![]() ![]() ![]() The pandemic may have hastened their demise over concerns about the safety of sharing serving utensils and crowding next to other diners in line.īut Chinese buffets have faced unique changes. In recent years the buffet format has struggled to continue to lure diners, with large national chains such as Sweet Tomatoes and Old Country Buffet closing. My favorite part is the maniacal power I feel while operating the soft-serve machine, swirling crooked lines of chocolate and vanilla ice cream into a crystal bowl. This rings hollow because, of course, he will finish what I cannot. Occasionally, my dad cries out, “That’s enough! Enough!” when I wield the serving spoon too indiscriminately. At the Chinese buffet, I am a child sovereign with total freedom to do with my dominion as I wish. Inexplicably, we also see trays of pizza and french fries and chicken wings, although they look a little too much like freezer food to be all that appetizing.įor the indecently low price of $4.95 a person, we heap grotesque piles on our plates, the garlic sauce from the chicken oozing onto the sweet and sour eggplant spilling into the noodles, the whole construction haphazardly sprinkled with fried wontons and spring rolls. We walk past stately plastic bamboo plants and regal dioramas of waterfalls and pagodas. If we arrive at exactly 11 a.m., right when the restaurant opens, we’re greeted by rows and rows of fresh, heaping platters of all the American Chinese classics: mounds of fiery red General Tso’s chicken, piles of slick lo mein, deep vats of beef-and-broccoli, and some sort of crab-and-cheese casserole. He has a banana for dinner my mom rolls her eyes but acquiesces. We follow a certain set of rituals: The night before, my dad imposes a half-joking, half-serious fast, encouraging light portions. The restaurant? It’s always, always a Chinese buffet.Īnd it’s always on a Saturday morning when my family makes the pilgrimage to our favorite all-you-can-eat establishment tucked into a strip mall off of Northwest Highway. When the mood strikes, when there’s joie de vivre in our hearts, we even go out to eat. After a few rocky years in the States, my parents have steady-ish jobs, an apartment where the lights come on, and a neurotic 8-year-old (me) who no longer weeps in school every day, my angst already threatening to bloom at a tender young age. My family, the Khans, formerly of Dhaka, Bangladesh, now of Dallas, Texas, are finally beginning to settle in our adopted homeland.
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