Opinion | Why people love buffets and my secret eating strategy to avoid awkward conversations

People tend to either love or hate buffets. I’m firmly in the former camp and always have.

While I drew the line at the trays of bright orange, sweet and sour pork that appeared in the buffets of London’s Chinatowns in the early 2000s, my preference for the humble buffet was cultivated from a young age.

When I was growing up in Calgary, Canada in the 1990s, eating out was usually a big event for the whole family. We would alternate between our favourite Chinese and Japanese restaurants, occasionally indulging in a big appetite at the seafood chain Red Lobster or, my favourite, the buffet chain Foody Goody.

Even as a child, I understood the rules of a buffet: first explore, try a few things, and then open up your favorite foods – even if they were mostly colorful gelatin cubes dusted with waxy-tasting coconut flakes.

Foody Goody in Calgary was a popular destination for many Asian families attracted by the promise of abundance and relative value, never mind that it closed in the early 2000s due to health code violations, Reddit users report.

It was an offshoot of the Chinese buffets that first appeared in the West in the mid-20th century, starting with the famous Chang’s Restaurant in California. This pioneering eatery opened in 1949 and its advertisement in the Los Angeles Evening Citizen News boasted of “over 20 delicious choices” of “fine Chinese dishes, just as they are prepared in Soochow, Shanghai, Peking and other major cities of China.”

Known to Americans as the “Chinese buffet,” the Swedish tradition of setting out a table full of food for snacking became popular in the United States in the late 19th century.

Since then, buffet restaurants have enjoyed unbroken popularity among both guests and owners – the former enjoy a huge selection for a comparatively low price, while the latter can run their businesses with low labor costs.

Although this type of buffet may have fallen out of fashion – at least in Hong Kong – in favor of upscale hotel buffets in a different price range, I still have a fondness for it today.

Why do I love buffets so much? Basically, I think they’re an incredibly liberating dining experience, a place where the usual rules of etiquette and ritual are suspended. There are no menus or difficult decisions based on appetite or financial situation. And when you’re out with a group that can’t agree on a cuisine, the buffet always wins.

There’s no need to engage in long or awkward table conversations either – my trick is to use smaller appetizer plates, which allow me to return to the buffet several times at the appropriate moment.

Someone asks you an awkward question about your reproductive plans? You excuse yourself to go get more crab claws. A passive-aggressive argument between a couple reaches a boiling point? Then you take off and check what was just put on the dessert table. It’s never been easier to just leave the table when it suits you.

And what I also like: Since punctuality seems optional for more and more people, the buffet suits those who actually arrive on time, since no one has to wait for anyone.

And the early bird catches the worm – or at least the exquisite selection of pristine displays of fresh shellfish and dishes that have not yet congealed under the heat lamps.

Everyone has their own strategy when it comes to a buffet. Some enjoy turning the traditional meal order on its head by going straight for dessert, while others reject “low-value carbohydrates” in favor of more expensive proteins.

Some people like to take a single spoonful of every single dish on the buffet and create their own miniature tasting menu – and then go for seconds. (I can see why “girls’ food” was so trendy in 2023 – there is great joy in putting together a plate of everyone’s favorite little bites.)

Since Hong Kong is the land of expensive salad bowls, I often hang around this station, filling at least half of my plate with fresh arugula, baby lettuce leaves, crisp cherry tomatoes and – because a buffet is basically so wonderfully retro – a tangle of nutty alfalfa sprouts whenever I see them.

I just wish there wasn’t the inevitable food waste.