story snacks - alll-you-can-eat buffets

[jackn]

A colleague and myself, looking for a place to have lunch, found ourselves sitting in an Indian restaurant.
Then, I found out it was an all-you-can-eat style place.
And I asked my colleague to leave.

Before my eyes opened (a crack), I thought "Yeah, lots of food and no limit". And, of course, "I better get the best ROI here by stuffing myself to the gills before I even consider calling it a day".

So, for one, less important, thing, what these places serve must be the worst quality around, as, if quantity is not in their hands, they must tweak quality to make ends meat.

For another, the most important, thing, the kindling of our worst instincts, as above, undermines any hope we might have to keep sanity, health and dignity in our relationship with food.

And, if you look at it carefully, it really characterizes all main street food places. To provide a semblance of large portions and rich dishes, they'll smother the dishes and the customers with excess of the cheapest ingredients, namely oil and flour-based foodstuffs, such as bread and pasta.

And doesn't the same profit-driven debasing of our food start in the feeding of the animals from which our meat comes?!
They get stuffed with soy or corn, and we get fat animals whose fat composition is nothing like that found in the wild.
But we get a lot for so little. A devil's bargain.

And on the high menu panels of one famous chain, many of the meaty ingredients come with something like a 'based on' or 'derived from' label. In other words, it's the meat extended with something cheap.
And the super-size drinks so often ranted about - isn't it the same economics? Cheap HFCS is the new "let them eat cakes."

[SugarFreebie]

As a recovering glutton I have a long history of loving the all-you-can-eats. Absolutely true that quality varies wildly, whether it's an "ethnic" establishment or "American" (translated as lots and lots of meats and sweets). We have a special place in our hearts as well as our stomachs for one particular Indian place where the quality of both the meat and vegetarian dishes is always excellent on top of the extreme rarity of having a buffet for dinner.
The worst I've found have been the pizza buffets--starch plus starch plus cheap greasy meats with a token toss of cheese--no wonder so many of them have gone out of business. General consensus seems to be that we are all better off eating at home most of the time (I say as I get ready to go out for salad tonight then on a five-day road trip starting this Friday). Schizophrenia or simple hypocrisy?

[jackn]

Intersting about the pizza joints, Sugarfreebie.
And shouldn't cheese be "cheese"?!...

Lol about the "Schizophrenia".

Yes, they say we're better off having our own home-cooking.
Usually, though, it's couched in health terms.

But isn't our own food simply way better?
I strongly feel this way about mine.

It's for company and being catered to that eating out appeals me. The food is almost invariably sad.

Hey, you've got sth there with the salad.
After all, it's the most modifiable one. We can ask them to hold the dressing, and just add some olive oil.
I'll think about that.