ts: walking about 200 yards through a parking lot to the restaurant vs. driving half a mile all the way around the block to the same restaurant

There's a really fine Chinese buffet in the shopping "village" near my house. I could eat twenty of their steamed dumplings in one sitting.

Speaking of sitting, I'm not a big buffet fan. I don't like grazing from the same bowls and pans as the rest of the general public. So when we go to the Chinese buffet restaurant, I always ask to see a take-out menu. From that, I tell the waiter my order.

Maybe it's my imaginatinon, but it seems that the staff there reacts just incredulously toward my behavior. Is it rude for me to walk into a Chinese BUFFET and order off the menu? Would this shit fly at Bonanza?

I hate Jimmy Buffet too, for what it's worth.

I don't know if the menu is The Take-Out Menu or not. I just know that most customers never need it because they're using their eyes (and grubby little hands) up at the Feedin' Trough.

That's a good one, Jody. Maybe instead of listening to Prince, I'll just make my own music.

Or just order it take out and take it out?

Because sometimes I want to eat out inside a nice place with pictures of waterfalls hanging on the walls instead of sitting crouched over my coffee table, eating out of a cardboard box.

I saw some show on the Food network on Sunday about the history of pretzels ... the host was eating one over the tray of pretzels that came out of the oven (at a factory.) And then he dipped the chewed end of his pretzel into the salt bowl. I hope they threw all that shit out after he left. Somehow, that was supposed to be related to this topic.

And oops, how is that any more arrogant than those who carry their food out? "You people are so beneath me that I refuse to dine in the same room with you!"

i say: Fried!

http://www.scottberkun.com/images/29-10.jpg
Guy second from the left? Didn't wash after masturbating to Pay-per-View last night.

http://www.territorywildlifepark.com.au/images/Function_2.jpg
I don't what the hell is between the pig and the salad, BUT IT SHOULDN'T BE LEFT OUT LIKE THAT.

http://news.xinhuanet.com/english/2005-02/24/xinsrc_03202022416141333202718.jpg
Not sure if this was from a buffet. Not sure about anything anymore.

http://www.anthropology.pdx.edu/ISLE/ISLEimages/Northern/Tisaavaeva%20buffet%20line.jpg
Dude, you've got hepatitis!

http://images.mouseplanet.com/wdw/compressed/Resorts/BCR/cape_may_buffet_02.jpg
This sweet little girl is wiping a booger onto your next slice of garlic bread.

http://mirrorimageorigin.collegepublisher.com/media/paper410/stills/c7ni72g9.jpg
Walking quickly away, in case someone saw her sneeze into the broccoli and cheese soup.

http://www.wagner.edu/alumfrnd/homecoming/h00_bbqice.jpg
Hmmm, that guy had a full head of hair this morning!

haha again, there's a Captain Ds even shorter distance from here than the Chinese buffet, and thunderbutt just got in her car, drove over there, sat in the drive-thru for like 5 minutes, and drove back, just to get an iced tea

I know that's not always the case, but it's better than the GENERAL PUBLIC WHO FOLLOW NO RULES.

I'm not a germaphobe. To be honest, I can be pretty disgusting sometimes. So to paraphrase Groucho Marx, why would I want to patronize a buffet that would have me as a diner?

what if i went to your home for a cookout, and you had a bunch of food laid out in a spread. i looked at it all, wrinkled up my nose, and asked you to go make me a special meal. wouldn't you wanna punch me?

I'm not a fan of them, either - mainly because I've seen people do gross things in buffet lines before. I don't know that I would necessarily go to a buffet place and order my own food, but you know, it could happen.

Except Hometown.

The home cookout comparision doesn't work. If you scrunched up your nose, I'd tell you to go get your own food if you don't like it. I've got friends that have cook-outs all of the time during basketball games, and I usually bring my own. I don't think that the Chinese restaurant would like for me to bring my own food.

(Actually, oops. I probably would make you a special plate just because I'm a nice guy. I'd have to do the same for my diabetic father anyway.)

if they hand you a menu, then yeah that's different. i've been to places where they always seemed to be surprised that i wanted the buffet.

Nick, I've got a friend who could see the building he worked in from his front porch. You could've shot a gun from his bathroom window and taken out the busboy smoking cigarettes out back.

Anyway, he drove his truck to work. The parking lot for that place only had five spaces, too!

Old Country Buffet, filled with plentiful if bland food, and RIPE WITH THE STENCH OF REMINDERS OF YOUR OWN SHORT MORTALITY.

now with chocolate sundaes!

still, we could also include ideas about urban planning and land-usage in this thread, about the kind of environments that you somehow find it easier to walk to. you'll easily walk from one side of the mall and back again b/c the space is filled, but you won't walk from the mall parking lot and back again, coz it's too far.

Meanwhile, I'm convinced that the 200 yards between the mall entrance and my truck is much closer to three miles.

That said, as luna said surely most places do buffet style AND a menu dont they? All the asian places in food courts here for eg, have bain marie food for the person in a real hurry/person who thinks chinese food is all beef and black bean and fried rice. The decent real food, you order and they make up for you - congee and pho and nasi goreng and suchlike, and its always the asians themselves ordering and eating that stuff, cos they know its better (I reckon).

I wanna see some science on all this "buffets are breeding grounds for DISEASE!" hoohah.

oops otm... sure kitchens have to abide by sanitary codes and pass inspections, but that doesn't mean they're clean on the 364 days they're not being inspected! also, people who work as line cooks, dishwashers, etc are often illegal aliens working beneath the minimum wage (or even 16-year-olds with work permits JUST making minimum wage) and they're overworked and hate their bosses and, well, you just never know what kind of revenge they'll exact. add to that the number of people involved in keeping a kitchen going (ESPECIALLY at a buffet restaurant with high turnover) and you've still got a heckuva lot of germs floating around.

there was this place in chicago that mainly catered but opened up a cajun buffet for a few hours on weekends and i have immensely fond memories of enormous meals had therein.

also there's a great brazilian buffet in kendall square that's one of the few places in boston i've rilly come to like.

Heh...I did a 9-month stretch at McDonalds* while I was in college, and this was very very true.

* language evoking prison totally intentional.

Maybe "incredulous" was the wrong word to use up there. They just always seem a little surprised and taken aback.

I was debating on asking this here or on the food poisoning thread .. Is this the meaning of "tainted meat?"