Managing your Buffet Eating Experience

Buffet eating is a skilled art, requiring deep analysis, quick but precise assessments and patience.  I am certain many of you have witnessed barbaric Malaysians sweeping truckloads of food from the buffet spread onto their plates in embarrassing but shameless jubilation and then discovering that they’ve eaten themselves silly within the first 5 minutes and have been incurred a big wastage charge for the leftovers on their plate.  In fact, some of you might be perpetrators of this grievous offence  as well.

I am going to furnish all of you with a basic rundown of how to optimise your buffet eating experience to ensure that restaurant establishments don’t run to the bank laughing with your greed laced money, while you throw up your dinner outside the restaurant.

Step 1: As far as possible, select buffets which allow you to order an unlimited (but usually regulated) amount off the menu rather than the traditional ones where you have to walk through a buffet spread the size of a football field.

The reason: Walking around the buffet spread wastes precious eating time.  Secondly, the well presented food tempts you to collect unnecessary food on your plate.

Step 2: Arrive early.

The reason: Restaurants ensure that buffets are only effective for a number of hours- usually around four.  Arrive early so you have time to scan the menu, plan your ordering system and maximise the time you have to execute it.

Step 3: Watch out for the set dishes.  Usually for buffets that allow you to order anything from the menu, they’ll serve you a non optional 2 or 3 set dishes as part of the package.  This may be in the form of roast chicken, rice or any other type of food that is high in carbohydrates, rich, heavy but comprising of cheap ingredients.

The reason: These dishes fill you up very quickly.  Before you know it, you’re too stuffed to order anything else from the menu, which was the attracting factor of the buffet in the first place.  If the restaurant achieves this, they’ve ensured you don’t order more than they want you to.

The key to managing these set dishes are to only eat the crucial ingredients of the dish, and to hide everything else on your plate, masking them as scraps so the waiter can clear your plate and the rest of the obstacle dish.  For example, if the dish is lobster in a cream sauce, eat the lobster and waste the filling cream sauce.  If the dish is bland roast chicken breast, hide the strips of chicken breasts on your serving plate so it looks as though you’ve eaten it to mitigate any embarrassment from perceptions of food wastage.

Step 3: Order a wide spread of only the most expensive dishes on the menu.

The reason: When the time comes to order from the menu, select your food based on price.  as the buffet covers everything on the menu it only makes economic sense to eat the best and most expensive dishes.  Usually, this is in the form of oysters, scallops, abalone, lobster, wagyu beef, rib eye, sashimi etc.

A lot of people make the mistake by overloading on just one of the expensive dishes.  For example if they find scallops are most expensive, they just keep ordering scallops.  Firstly, this is hugely embarrassing.  You don’t want to look like a cheapskate even though you really are one.  Secondly, the theory of diminishing utility provides that you’ll feel sick by the 3rd or 4th serving of scallops.  Thirdly, you’re not optimising the array of choice the buffet provides you.

Step 4: Pace yourself, order 3 small dishes at a time (tapas style) in intervals equally spread out within your allocated 4 hours.

The reason: Expensive dishes are usually low in carbohydrates so these won’t fill you up as quickly.  Still, you have to pace yourself well.  Take your time, eat slowly, take breaks of 10 minutes periodically to light up a cigarette and to focus on conversation with your dinner company.  Order 3 dishes of small servings at a time so it doesn’t look like you’re embarrassingly hoarding food on your table.   Then at the last minute of your allocated buffet time, make one last order.

Buffets which allow you to order from the menu are not common.  However even if you’re subscribing to the traditional buffet spread,the same principles enunciated above apply.  the key is not to engage in a challenge with the buffet as this may leave you stepping out of the restaurant feeling bloated and short changed.  Rather you should approach buffets with an appreciation of its generosity, adopting utmost courtesy and and best table manners at all times.  With  this civilised sophistication you may surprisingly find yourself walking away from the restaurant realising you only paid RM180 for a meal worth RM800.

I’m a Quarterback, I’m Popular

Like many other peculiarities, It baffles me as to why NFL quarterbacks have to lick their fingers profusely while trotting over to the  line of scrimmage before initiating a play.

If you ever have the chance, turn to an NFL game on the sports channels and observe the camera on the quarterback, in particular after he disperses from a team huddle and is walking towards his lined up team mates.

This is immediately before  he hunches forward to receive the ball  from what seems like a  large man’s anus.  You’ll notice that at this stage, he would repeatedly lick the fingers on both of his hands.

I can only suspect they do this because  it may assist their grip on the football when they throw it.  That’s fine but don’t they realise the hygiene concerns this habit creates?  Their hands are laced with sweat and dirt but they’re treating them like a strawberry popsicle just so they could get a little more grip on the football.So in this strange American sport, the quarterback makes out with his hands while walking over to an inviting fat man’s butt, then he barks out random numbers, colours, and animal names while repeatedly turning his head left to right before he receives a ball from a man’s anus.  Then he tip toes backwards while patting the ball like a Persian cat before he chucks it down the field.

When the game is over, they put on their caps backwards and start trotting across the field towards the locker room.  Along the way, they’re stopped by media reporters who ask for their comments on the game.  You’ll also notice that during these mini interviews, the quarterback will always begin an answer to any question with..

“Tell you what”, “Yeah” or “You know”…

then they continue with the usual predictable responses, like..

“We gotta keep going out and play hard” and

“It’s all about the win” or

“I don’t care about statistics as long as we get the double u”

there may also be some reference to “a hundred percent”.

..and they wear motorcycle helmets and war paint on their faces.