a peek inside the fishbowl

And you thought you were doing well by avoiding McDonalds? Marketplace did an excellent piece about the calorie counts of foods served at the major chains. It’s about 25 minutes long, but it’s totally worth watching if you want to (a) make informed choices when you eat out, and (b) watch Restaurant Association Dude totally lose out to Wendy Mesley. God she’s good.

I love the idea of a menu that lists calories and sodium, don’t you?

(via)

I have always been secretly fascinated by the concept of the all-you-can-eat (AYCE) buffet.

This past summer I had the opportunity to check out a few buffets for a piece I put together for Ottawa Magazine. It sounds like a rather glamorous assignment doesn’t it (and don’t get me wrong, it certainly was a lot of fun) but by the end of it I was totally sick of food. We were invited to a potluck dinner for a friend who was visiting from Kenya and someone made a comment about small amount of food I was eating. Was I on a diet? Ha. No. I’d been eating so much that I couldn’t stand the thought of eating any more.

And I LOVE FOOD.

Before I started my buffet piece for the magazine, I posted a question to Ask Metalfilter. Here it is. I was interested in hearing more about the origins of the AYCE. I (wrongly) assumed it was a Western invention, after all, look at our serving sizes, and our waistlines, and see how they compare to the world average! [Sidebar: anyone see CNN’s obesity map of the US?] 

About a month ago there was an article in the Saturday Citizen about buffets (I can’t remember the gist of it), and the author happened to quote someone in the same Metafilter thread regarding AYCE buffet strategies by someone named klangklangston. I am reposting the same tips here too, because they’re too good not to share:

“First off, be hungry. Don’t eat earlier in the day, or if you do, eat only small things.
Second off, make sure you’ve got the capacity. I find that emptying my bowels prior helps the experience.

Third, I like to get a massive high on before hand. I feel that it stimulates the appetite.
Fourth, the bread is your enemy. It is there to fill you up. Ignore it. You don’t want to look back on your death bed and think “I could have eaten more, if not for that bread.”

Fifth, pace yourself. Gorging quickly can give you a cramp.

Sixth, water is also an empty gesture. Try to avoid drinking too much.

Seventh, try to recruit your skinny, high friends. The fat ones will have stomachs compressed. The skinny ones will challenge you to eat more. You must best their gullets!

Eighth, beware of spices. The Indians whose buffet I frequent viciously increase the level of heat to discourage gluttony. A little bit of milk or cream or fat will cut the heat (a lassi). You’ll pay the next day, but that’s the future, and the buffet is now.

Ninth, if you’re eating so fast as to have to belch, slow down. The goal is to keep eating even after you’re full, but not to get extra air down there.

Tenth, you can often snag a take-out container, which is like having an extra stomach without having cud. I.e. awesome.”

As part of my research for the article I went to several AYCE buffets, but what I was looking forward to the most was taking Emma and Sarah along with me. They’d never heard of such a crazy thing before.

The place we went that day was one I mentioned in the magazine article: Buffet Yang Ming on Merivale Road. It is very kid-friendly and the food is pretty good. There is truly something for everyone here, which is ultimately why I recommended it.

I did a bit of coaching before we arrived:

“Okay girls, we’re going to a different kind of restaurant today.”
“What do you mean?”
“Well, this is the kind of restaurant in which we don’t order our food like we normally do. We go choose it ourselves.”
“Where?”
“There are big tables full of food, and we pick what we want to eat.”
“Is there going to be cheese?” (This was Sarah talking.)
“Yes, I think might be some cheese.”
“And sushi?” (This is Sarah, again)
“Yes, I happen to know there is sushi.”
“What else?” (Emma was concerned.)
“Oh, lots of different things. Tell you what…”
“What?”
“You can choose to eat whatever you want.”
“REALLY?”
“Yes.”
“Even dessert?”
“Yes.”
“Can we eat dessert before the healthy stuff?”
“Well, what do you think would be the smart thing to do?”
“Eat it after.”
“Right. Oh, and guess what?”
“What.”
“You can go up and serve yourself as much food as you want.”
“Really?”
“Yes.”

I could tell the girls thought the idea of an AYCE buffet was totally weird.

Yang Ming has it all – fries, onion rings and chicken fingers, a salad bar, “traditional” Chinese food, sushi, and dim sum. I love watching what people load on their plates, the combinations of food hitherto unheard of i.e. breakfast sausage and egg rolls, sweet and sour chicken balls and rice pudding. A lot of people go for the fried stuff. Btw, it’s not worth going for the sushi. It’s dense, sticky and generally tasteless. The smart folks stick to the dim sum. It’s decent. So are the various veggie dishes. I also discovered coconut jello at Yang Ming. If I find it anywhere I am buying some. Yum.

So it was with great interest that I watched my kids navigate the Feast That Lay Before Them. I wondered what a choosier-eater (like Emma) would pick. What about Sarah?

Without further ado, here is what the girls chose, with no interference from either Mark or I.

A closeup of Sarah’s choices (see, cheese and sushi!) :

This is what Emma chose – her two favourite food groups! :

Jello City. This is happens when you give them the go-ahead to eat unlimited dessert:

And this is how much of it actually got eaten:

Sarah is full and can’t eat another bite:

I’m not a fan of overeating. It’s gross. But I do think the AYCE buffet is great for ethnic cuisine because it gives you the opportunity to try foods you wouldn’t normally order. Indian buffet is one of my favourite lunches. Haveli and East India Company are both great. And then there’s AYCE sushi, a relatively new concept in Ottawa. I’ve been to Sakura, Sushi Kan, and 1000 Islands Sushi on Carling Ave. They’re all okay – just okay. I can pay the same price and eat slightly less sushi, (larger portions, tastier, and made with greater care and thought) at a place like MHK, which in my opinion has the best sushi in Ottawa. Mark and I had lunch at their new Westboro location on Sunday afternoon. (Grand opening is on Friday!) It was divine.

As my foodie friend Lex once pointed out, just because you can eat all the sushi you can, doesn’t mean you SHOULD eat all the sushi you can.

I think the same can be said for anything, can it not? ;)

My other new favourite AYCE buffet is at the Hilton Lac Leamy. I’ll be writing more about it later this week.

I went to the gym this morning. I probably shouldn’t have gone. I’ve had a cold and spent most of yesterday feeling pretty miserable.

All of my regular cardio machines were occupied, so I went on the treadmill.

After a few minutes, a lady got on the machine next to mine and started it up. I noticed she was wearing a heavy black turtleneck sweater. She started to take it off. She tried pulling it over her head (mind you, she was walking on the treadmill this whole time) when she suddenly stumbled and fell against the safety bars.

“Are you okay??” I asked.

She pretended she didn’t hear me. So I continued my walk in silence.
 
It took another minute or so before I realized she was wearing perfume. There was no mistaking it.

Did you know that the word perfume used today derives from the Latin “per fumum”, meaning through smoke? (via Wikipedia)

No guff.

You know, I used to pooh pooh anti-perfume signage. How ridiculous! But my dear friends, I’m here to say that I can’t take it anymore. My tolerance for perfume has disappeared. And this is coming from someone who used to wear perfume regularly.

You see, over the past few years I’ve become mildly asthmatic – not serious enough to require the use of a daily puffer – but bad enough that I develop a wretched hacking cough whenever I get a cold. (Like now.) Perfumed samples in magazines leave me short of breath too.

This is interesting… also from the Wiki:

“In some cases, an excessive use of perfumes may cause allergic reactions of the skin. For instance, acetophenone, ethyl acetate and acetone while present in many perfumes, are also known or potential respiratory allergens. Persons with multiple chemical sensitivity or respiratory diseases such as asthma may be responsive to even low levels of perfumes.

The perfume industry is not directly regulated for safety by the FDA in the US. Instead the FDA regulates the ingredients in the perfumes themselves and require that they be tested to the extent that they are Generally recognized as safe (GRAS). Protection of trade secrets prevents the listing of ingredients that might or might not be hazardous in perfumes. In Europe, the mandatory listing of any of a number of chemicals thought to be hazardous has just begun.”

So there I was, doing a healthy, brisk, walk next to a walking bottle of perfume. I didn’t last long. I still feel like the smell is trapped in my nostrils.

I’ve been stuck next to heavily-perfumed people on the bus, trapped in elevators with them, eaten lunch with them etc…  but working out next to someone who’s wearing perfume? That takes the cake.

So I’m off to make a coffee. Have you ever wondered why they keep coffee beans behind the perfume counter? It’ll clear your nose out.