We can thank Herbert ‘Herb’ Cobb McDonald for the modern-day all-you-can-eat buffet. Herb first introduced Las Vegas – and later the world – to this gastronomical abomination in 1946. The Buckaroo Buffet cost one dollar and promised ‘every possible variety of hot and cold entrees to appease the howling coyote in your innards’. The coyote of my innards has never been appeased by an all-you-can-eat buffet. On my last visit it was starved.
Back at the table, the food smelt grey. I thought about all of the nice places I could have visited with £23
If John Hick can find God on a double-decker bus in Hull, I can find the answers to life’s biggest questions at the back of an all-you-can-eat global buffet. At least that’s what I told myself as I read the sign for one of London’s finest buffet bars. An advertisement for the ‘restaurant’ had appeared on social media, and it felt like time to give buffets another go. Staring up at the red lettering, my face like a knackered Kleenex, I was reminded of that scene in Blade Runner 2049 where Ana de Armas’s holographic projection towers over Ryan Gosling and whispers, ‘You look lonely. I can fix that.’
Sidestepping the teenagers headbutting each other outside, I made my way upstairs. A waitress with an aggressive face and an earpiece led me through the gauntlet that is the buffet station and pointed to a seat.
‘You serve yourself. It’s all-you-can-eat. It’s £23. Any questions?’ I liked her curt manner. She was straightforward. There would be no crouching-down-at-the-table TGI Friday-style waitering here. ‘Can I have a Coke?’ I asked. ‘Pepsi.’ ‘Do you have Coke?’ ‘We have Pepsi.’ ‘Can I have a Pepsi?’
She grunted and disappeared. I looked around. A child in an England shirt staggered through the restaurant like a shellshocked soldier. In one hand, he clutched a crushed ice-cream cone, its contents dribbling over his infant-sized fist, and in the other drooped a slice of chicken tikka pizza. To my right, a couple worked their way rhythmically through five different plates of intercontinental slop: noodle slop, burger slop, curry slop, mystery meat slop, and seafood slop. The boyfriend muttered something primitive and concerning like ‘nuggets are good’. A waiter with a bright red name tag struggled to carry 15 pints of Pepsi to a table of cackling women. The venue looked like it had been designed by hoarders after a bad acid trip: strange masks, paintings of Indian kings, a crude mosaic of a pretend Italian village, and a Nigerian flag for good measure.
It was time to face the music. I stood up and headed towards the buffet, grabbing a sweaty plate as I went. A child with a tomato-red face rash had commandeered the Mexican section and was in the process of playing with the chilli con carne. Walking past a dozen chafing dishes, their contents protected by lids of boiling metal, I spotted a bowl of mussels floating in a neon orange sauce and watched in horror as a man with vacant eyes and a questionable T-shirt took a spoonful of the molluscs and dolloped them on top of his plate of curry. ‘Dis looks good,’ he said to himself.
I queued for the ‘fresh food’ section, wincing as an elderly lady berated the chef behind the counter for not being fast enough. ‘Please be patient, Madam,’ mumbled the chef. I ordered a steak and watched as the pasta water boiled over and spilled onto the meat.
Back at the table, the food smelt grey. I thought about all of the nice places I could have visited with £23 and shook my head in shame. I poked a chicken drumstick with my finger. It was hard in the way that a stress ball is hard.
The chicken nuggets dissolved on my tongue like a Skips crisp. The acrid sauce on the Margherita pizza made my lips tingle, so instead I put it down. The next five minutes were spent cutting into the steak with a butter knife, followed by another five minutes chewing on a piece of watery meat. The steak didn’t get any smaller in my mouth, and it began to hurt my jaw, so I spat it out and left it on the side.
A sign on my table read ‘those not dining will be charged a cover fee’. I took stock of my life. Where had I gone wrong? Why was I here? A man lifted himself out of his chair with great difficulty and headed towards the dessert section. I watched as he poured a generous heap of ‘super-soft’ ice-cream over his plate of naan breads. He didn’t blink. He didn’t smile. He didn’t care about the destruction before him. He just looked at the ice-cream as it fell in turd-like swirls.
I stood up and asked for the bill, paid for the meal and the extra cost of the Pepsi and left. The teenagers were still outside, only they had moved on to headbutting members of the public. I walked back to the Tube and sat down as my stomach murmured in protest. I opened my phone and held my finger over the Instagram app until the little ‘–’ icon appeared, and removed it from my home screen. I swore to never trust another social media influencer.
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