All You Can Eat

My parents visited us for a couple of days this weekend, and as part of the middle class thing to do, we went toRyan's for dinner. Ryan's is an all-you-can-eat restaurant. That means you pay one price (around 80 to 160Kc at today's exchange rate), the waitress brings your drink and a basket of bread to the table, and you serve yourself all of the food you want. There is no time limit to how long you can stay at the restaurant or how much you eat. The only rules are that you may not smoke and you may not take food out of the restaurant. The cost is a little less for children and the elderly. The elderly (people over age 55) are given what is called a senior citizen discount. It's a fairly normal discount given at most restaurants, department stores and other places of business, and usually amounts to between 10 and 20%. Some stores offer these discounts only on certain days. But I digress.
At Ryan's you may eat all of the food you want for just this one price. You may start with soup. Then you can choose any or all of the meats (grilled steak or chicken, baked or fried chicken, roast beef, turkey, ham, shrimp, fish baked or fried) to go with any or all of the vegetables that are offered. On the buffet there are potatoes fried or mashed, rice, okra, green beans, carrots, cabbage, broccoli, Brussels sprouts, corn on or off the cob, beans, pasta (macaroni and cheese or spaghetti with sauce with or without meat). There is also a salad bar. A salad bar is a cold buffet table with lettuces (2 kinds plus spinach) to begin your salad and a wide range of things to put on it. The salad bar at Ryan's has raw broccoli, tomatoes, cauliflower, carrots, green peppers, mushrooms and olives, beets, and three bean salad. On the second salad buffet table are the mixed salads. These are various things mixed with mayonnaise or some other kind of dressing (macaroni, potatoes, beans, peas, flavored whitefish, etc). There is fresh fruit, too. And a dessert bar, which has about a dozen different desserts plus candy, chocolate syrup, and caramel to put on your ice cream. I am enormously fond of banana pudding.

The obvious advantage to such a restaurant is that you can choose from a wide variety of things to eat, and eat as much or as little as you want. It's a great place for picky eaters and children. The obvious disadvantage is that it is very easy to overeat, especially if you are the daughter of an Irish accountant who wants to get her money's worth. Fortunately, I got over that inclination after about the twentieth time I ate at Ryan's. Some of you have said that such a restaurant would not be possible because it would go broke. Well, guess what, Ryan's is currently fighting bankruptcy now.