Oh! Colombo

Buffets are aplenty in Colombo, be it breakfast, brunch, lunch, tea or dinner and one is assured of a great spread with wide choices whether at a hotel, club house or restaurant.  Meals served to guests at many wedding receptions and celebrations of most types are buffet style.  

A buffet meal is great since it could cater to multiple foods preferences, from vegan to vegetarian to seafood, to pork and to beef for instance. Due to this convenience many hosts opt for buffet meals as they are sure to cover everybody’s dietary preferences. Having a buffet also benefits the establishment  since an army of waiting staff  is not required to handle the serving and clearing of plates etc.

My main observations at lunch and dinner buffets is the stampede towards it as soon as access to it is announced.  At such times nobody seems to care about the elderly, disabled or hungry children.  All good manners are forgotten and the piling of the plates begin. If there  is a choice of three preparations of rice, for instance, all three are served from.  Thereafter, the noodle or pasta preparation is served on top of it.  Everything else that is eaten by them is subsequently piled on to the plate until the contents are about to spill over.  How they shovel through this pile and get any flavor of the prepared item beats me. The same happens with the salads, desserts, choice of soups.  

At some of these functions if there is an action station serving batter-fried prawns the ensuring rush and queue cue is amazing.  Funny are the times when one is queuing up or the batter fried prawns and discover that it is oyster mushrooms being done. 

Another common occurrence in the queue that forms near the plates is the habit of passing the plates down the line ending up with a lengthy line of people clutching on to their plates till they reach the beginning of buffet.

And once their belly is full after shoveling one third of what was piled on to the plate it is then discarded, which of course is of no use to anyone

It is so amusing and in a way scaring watching the above fiascos at functions. 

Similar occurrences are visible when one goes in for a Brunch or High Tea.  Here, everybody is aware that the client is paying a dear price per head but this does not mean that one has to pile up everything one sees to make sure that they are getting their money’s worth.

All establishments do not care how many plates are soiled by serving a couple of times but seeing the served and uneaten food going to waste seems such a crime. It would be expected that those who patronize these establishments could afford them and would show more sense and decorum rather than behave like some who may have never seen food in their lives.

At breakfast buffets a common sight is where a guest slips out a bag or a box and pack a bit of fruit, bread rolls or muffins. This I have witnessed in many parts of the world with tourist as they are thinking of saving up something for lunch without having to spend.  Some even grab the bunch of paper serviettes, sugar sachets and many tit bits like that.

At the end, I suppose, all wish to get a deal one way or the other and feel the better for it whether they are buffet bandits or not……