The Buffet

Liz's taste:

This local Japanese/Chinese restaurant has been getting great word of mouth so last night a friend and I went to check it out. I've heard that this place has great food and the word "cool" has been used by more than one to describe it. I was in a sparkly top with good hair. I looked at him disapprovingly when he showed up in khaki shorts.

I guess I was expecting P F Chang's. Instead I got the Chinese equivalent of Olive Garden.

There were families there with kids still in their baseball uniforms. There were more baseball caps on adult men and John Deer logos than I've seen since I went to the county fair in 1988. Khaki shorts were being "dressed up". To top everything, there was an obese clown wandering through the restaurant making the crappiest balloon animals I've ever seen. Her name was "Joyful the Clown". She couldn't stand for more than 3 minutes before she had to sit because of her enormous girth. All of her balloon animals looked like penises. My friend said he thought Joyful was a man. What kind of restaurant hires a hermaphrodite clown to block their isles and make pornographic balloon animals?

It was a buffet. OK. I have issues with buffets. I will go to a buffet and I'll even wear my buffet pants for these special events, but I want GOOD food- whether in large or small quantities it is the quality that matters. That's why I've never been to Ryan's or to Fire Mountain. They advertise the largest buffets in existence. That's not attractive to me.

There was sushi. I love sushi. I will give them props for having good sushi, as far a buffet sushi goes. Yet there is something disturbing to me about my tuna sashimi sitting on a buffet line. It's like Russian Roulette with food. Anytime I have to dip my soy sauce from a tub into a plastic cup, the restaurant loses some of it's elegance.

There were crab legs. I adore crab legs. This place put their crab legs in the smallest opening on the buffet. Therefore, whenever the crab legs would come out, it was as if they had thrown chum in the water and the sharks were gathering. I got elbowed by a 70 year old because she thought I had eased my way in line ahead of her. I had to dip my melted butter from a tub into a plastic cup. Maybe that's their gimmick.

It makes me wonder if I'm a snob. I don't think I'm a snob, I just think I chase my expectations. It's the same reason I've never been married. I don't want to be in a relationship that is anything less than better than being alone. Alone- it's not a dirty word to me. It is synonymous with happy, content and satisfied.

I ate too much. I drank too much sugary Coke. I had the kid behind kicking my chair through the entire meal.

All in all, it was a pretty typical Friday night for a native Mississippian.