Beauty and the Buffet

So last night the lovely Mrs. G and I went out for Chinese buffet. If there’s any one thing people in this part of Iowa love, it’s a buffet. (Well, that along with beer, cigarettes, and getting a 50% discount on anything.) Buffets are HUGE in this part of the world, as are the collective asses of most of the buffet patrons.

Regardless, Mrs. G and I decided to try the latest & greatest Chinese buffet in town, Beijing-something-or-another. Could be “Beijing Palace”, or possibly “Beijing City”. Who knows, who cares. They opened their Beijing Doors recently, so we decided to risk it and see what it’s like.

Sioux City has three other Chinese buffets – King Sea, which always smells like a steamy locker room filled with chicken, China One, where the guy who works the cash register has one facial expression (“SCOWL!”) and they serve Chinese delicacies such as ham, chicken wings, and mashed potatoes to the “What is it? Never mind – I’ll eat it anyway” Iowans, and a place just across the bridge in South Sioux City that I can’t recall their name, since it was so incredibly awful I’ll never go back.

Anyway, we go to the new Beijing Joint. The food was eerily similar to that you’d find at China One and King Sea – I suspect they must all pass the same half dozen cooks back and forth amongst each other. It was fairly good – mostly chicken dishes, but it was oddly arranged. Most buffets have a reasonable sense of semblance to them – there’s a certain order to the universe when you find the salads first, then entrees, then maybe desserts.

Nope. Not here.

The buffet was L shaped, with a large tub of white rice first. So far so good, right? Well, next it was a small ice cream freezer, which contained 6 5-gallon buckets of Blue Bunny ice cream – chocolate, vanilla, chocolate chip, cookie dough, strawberry swirl, and cherry nut, if you must know. So to go with your white rice, you now had a scoop of semi-mediocre ice cream.

Next it was the Fried Foods aisle. If it could be deep fried, it was here. Most of it was standard stuff – two types of egg rolls, tiny little crab rangoons, shrimp, chicken wings (remember – it’s Iowa!), and bacon-wrapped “Krab”. Then came the entrees – as I said, mostly chicken. Finally, there was salads. They did have kim-chee, which surprised me, but otherwise their “salad” consisted of Sysco-canned pudding and macaroni salad, along with a large bowl of lettuce they called “tossed salad”.

Now, I’m not knocking the food. It was tasty in its own way, and I certainly ate my Iowa-boy share. But it was just strange to see the layout they had. Not what I expected.

But while the setup was oddly arranged, the service? Top notch. And then some.

You see, Beijing Boulevard is a tiny place. Maybe 20 tables, tops. And they had four waitresses working that little dining room. But since it was buffet, they weren’t bringing food or taking orders – only carrying off empty dishes and refilling Pepsis. So instead of finding something productive with their time, they hounded us. “Can I take your plate?” 10 seconds later. “More Diet Pepsi?” 30 seconds later. “Are you through with that plate yet?” Wait 20 seconds. “How about now – can I take your plate yet?”

This is how it went throughout our meal. My drink was literally 1/3 empty when she swooped it away to refill it. She stood over me while I ate the last of my soup so that she could have the bowl. And when I pushed my empty ice cream dish to the far side, she literally reached across me to take it off the table. What – was she afraid that any errant drops of melting Blue Bunny Cherry Nut ice cream may stain their new carpets? Oy.

Once again, I have to say that I don’t fault the nice young Beijing Babes who work there. They’re just doing their jobs, and doing them efficiently, dammit.

So that was our culinary adventure for the evening. I haven’t even mentioned the piggish lout of a man who sat on the other side of the wall from us with his paper napkin tucked into his farmer’s shirt. He probably put away a good dozen plates of food (each of which was expertly cleaned up by the staff, let me tell ya!), all the while watching what other people took off the buffet and commenting loudly to his hysterically homely wife about everyone’s dining choices. Asshat.

Tonight when the lovely Mrs. G. gets home from jury duty I’ll have to find her something to eat. She’ll want to eat in, I’m sure, but since it’s in the mid-90’s outside, I’m willing to bet that neither one of us is really that willing to cook. So we’ll see what we end up with.

Either way, I can promise you that my dishes won’t be cleaned up that fast.