Beautiful Feet: Buffet Competition

Towards the end of the same busy weekend, a bunch of us went out to a Chinese buffet restaurant to celebrate two birthdays. This was the most ‘interesting’ buffet experience for me. Apparently, these guys have a tradition that whenever they go to this buffet place (which they had not done in a few years), they would split up into two teams and see which team can eat the most plates. Obviously, I would never think of an idea as absurd as this on my own. Food is to be enjoyed at your own pace, with a comfortable amount of conversation in between bites. Especially at a buffet place, you should be able to choose WHAT you WANT to eat.

But the competitive nature in me prompted me to change my eating strategy so I could eat more plates. Oh, and there are guidelines that you have to follow in this competition! I could not believe that they actually had rules made up! Like, a cup of soup equals ½ a plate, 7 crab legs equal a plate, 10 pieces of sushi equal a plate, etc. I still ate the things that I liked, but I was strategically thinking of what I could eat more of without getting too full too quickly while browsing through the buffet selection. In the end, I think I ate 4.5 plates (but I did stretch the rule of ‘not having too much of the plate show beneath the food’ by spreading out and flattening my food across my plate). At times, certain people would call into question the opposing team’s plate if they do not feel it’s a full plate.

Most of us were very uncomfortably stuffed at the end of the meal. My team lost by 8 plates, it was disgraceful. Hahaha. But it was definitely an interesting birthday meal.