All you need to know about All You Can Eat

Via Ezra and Tyler comes this guide to all you can eat buffets. From the section labeled “Objective”:

There are many things to consider here. Some are out to “get their money’s worth” by ingesting the most amount of the costliest items. Others would like to sample small amounts of dozens of different dishes. While still others may want to eat as much of their favorite item as they can possibly do in one sitting.

My philosophy lies somewhere in the middle of all of this. I try to allot a large portion of my meal to high cost items, while sampling things that look tasty and also making sure that I get to those items that I know and love. This can be tricky to do though, especially at very large buffets or one that you’re not too familiar with. Using the prescribed techniques you will soon find yourself more capable of meeting this objective.

This gives you some idea of what the authors are going for, as well as a great strategy for all comers. I’ll be honest: It’s a topic near and dear to my (enlarged, gluttonous) heart. At the University of Virginia I made it a Sunday ritual to visit the Panda Garden with some of my closest friends to indulge in sesame chicken, sweet and sour chicken, crab and cheese wontons, and some sort of seafood mix. We would discuss the previous night’s events and figure out just what happened, a necessity since at any given time one or two of us was, shall we say, incapacitated. It was by no means a great buffet but it cost exactly $5.95, which is a great price for a buffet. (Seriously, it would have cost more to go to Qdoba.)

There was another buffet down the road (called, if I remember, “Asian Buffet”) that offered a primo sushi spread as well as all the regular American-Chinese dishes (and some American options as well, like chicken nuggets), but it was three or four times as costly (which is like the difference between Outback and Mortons when you’re in college and subsisting on a $8/hr audio technician gig) and more difficult to get to. But going there typified the “markets in everything” thought process: I would only eat the highest caliber sushi — the tuna, the salmon, the eel, the fancy dragon rolls — and ignore everything else. If someone in our group went to the chicken nugget stand, he was mocked mercilessly by me: You want chicken nuggets, you go to Mickey D’s and check out the $1 menu, my friend.

Good times. I mean, not for my health (Panda Garden, along with the University’s dining halls and a proclivity for PBR*, probably accounted for my excessive weight gain third and fourth year). My cholesterol count is probably thrilled that I don’t visit such places once a week any more. But if you want bang for your buck — and in this economy, who doesn’t? — you could do much worse than finding a cheap Chinese buffet near your house. And since we’ll have magical universal health care that will cure all what ails you on someone else’s dime, no need to worry about the adverse effects on your health!

*Not because it was hip but because it was about $3 a 12 pack at the local Kroger, IIRC.