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Honolulu Lite Charles Memminger |
Beefing over beef
at new buffets
Jack Sprat could eat no fat,
His wife would eat no lean,
She was on the Atkins Plan,
And he on Lean Cuisine.It's getting weird on the food front, my friends. Causing me to write bad poetry, even.
The meat-o-centric Atkins diet apparently is bankrupting all-you-can-eat buffets across the country. Police recently had to escort a married couple from an upscale Salt Lake City culinary emporium called the "Chuck-A-Rama" (not to be confused with its whimsically named competitor, the "Up-Chuck-A-Rama") for grazing exclusively on the side of beef at the end of the buffet line.
The couple was on the Atkins diet and apparently eating its weight in roast beef for a mere $8.99 cover charge. The couple's 12th visit to the line in a bovine feeding extravaganza led management to perceive imminent financial ruin and call the cops.
In a bit of language contorting that would make a yoga master proud, the restaurant manager explained that they offered a "buffet," not an "all-you-can-eat" dining experience.
The peril to restaurants offering buffets has always been that some patrons might chew up expensive stuff like beef and lobster while eschewing the cheap filler material like lettuce and carrot sticks.
Buffet promoters today pray they get Jack Sprat and his wife, who will balance their intake between the prime rib and the three-bean salad. They dread the marauding band of carnivores Dr. Atkins has unleashed upon the land.
BUFFETS ARE ON thin ground in Hawaii because of island residents' legendary propensity to strip a buffet of its most expensive groceries in a matter of minutes, in the way Genghis Khan's army denuded entire countrysides. I remember my family visiting a Waipahu buffet that had been ravaged until the only things left were a stalk of celery and a cherry tomato. The next week, management erected a sign that said, "Price includes ONE trip to the buffet," and provided plates large enough to hold an olive and a couple of sesame seeds. It was out of business the next week.
A friend of mine envisioned opening an all-you-can-eat buffet restaurant with bus boys the size of, well, buses, who would snatch your plate after one visit to the chow line and inform you (unpleasantly), "That's all you can eat."
Personally, I hate buffets because they bring out our worst mercenary tendencies. I once body-checked an old lady who tried to get to the crab legs before me. But she was a wiry specimen and managed to grab the last handful before she and her walker hit the floor. Judging by the way she sprinted to the baron of beef, I suspect the walker was just an affectation designed to win sympathy in the buffet line.
I predict the ubiquitous Atkins diet will end buffets as we know them. Buffets imply unlimited access to a horn of plenty. Any eatery silly enough to offer up a buffet offering beef, lobster and other pricey proteins will find fiscal heartache and heartburn aplenty in their future.
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Charles Memminger, winner of National Society of Newspaper Columnists awards, appears Tuesdays, Thursdays and Sundays. E-mail cmemminger@starbulletin.com