the bone bowl and will be giving that a try next time.
Neil, thanks for making the world more awesome.
Matt
as the person in our family who does most of the cooking, I prefer to choose those foods which I’ve never made or which are too labour intensive to make. My favourites are the unusual soups, the cabbage rolls, and the desserts with lots of berries.
This is HILARIOUS!!!! I’ve probably read and re-read this entry about 5 times over the past two days, and let me tell you — it is *so hard* to keep quiet in my cube when all I’m doing is snorting and snuffling to keep the laughs in. Sent it to my brother, too, and he wrote back: ONE OF THE FUNNIEST THINGS I’VE EVER READ IN MY LIFE.
Brother and Sister give two enthusiasic thumbs up…. Awesome!
Ahh, i am missing out. I have only really gone to a proper Buffet once in my life (although i am almost 14, to be fair). i think i was about 11 and i ate 5 plates haha :) But what do people have against salads? all the scrummy ones out there, and you just skip them? seems like a waste to me. Pumpkin and sesame, rice and mango, feta, big leafy lettuce, tomato and balsamic vinegerette, apple, mayo, ceasar… Yes, next time i am at a buffet i may very well get a whole plate (*Gasp!*) of just salad!
And who can eat whole plates of food without the drink? Personally, when the family gets together, Maison, Appletiser or Coke are generally the go ;)
Reading this post, I made two observations:
1. I did not think it humanly possible to laugh this hard and joyfully.
2. I have lived a very sheltered life.
By some curious twist of fate, I have managed to reach the age of twenty-nine and only have visited one buffet in all those years. Yes, you read that correctly – one buffet.
I did little to conceal my amateur-status as a ‘New Kid on the Buffet Block’ during this meal.
Consuming merely one plate, it bore an unholy marriage of egg-fried rice, Yorkshire puddings, mango sorbet and beef gravy all mixed together in a stomach-churning orgy of food.
Despite overwhelming my plate with enough food to keep an adult man fed for a year, I left the restaurant hungry.
I guess this had something to do with my spending the entire time studiously inspecting the gelatinous, congealed mass of meat that was beyond all classification and which even a dog would refuse to eat – heck, it may even have been a dog!
Perhaps I should give this buffet game another go…?
I pile my plate with cottage cheese and mashed ptatoes.
While my friends are gawking at my mountain of cream and white, I’ll say: “What? It’s All-You-Can-Eat! so there.
sometimes I even make a flag out of a toothpick and napkin shred.
The only buffets I have been to are the cold salads, snacks and sandwiches sort. Usually if you are too slow to join the queue then by the time you get to the buffet all the good things (glazed chicken wings, cheese straws, spicy ribs etc) are all gone. By mastering the art of timing your walk up to the table by observing the people in charge and anticipating the moment they announce “The buffet is now open” you can be one of the first ones there. Superb Feeling !!
The sampler is my key to not overeating. I used to have 4 or 5 plates because I simply HAD to taste it all, and then have trouble breathing the rest of the night. My waistline wasn’t too impressed, either. Over the years I’ve mastered getting just a tiny bit of almost everything in 1 or 2 plates, then go back for a third of just what I really liked. It’s even better when you share with your dinner companions. My brothers and I have managed to sample just a bite of nearly everything just by passing around our first plates. From there on, we can enjoy the rest of the meal without getting overstuffed.
Well, I’m really, really skinny so I can enjoy every bite of every buffet I go to (which is rare only because I’m also poor)…
My strategies:
1. Don’t follow any “normal” order: eat whatever you want when the notion strikes. Mix it up: desserts, salads, savory saucy dishes, whatever.
2. Go slow. Contrary to the usual advice which is eat as much as you can as fast as you can, it’s not a race to see who can throw-up first. (Hopefully) this is a once-in-a-while occassion: take your time and enjoy your food!
3. ALWAYS bring a tupperware container. You will almost definitely have an opportunity at some point to dump the contents of a heaped plate into it. Heck yes: that’s value.
Just introduced the family to Sizzler on the weekend. The kids loved it and I must say it’s a healthier alternative than Maccas (until they hit the desert bar that is!). I’d prefer Indian myself but then I couldn’t eat 4 plates :)
simply awesome
what awesome stuff you have
I know this is really late, but just a warning:
If you’re going to an all you can eat buffet, make sure to bring friends that are just as ready to scarf down food with you. It’s horrible when only two of you are ready to eat like pigs while the rest are done after a normal meal size…. no! grab a HUGE group of friends who are ready to do that buffet justice!