ManningLee.com

I got into a big discussion with my buds about the attraction of restaurants that are buffet style. I’m against them.

The seeming appeal – eat as much as you want – is quickly diminished when you realize that there are tons of really big people pawing all over the food. Secondly, the food is not really that great to start with. I would rather pay for a set amount of something I really love than to pay for all I can eat of something that isn’t very good to start with.

It’s like Huey Lewis said in “Bad is Bad”

Across the street, a neon sign:

All you can eat for dollar ninety-nine

Our Soul Stew is the baddest in the land

But one dollar’s worth was all that I could stand

But back to the pawing. One thing I have never understood is the insistence of these places to have a serving utensil in a large container of food that is easily amenable to picking out by hand. When there is a large tray of cookies, why does there need to be a set of tongs to pick them up with? Who can’t reach down and pick up a single cookie with touching the others? But no, these places want every dirty customer to grab a set of tongs or other device, get their germs all over it, and once they have pulled their item, they then lay the now contaminated tongs right over the remaining cookies bringing the utensil into direct contact with several of them. Same thing with the pile of dinner rolls at then end of the table. I don’t know about the masses of humanity that frequent Ryan’s, but I am completely capable of reaching onto the pile and pulling a piece of bread off without touching the others, and I would much prefer the other customers do the same.