Fieldwork Assignment #3: The Chinese Buffet

Hello Buffeteers!

Many of you are probably thinking, "Wait, what, Buffetimus Prime, he's back?" Well, much like Optimus was revived in Transformers: Revenge of the Fallen, your old Buffet Guru is back, and better than ever. Now, I've been humbled by the business of life, those of you that are any good at math know that it's been two years since my last post. That's bad form. That's like the buffet that let's the mac and cheese go cold. That's like the ice cream machine that doesn't mix properly and spits out inappropriate-looking white goo. But, last I checked, people are still eating at buffets, and last I check, the aforementioned buffets are still "All-you-can-eat". So once a week, I will be posting either a buffet field assignment, or another post related to the Art of Buffet, much like before. I figured, what better place to get the party started, than to do a strategic analysis of a Chinese Buffet.

Now, cat jokes aside, Chinese buffets are a good buffet experience. For one, they offer much more complex flavor profiles than your traditional American buffet. I can slam down chicken nuggets with the best of them, but Chinese food is based more in flavor profiling from sauces, such as the ever popular General Tsao's chicken or Kung Pao Chicken. (By the way, if anyone knows who General Tsao actuall was, please comment on this post. By the way his chicken tastes, he must've been a freakin' bad ass. By the way, you know how to spot a buffoob at the China Buffet? Look at the guy piling on slices of 'pizza' or quesadillas on his plate. Dude, go to the Pizza Hut buffet for that. You go to a Chinese Buffet, you eat Chinese food. I think I'll add that to the buffet commandments. Anyways, on to the analysis:

As you can see here, we have the traditional island set-up, the most common form of buffet placement for Chinese buffets. Hot foods in the middle three islands, and over to the right (not in the picture) you have your cold items. I recommend grabbing a plate (people need to know you mean business) and then make an S like pattern through the islands to scout out the buffet. Some things to consider: are there any trays that were just replaced? Those are go-to items--hot and fresh. Also, where are the big ticket items. Are there crab legs? These are usually the highest priced items at a Chinese buffets. Hit them early, and hit them often.
Also, the hot items and cold items are separate from each other for a reason, don't have both on the same plate. A common mistake that will lead to ridicule from your friends. Hot items go TOGETHER. For my first plate:

Plate One: "Dam Rice"

A couple of observations here, many of which you buffeteers have probably already noticed. I can hear it now, "OMG WTF Buffet King, why did you put rice on your first plate?! Don't you know that rice and carbs fill you up faster than any other buffet food. What a buffoob!" Here's what I have to say to you text-talking teenager. What is the purpose for the rice? If you look to the south region of the plate, what do you see? That's right, sweet and sour chicken. Now let me ask you this? Do you WANT sweet and sour chicken and broccoli? Do you WANT sweet and sour Mongolian beef? If you answer yes, than I've got nothing and that's just weird. As you can see, I've created a 'dam' of rice on my plate. The reason is twofold, one, and most obviously, it keeps the sweet and sour sauce from contaminating food that you don't want to be sweet and sour. The second reason is that rice is a great absorber of flavor. It will take on the flavor of whatever sauce surrounds it. Let me tell you folks, sweet and sour rice is really good! I'll admit, I could've made the dam smaller, as rice does indeed fill you up at the buffet. However, that is much lesser offense than letting sweet and sour sauce run all over your well-thought out plate. A couple other things to mention with this plate, if you look in the northwest and northeast quadrants of the plate (Mongolian beef and chicken and broccoli, respectively), there's something very important going on there. Something I like to call the M to V ratio. M to V stands for the "Meat to Vegetable". Ideally, you want this to be one to one. It always sucks having that one piece of broccoli at the end to not pair with chicken. And let's face it, that piece of broccoli probably feels left out as well. So unfortunately for the picture, the broccoli is hiding under the chicken, but I can assure you the B to C ratio there is one to one. Top it off with some salt and pepper chicken due north and you've got a pretty damn good first plate.



Plate Two: "Getting Saucy"

Despite the suggestive nature of the name of the plate, no, I did not go to the back room with one of the employees for a special treat. The main theme of this plate is sauce compatibility. "But wait, buffet king", you say, "You JUST talked about how sweet and sour sauce can ruin a good plate, and now you are talking about sauce compatibility?" That's right, ambiguous random guy that keeps asking questions. Here's the thing: does a brown sauce (like chicken and broccoli, relatively mild) and sweet and sour sauce (sweet and tangy) go together? If you have half a pallet, you know that the answer is "no". However, here in the upper left corner, there are some boneless spare ribs. Immediately right of those, honey chicken. Both tangy bases, sweet. Sauce compatibility? A match made in buffet heaven! Below in the southeast, some Garlic Chicken...to its left, Mongolian Beef (I was a fan). The garlic sauce on the beef was a great fit! Now, I'm not going to tell you what is right and what is wrong (even though I literally did that five lines up). This is about experimenting. A lot of people, when they load up their plate, just go for mass, forgetting that there is always a layer of sauce at the bottom. Find a sauce you like? Try pouring it over another item (such as a dumpling, which is the white thing in the middle of the plate) Take risks, you will never improve your buffeting skills if you don't. If you find any particularly amazing sauce combos, please let me know.

Plate Three: "Happy Ending"

Again, not doing myself a service with these names, I'm just trying to be punny. If I wanted an actual happy ending, I'd go for a sundae at Friendly's. So the final plate here, obviously dessert, is a no-brainer. Anyone that hasn't tasted a Chinese donut either A) hasn't lived, or B) has a severe allergic reaction to gluten. They are LITERALLY fried balls of dough, covered in sugar. If I could marry a Chinese buffet item, this would be it. Why throw on chocolate pudding? Didn't I just say don't mix hot and cold? Well, once you eat a good amount of that pudding, these Chinese donuts are perfect for sopping up anything leftover on the plate. Again, we are going for A) Plate optimization and B) Plate completion. This was the perfect dessert. And of course, you can never forget to top off your meal with:

A cup of ice cream. As the old saying goes, "There's always room for ice cream." Which is scientifically true, as the ice cream melts and fills up any remaining cracks in your stomach. And that, my buffeteers, is how a Chinese buffet is done. A few more points, Below pictured is my water glass:

What do you notice? Yeah! It's practically full. Pretty amateur stuff here, but you can always notice the buffoob that's slugging back water...he's just making himself full faster. A note on this: you may want to save spicy items towards the end of your meal. Obviously, really spicy items cause us to want to drink more water, which in turn is just making less room for other things. Other option? Drink soda!

Here, a highly ambiguous fortune cookie to finish off the meal. Much like the North Star has it place in the sky (love grammar in fortune cookies), buffets have a place in our stomach.

 

You stay classy, Buffeteers.

 

 

Buffet Fieldwork Assignment #2: Shady Maple Birthday trip

So while I was performing buffet research on my last trip about ten days ago for breakfast, I saw a sign that brought a tear to my eye: "Free Buffet Meal on Your Birthday!" After rubbing my misty eyes, and making sure this wasn't a fluke, I knew what I had to do: Go back to Shady Maple on my birthday. And go back I did. I realized during the breakfast buffet, I had only covered about 25 feet of the 200 advertised feet. With a new look on life and buffets and a greater confidence of my buffeting ability, I went with a compadre (my girlfriend) and decided to take on the lunch portion of this buffet for my birthday.

I do first have a pre-buffet comment. I went to an older lady, black hair, working on the middle register and said proudly, "I'm here for my free birthday buffet!" and whipped her my ID. After being eyed up by her, and not in the way I hope to get eyed up by a girl at the bar, she check my date and said in quite a scolding voice..."happy birthday". Well thanks Crappy Customer Service lady. After this, I vowed to rip Shady off as much as I could. But, this blog isn't about Shady Maple, it's about the food. And so I begin with Plate One.

Plate One: "Oh my God everything looks so good right now"

Now, I name this plate accordingly. I know we've all gone to a buffet really hungry before. Like REALLY hungry. Like, "oooh look at that last piece of soggy fish sitting alone in the tray looks like Poseidon's gift to man" hungry. This was me on this particular occasion, and as you can see my attempt to be a 'segregator' in my plate organizational strategy became a "pile-on". In this plate, you've got pulled pork in the lower left quadrant, with mashed potatos northwest of that. Now, normally I would create a mashed potato dam to keep the gravy from running into other food, but I made sure I had something that I wouldn't mind getting gravy on it next to it. At the top was some ridiculously good cheese ravioli. But the REAL highlight, is what's to the right of the plate. BROASTED CHICKEN. What the hell is broasted chicken? Hell if I know. It's lik Fried Chicken, but lighter on the breading, but still delicious. I want to use the work 'broasted' more in daily conversation. Like "Man, you've just been broasted". If I had to define it, I'd say that it when you roast a bro. But in this case a chicken. Phenomenal.

Now, before I give you my other plate of food, I wanted to show you a picture of something a buffoob would get on their plate. The fact that this 'buffoob' is my girlfriend is another story, we are working this out personally. But check out the following plate and see if you can find the deficiencies.

Girlfriend Plate One: "I'm a Buffoob"

Wow, yes. Buffeteers, hide your eyes. I'm an optimist though, what are the positives? For one, the selections she made (broasted chicken, mashed potatoes, mac and cheese) are all top quality items, can't knock her for that. But plate optimization? Child please. The whole southeast corner of the plate is unused. The glaring misbuffet here is the gravy pouring. This is my chance to reinforce the importance of creating food dams when dealing with liquids that could run. You need to create a wall of mashed potato so the gravy doesn't spill over and ruin the mac and cheese. It's called mac and cheese. Not mac and gravy. Now let's get back to excellence.

Buffetmis Prime Plate #2: "Broast me some more, man"

I'm proud of this plate, I really am. As you can see, only the far regions of the plate are unused, the regions where spills are always capable of occuring. Also, I used action research to decide that broasted chicken was worth another go. Combined with mac and cheese, fries, breaded haddock and broccoli. (Hate on me all you want, broccoli is money in the bank) But we are looking at one rather well rounded plate. Not too much of one item, but enough to get a solid taste.

So what do we take from this? Where do we go from here? I felt as though I ate a lot more than the previous entry on breakfast buffet. Why? Well, because I didn't talk as much and focused more on eating. Not that my girlfriend is bad company, but those long silences where we stare lovingly in each other's eyes work especially well for maximum food consumption. In addition, my plates were more well rounded. When in the breakfast entry I went all meats in the first plate, in this one I took a more Traditionalist approach with each plate. My advice for you? keep a record of your buffet trips. How long were you there? How crowded was it? What food groups did you eat the most of? What were your BPM? (Bites per minute) Keeping a log will help you analyze how much you at and maximize your buffet potential.

Keep it classy, Buffeteers

Buffet Fieldwork Assignment #1: Shady Maple Breakfast

Hello Buffeteers, and welcome to the first buffet evaluation by Buffetimus Prime. I know, for the past month or so I've preached from buffet plate strategies to Buffepticons, but I know you all really want to know how the buffet master handles his buffets, so here it goes.

Awhile ago, I decided to come up with an event for co-workers to go to Shady Maple Buffet out in Lancaster, PA. Let me start out by saying, Joe Paterno is to College Football Coaches as Shady Maple is to Buffets. It's the cream of the crop. Top of the line. Heck, the website boasts 200 feet of buffet. TWO HUNDRED FEET. It would take Usain Bolt like, 5 and a half seconds to sprint that length. And he's FAST.

Let me tell you, the PA Dutch know how to buffet. It is a line buffet, with a large center island in the middle with cold foods (fruits, pastries, etc.) and three islands of warm foods on each end. (To my dismay, the warm foods are the same on both sides of the middle cold food island. So in actuality, there is only 100 feet of original buffet, but beggars can't be choosers) The strategy of the buffet is simple, work outwards in, filling up first with the meats, then the starches, and end up in the middle island of colder but sweeter foods for dessert. I scout the buffet, realizing that Shady Maple intermixes meats and starches in the same island, clearly wanting people to mix and match (and fill up sooner on starches, I may add!) Unfortunately for me, I had been waiting for a few late-comers, and let a hungry stomach dictate my first plate, rather than my normal buffet sense. Added to this was the long lines, so I went for the shortest of the lines rather than playing out my pre-buffet strategy. With the Unattended Children Buffepticons rife throughout the buffet, I had to be extra careful dodging the mindless wandering of toddlers shakily carrying there plates. The first offense is a sticky bottom shoe, compliments of a syrup spill from a child in front of me. But to the first plate:

Plate #1 "Meat and Greet" Analysis: (I apologize, the picture is a little blurry) Clearly, as those of you who have read my post on Plate Organizational Strategies, this is that of a "Pile-on". Little to no structure, mostly slopped on by my crazed hunger state. Mostly meats here to start, couldn't pass up the corned beef hash, although it contained potatos in it. In the upper left quadrant of the plate is scrapple. For those of you not from around her scrapple is pretty much the stuff that doesn't make the cut to go in a hot dog, goes into scrapple. Good stuff. The lower right quadrant contains one of my favorites, creamed dried beef with a few home fries underneath. (I debated using bacon as the foundation for the cream dried beef, but instead used four pieces as garnish. There are also three cheese stuffed sausages in the northern most part of the plate. Overall, a very large plate of food. All was washed down with a plate of apple juice.

Meats x4

Starches x2

Dairy x1

Bacon Count: 3

My journey to my second plate of food was just as arduous, as apparently everyone else doesn't like to wake up early and waits for the last hour to come. Cutters were abound at the buffet, sneaking in just to get one item instead of waiting in the line. One guy tried to cut in front of an Old Dutch lady and get some sausages, but she smacked his hand repeatedly saying "Ya gotta wait in the line like the rest of us" with a scowl that would make Voldemort's blood turn cold. Note to self: don't mess with Dutchy ladies at Shady Maple. I was thankful she was able to dispatch the Buffepticon nonetheless. So, to the second plate of food:

Fruit x2

Meats x3

Starches x2

Bacon Count: 4

Plate #2 "The French Toast Stick Allegiance" Analysis: As you can probably tell, I do not have a specific buffet plate style, as this one is clearly that of a Segregator, using the French toast Sticks as a barrier between the fruit (and the juices that come with it) and the meats (Yes, that is a large chicken nugget in the lower right quadrant) Even as Buffetimus Prime, I am trying to find my ideal Plate organizational style. I prefer my French Toast sticks to be virgin (no syrup) but used Barbeque sauce with the chicken nugget. (Any place where you can get a chicken nugget for breakfast is a win for me and any of those in the "El Classico" buffet style) Unfortunately, this would be my last large plate of the day. Feeling rather full, but having mentally have promised my tummy a jelly donut by meal's end, I did have one half of a jelly donut, pictured here:

Fruit x1

Starch x1

Blueberry filling, I believe. If you mentally promise your tummy a desert, don't let it down, it may let you down a little later in the bathroom.
So in all, based on my highly accurate servnings counter, I ended up with 7 servings of meat, 5 of starches, 3 of fruit, 7 strips of bacon (slightly below average) and, well, 0 vegetables. People, it's a buffet, not Weightwatchers. Areas of Improvement: The only way to improve is to do a post evaluation of your buffet exeperience, and even I, as Buffetimus Prime, realized I goofed a few times. First of all, I may have only actually hit about 25 feet of the buffet. The crowds prevented me from doing a truly thorough walkthrough, thus my strategy wasn't quite developed enough. In addition, 5 servings of starches is way too much if you are looking to reach MSC (maximum stomach capacity) I let my eyes get ahead of my brain, mixing in too many servings of starch in my first plate, making me feel full faster. Also, I was in good company, so I was talking, a lot. While conversation is key to social excellence, it is importance that the conversation is spread around so you can chow while others speak. Finally, I had a large Chinese meal the night before. As Buffetimus Prime, I will never turn down a Chinese dinner, but instead of saving up for the large breakfast, I feel as though I didn't fast enough before hand.

All in all, I feel as though this field experience was a success. My research on Buffepticons was supported by real-life instances of cutters and unattended children mainly, although I did come across a Critic buffepticon who was inspecting each enlarged chicken nugget, as if she were looking for the one christened by Colonel Sanders himself. Buffeteers, we must constantly be aware of our buffets so we can adapt and perfect the art of Buffet. But good news folks, I found out that you get a free meal at Shady Maple on  your birthday, and since mine is coming up next week, you will be getting another field observation, but this time for lunch.

Also, come back later in the week, as I'll have a post to helpt you calculate your Maximum Stomach Capacity.

You stay Classy, Buffeteers!