I Lost Control At A Korean BBQ Buffet, And It Felt Right
I now realize that eating all those side dishes and slices of meat was a huge mistake, but at the time, everything just felt so right.
My husband and I went to a Korean BBQ buffet called Gogi Many in Salcedo Village, Makati City last Saturday night, and I stuffed food into my mouth until I could no longer take it. By the time the meal was over, I almost could not move.
My food coma was so bad that we had to cancel our plan to finally try the crepe place we’d been wanting to visit. I couldn’t make room for coffee in my stomach, either, and it was so weird because I always say I am ready for coffee, no matter what.
I had considered the possibility of something like that happening but agreed to go to a buffet, anyway. I was really hungry and thought I deserved it since I’d been working so hard in the past two weeks. Moreover, I was convinced that I wouldn’t go beyond my limit. I believed I knew better.
Well, the joke’s on me. The moment I saw all the food available at the restaurant, I completely lost self-control.
Because it was a Korean BBQ buffet, it offered a lot of meat options, including various cuts of pork belly—my favorite. That alone was more than enough to unleash the beast in me. The place’s side dishes were amazing, too. One of them was soybean sprout salad (kongnamul), so of course, I had to wolf down a copious amount of it.
In other words, I went crazy.
Honestly, the whole thing makes me cringe so hard right now. And while it is really tempting to punish myself for falling into this trap once again—because clearly, it wasn’t the first time I lost control at a buffet—I am also comforted by the fact that my actions were not really illogical, especially considering what type of restaurant it was.
Also, it reminds me of the essay titled “Who Are You When No One Is Watching?” which is included in the book “In the Kitchen: Essays on Food and Life.” Written by Joel Golby, it has a paragraph that reads:
“But I think the real core of buffet, and what makes it such a cherished and magical treat, is the way it inverts the eating experience. When you go to a restaurant you are handed a menu and asked to read and imagine what you might eat. The buffet attacks you with visual stimuli and asks you to reach into the outer reaches of your own hunger. The menu is calm and composed and the pricing is there, by the side, in plain black-and-white. The buffet asks you to pay before you even look at the food. You are not given a knife and fork: you are given tongs. You are given a small lifting device to ease out a plump square of lasagne. You are given a whole salad bar to totally ignore. You are given a glass and told you can fill it, forever, with Coke. The buffet subverts anticipation by overwhelming you with choice. The menu forces your greed through a proxy, a waiter or waitress. And when it comes down to it, the key difference is this: while the menu asks you to eat for pleasure, the buffet asks you to eat your fill to relieve the bin.”
See? Buffets really alter people’s eating behaviors. And, it’s as if they are really designed in such a way that would make people lose control.
Perhaps, this somehow explains why everything felt right as I was wolfing down all the side dishes and slices of pork belly at the time.
So, I guess, I’ll just have to avoid going to all-you-can-eat restaurants next time because once you’re there, it is hard to practice self-control.
But of course, knowing what to avoid is one thing; fighting the temptation to go for it anyway because you think you deserve it or really need it is another.