People-Watching at the Saturday Night Chinese Buffet

Have you ever noticed how people act at a Chinese restaurant buffet? I had occasion to do so tonight as my date slowly plowed his way through a veritable mountain of Chinese Buffet food. I turned my own overloaded plate in with food still on it, (wasteful, I know) had a scoop of soft serve ice cream, and decided to people watch while I twiddled my thumbs. Soon I was compulsively assigning categories to all the buffet buffs.

Boomerang Buffet Eaters.

These are the Come Back Kids. The ones who go back again and again and again, probably because it takes special training to carry five or six full plates at once. As you watch them pass your booth repeatedly, you begin to hope for their sake they are passing the food out to unseen multitudes, or stuffing it in their pockets which they have cleverly lined with plastic garbage bags.

Itty Bitty Buffet Eaters.

Why, these dainty little appetites are just overwhelmed by all this plunder. So they wisely take just minimal amounts. A dab of this and a dollop of that. Just a titch and a taste and a turned up nose so who knows why they even came to a buffet. Just to make everybody else at their table feel guilty.

The Now What, What Next, Oooh I Didn't See That Before Chinese Buffet Eaters.

These are the One-at-a-Timers. People who go up to the Chinese buffet, take a potsticker or two and skip happily back to their tables. Within minutes there they go again, returning with a bowl of salad. Then they have to go back for their entree. And then they remember they forgot egg rolls. Or maybe a beverage. Of course, napkins, silverware, straws, those are go-backs for sure. And little cakes and almond cookies and ice-cream-you-can-squirt all necessitate return visits to the Isle of Plenty. I know, you're just dying to go peek at their table and count the sea of dishes they've accumulated.

Mountain Climbers at the Chinese Buffet.

These are the people who find a way to form layers and stacks and peaks of food on one plate so that it seems to defy the laws of gravity. When they sit down behind their mini-mountains their faces are temporarily blocked. But it is fun to watch them eat, as parts of their faces become visible again above their gradually diminishing mountain ranges.

Sit First, Put Plate Down First, or Sit and Put?

This is a hodgepodge category based on my observation that some people at the Chinese buffet walk back to their tables, place their dishes in an orderly manner and then sit down calmly, arranging napkins on their laps and often even saying grace. Others slide into the table as if it's first base, plunk down their posteriors first and their plates second. But the simultaneous Sit-and-Put people are the most accomplished, if not exactly graceful, buffet buffs. They can actually manage to sit down while putting plates down at the same time, and sometimes even picking up a fork and landing the first fork full of food right smack in their mouths before you can say egg foo yung.

Okay, Chinese Buffet, I Get the Hint; Soy Sauce Man Is Here

When the fella comes out of the kitchen rattling his cart and starts gathering up the bottles of soy sauce from all the tables, you know it's a gentle hint that you need to wrap it up. And then if the proprietor comes to your table and says politely "Were you planning to go back for MORE (eye roll), because we are taking the buffet down now" don't be embarrassed, just slide one last egg roll in your purse and see if you can still walk.