Best way to navigate a buffet?

Went to the premiere of another delicious Indian buffet, but this time made more stops at the line to avoid the sauces melding. I also spooned a little mountain of rice in the center of my plates…

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if only there was a solution to keep the sauces from melding.

I don’t necessarily mind when the sauces meld. Might have been more appropriate for FTC Confessions thread.

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ok buffet pros, need suggestions on how to maximize a “1 bowl 1 trip” policy. Do I use cucumbers to create higher walls and go from there? htf do I integrate dressing into this without getting half the salad on the table?

size reference:

salad bar:
image

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My suggestion is to put all of the heaviest objects at the bottom (beans and beets). Fill in the gaps with stuff that can get into crevices like eggs, onions and tomatoes. Then finish off with lettuce on top. Dressing on top of the lettuce. Open up very slowly and put a plate on top of the lettuce/dressing. Flip over the plate with the plastic container tightly held up against the plate. Dump everything onto a plate so that the salad reverses itself. Good Luck.

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A true professional. This is the ticket right here.

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I do that in Rio on Saturday’s feijoada buffets. And after a big mistake I now only take one of a kind the first time through.

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Just wanted to report back that I finally used this technique and I can guarantee my side salad was larger than corporate intended.

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Could you please post a video of this technique? I’m very slow and bad at visualizing.

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Perhaps this is old news but why would anyone get “salad” at a buffet???

Need to balance out the Prime Pizza habit.

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But how will he hold the to-go container, salad tongs, AND the camera phone all at the same time??? :wink:

If I’m understanding the technique correctly, you’re basically packing the container “upside down” to how you’d normally arrange a salad, which also allows you to maximize the space w/i the container. Then you use the plate to flip the container contents when unpacking (similar to like flipping an upside down cake).

Depends on the buffet and pricing structure! As @Ns1 mentions, it’s makes for a more nutritionally balanced meal. Also, if you’re doing to-go and the buffet price includes a salad, it’s sort of like, why NOT get a salad to maximize what you’re getting for your money.

If the meal is really meat heavy, I think a salad can be a great contrast. Good salad buffets are also doing much more tasty salads than I would make on my own.

If I’m doing crab at a buffet, though, I don’t want filler and will skip the salad. :slight_smile:

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This was part of a buffet at a Reno casino. The only one we ever did that I can remember. This ‘course’ was after the app course of crab legs and oysters and before THE dessert of a wonderful pecan roll.

So I won’t fill up my plate with something like “salad.” And people get buffets “to go”? Wow, never heard of that. Thanks for all the education :slight_smile:

I took this pic of my meal so no idea what this is about.

I really miss souplantation

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The tutorial will have to come later but to really answer the “why salad at a buffet” question, Toppers Pizza Place may be the best “after a high school football game” type pizza place in existence. They also have a banging lunch special where you can have a small salad from the salad bar and personal pizza for $9.50.

But the salad bar has a strict one bowl / one trip policy…

Yelp photo with amateur buffet technique:

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I esp miss their blueberry muffins and strawberry lemonade…

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Yes all of that plus pretty much everything else. The only thing I never really enjoyed there was their bread or their tomato based pastas.

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By bread, do you mean the garlic whatever-it-was-called and the pizza? I really enjoyed those (and the tomato-based pastas)!

Oh, and how could I forget the chicken noodle!!! It was so funny; at the Souplantation in Alhambra, people fought for the noodles. Not so at the Brentwood one… :laughing:

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such memories. everyone at the Arcadia one would scoop out out hte noodles as quickly as possible. and then they’d drop in a big ole bag of noodles and it would set off another feeding frenzy… lol

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Lol My first job was at the Brentwood Souplantation as a teen I was part of the opening crew! Also loved the Chicken noodle.

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