Sunday, April 26, 2015

Chinese Buffet in London

I like to go to a buffet-style restaurant.

In a buffet, you can eat anything served as much as you like. In most restaurants, you have to dish up the meal by yourself. But some restaurants adopt order-buffet style in which you can order any menu at the seat.


Buffet, or all-you-can-eat, is infamous as well as refill-free service for deteriorating obesity. In France, a new bill is going to launch to ban the refilling culture of sugary drinks. Refill-free was maybe originated in the US. Notwithstanding this, I heard buffet-style restaurant was considered to be regulated in the US.

The Independent: France moves to ban free-refill culture of sugary drinks in bid to combat obesity

Indeed, some people eat an incredible amount of food at a buffet. In the UK,  two men were banned from the restaurant for "rude" eating manners.

BBC News: Brighton all-you-can eat restaurant bans two 'greedy' diners

I often enjoy buffet restaurant not because of the amount of the food I can eat but for the variety of the meal. I can eat meat and fish together as well as a vegetable.

By the way, I seldom see a buffet-style restaurant in the UK. Many hotels offer morning buffet, and you can drink tea and eat sandwiches until you are satisfied with some Afternoon Tea services. However, their services are usually so costly.

On the other hand, I have visited Chinese buffet restaurants some times. They are similar to ones seen in Japan. You can choose fried chicken, grilled beef, vegetables, and Chinese curry. Interestingly, most Chinese restaurants do not accept the credit card; perhaps they dislike to pay the fee to the credit card company.

I compared three restaurants each of which offered a buffet. There are two buffet restaurants near to my flat. One of them costs 5.99 GBP and the other costs 6.99 GBP. It is strange that the cheaper one serves more various foods. Besides, I tried another Chinese buffet restaurant at the northern side of Thames River. It took 9.8 GBP, including the service fee, despite The waiters did not serve me any meal by themselves. The taste was not so good. It means that the cost of the meal depends on the land price of the restaurant.

In conclusion, Chinese buffet restaurants are inferior to those in Japan in terms of the cost-performance. Nonetheless, I will continue to try them occasionally.

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