"All You Can Eat"

Why is it that when you go to a buffet restaurant, you feel obligated to stuff yourself silly to get the most for your money????? We certainly don't order another meal when we're eating at a sit-down restaurant, why do we feel it necessary to eat two (or more) meals at one sitting at a buffet?

Saturday night we went to our local Hometown Buffet for dinner with my brother & his wife, to celebrate my dh's impending doom-er-birthday. The cost was something like $10.89 per person, which is pretty cheap for a dinner if you've eaten at a regular sit-down restaurant lately and noticed their prices. There is a LOT of food to choose from. I can fill up on the salad bar and not have room for the regular part of the meal if I'm not careful, but this time I limited myself to a helping of tossed salad and seafood salad. And the choices for entrees and side dishes is seemingly endless. I've watched the same people walk by with plate after plate of food and wonder where they put it. And how do they feel when they're done?

Now if you eat at a regular restaurant, their portions are usually generous too, but you don't have that variety of dishes to choose from. You spend the same or even more, depending on where you eat. One benefit of of a sit-down restaurant is that you can take home your leftovers--something that isn't allowed at a buffet. But you usually stop before you're too full, and at least for us, we don't order a dessert with our meal.

Maybe that's why we eat until we're stuffed to the gills. We can't take home the leftovers, so we feel obligated to eat everything in sight. It is going to take some serious control to limit ourselves to just what fills us comfortably, and leave some of those other dishes to try at another time. Hubby & I usually walk/waddle out of there feeling physically ill because we've overeaten. And three hours later, when sister-in-law says, "Are you ready for dessert?" we usually aren't. But we eat it anyway, and regret it for the rest of the evening and even into the next day.

So if you decide to eat at your local buffet restaurant, here are some key points to remember:

1. Stop before you're full. You've already gotten your money's worth with the salad bar and first plate of food, no need to try every dish. Save something for your next visit.

2. Eat dessert first. One of our daughters will select a couple of tasty-looking desserts and eat those before she embarks on the rest of the menu. She says she never has room for dessert at the end. This is her way of making sure she gets her just desserts, too.

3. We've never tried it, but hubby threatens to wear a jacket with plastic-lined pockets for leftovers. If you're daring enough, give this a shot. I don't know what they'd do to you if you got caught, though.

I'm still waiting for the wisdom they say comes with age. At least at our local buffet restaurant, I'm not seeing it yet. Maybe next time..........