The Golden Corral
I never cease to amaze myself when it comes to
descending to new lows with my eating habits. I may have dropped almost fifty
pounds in five years, but I still have my occasional lapses in judgment. Case in
point was dinner tonight...
I never cease to amaze myself when it comes to
descending to new lows with my eating habits. I may have dropped almost fifty
pounds in five years, but I still have my occasional lapses in judgment. Case in
point was dinner tonight, when Brian and I made the plunge and took advantage of
the Golden Corral's $9.69 dinner buffet. The GC prides itself as a steak
restaurant, and with fairly good reason. They serve fresh 1" steaks that they
boast are hand-cut and never frozen. You can see the guy grilling them right
there in the dining room.
The rest of
the buffet is, to the say the least, overwhelming. There are two salad bars, a
soup station, several "entree" counters, and the auspiciously named "Sweets"
table, which sits next to a giant softserve ice cream dispenser. I started with
soup and a salad, thinking that I could somehow be sensible with my intake.
Needless to say, things quickly degenerated into abject gluttony, and our
server, Augusta, was happy to come by periodically with fresh plates for us to
replenish our food supply as quickly as
possible.
It will probably be too
painful for me to recount the gory details of everything I ate, but suffice to
say it included about one and a half steaks, a large piece of fried chicken, and
several different starches. I tried to include some vegetables to keep things
moving along, but I'm afraid that my efforts will prove to be
inadequate.
Brian and I arrived shortly
before the real dinner rush. When it arrived, we were confronted with yet
another case study of why there is a full-blown obesity epidemic in this
country. Mothers accompanied their small children to the restaurant, turning
them loose on the GC's ample supply of fried popcorn shrimp. When I was getting
my steak from the guy at the grill, an enormous white-haired woman approached
from the left and barked, "I'm back. That was pretty good. Can you give me
another one?" Large Marge, indeed. Groups of elderly women sauntered in, as did
rough-hewn men in overalls whose natural bellies made them look even more
piggish than our costumes for "Three Little
Pigs."
Not that I was in any way above
the fray, of course. I, too, was seduced by the promise of the AYCE buffet. I
suppose there's something inherently American about wanting to get your money's
worth, and everybody at the GC shares that intention. Better eat up while you
can, after all. Brian said that he could manage a meal like this once a month. I
suppose I could handle about the same. Six years ago when I lived in Chicago, I
could (and did) do this kind of thing more frequently, but it's just not a good
idea anymore. The thing is, I think that many of the poeple we saw in the
restaurant don't limit themselves in the same way. Even eating that way once
every ten days is probably too much.
The rub, of course, is that to eat
this way is actually cheap and undeniably easy. The truth is that, in America,
it's easy as pie (pun intended) to be fat. Healthier food costs more, and who
wants that? Healthier food you can prepare yourself, but who has the time for
that?
I shouldn't make it sound like I
didn't enjoy the GC, because I most certainly did. We both did. I just wish I
didn't eat so much. But if you don't eat too much at a place like the GC, why go
in the first place?
Posted: Thu - February 10, 2005 at 05:00 PM