bex77

A friend asked to go out for "lots of meat and mashed potatoes, cheap and fast" so I came up with the Old Country Buffet in the Meadow Glen Mall. Then I figured he wouldn't want to go there. I haven't been in years. But when we picked him up, he thought it was a grand idea, so off we went. I usually prefer ethnic food, especially Asian, and avoid the temptation to overeat at buffets, but there are times when an All-American buffet is just the thing.
http://www.oldcountrybuffet.com/

We wandered in about 7 pm on Friday night. I forget how close this mall is to us. I worried about a line, but there were only two groups ahead of us to pay. For just over $12 a person, we got to enjoy an amazing array of food. It has expanded a lot since my last visit. I walked all around before picking up a plate. They have added a "make your own tacos" station, and lot more salad choices. And a carving station with steak, pork loin, ham, and salmon. Lots of desserts. They were doing a brisk business, so everything was fresh. And as a dish ran out, they often brought out a new choice.

I worried that it would be overrun with screaming kids and cranky older folks with sharp elbows. There were a couple of louder kids, but they didn't carry on for long. It was great for people-watching - all sorts of folks, young and old, all colors, all modes of dress including several tables with Islamic women in full cover and an older couple dressed to the nines. I didn't have to wait in any lines to get food, perhaps because we were on the later side of the supper hour for such places. I thought I remembered that there were various rules to follow and limits and extra charges for certain things, but it was easy with everything included and the only limit was that you couldn't serve yourself the carved meat, it had to be done by the carver, but he was pleasant and generous. And you had to leave your plate on the table if you went up to get another round, which seems wasteful in these days of reuse and recycling, but I think there is some public health reason for it.

I picked up tiny tastes of a wide range of items - carrot/raisin salad, cottage cheese, pickled beets, chicken dumplings and gravy over mashed potatoes, cornbread stuffing, peas, shrimp scampi, baked ham, pork loin, kielbasa, fried shrimp, fried okra, then a little chocolate cake, vanilla yogurt and chocolate pudding. I washed it down with "brown drinks" - chocolate milk, diet coke and raspberry iced tea. It was great fun to have such variety in a single meal, for such a low price. My favorite was the juicy baked ham, which the carver handed over in small thick slices. Or maybe the chicken and dumplings. Or the carrot/raisin salad!

I managed to stop eating before I was too full. I think the trick is the tiny tastes theory. There were many other choices I didn't get to - spaghetti with several sauces, baked and fried fish, baked and fried chicken, pizza, grilled cheese sandwiches, mac&cheese, clam chowder and chicken noodle soup, lots of other salads like potato salad and macaroni salad, plus a wide range of salad bar stuff, and fun drinks like those bright blue freezy juicy things...carrot cake and cheese cake...

I definitely have to go back soon. Maybe in a month or so when I am hungry again. :-)