Buffet Rules

I’m not a very large eater and yet I love the concept of a buffet. SO many dishes, one flat price – who wouldn’t like to eat at one. And yet to fully enjoy a buffet, one needs to have a strategy – to do – poora paisa vasool (full value for money).

Here’s my strategy:

1. Never go to a buffet if you are in a rush. A buffet for a working lunch just doesn’t work. You need at least 2-3 hours to do justice to a buffet.

2. Wear a comfort fit trousers. One that can stretch with the tummy. A la Joey in Friends (who wears Phoebe’s pregnant trousers to attend Monica’s Thanksgiving dinner). Better still wear a salwar khameez. The drawstring in the salwar can be loosened at will.

3. Skip the soup. Soups typically are meant to line up your stomach. But they also fill up the stomach pretty fast, leaving little space for the rest of the stuff.

4. Go easy on the salads. Although very wholesome and healthy, they too fill you up pretty fast. And as my aunt-in-law admonished me at my wedding reception, “ghaas poos ghar pe khaana. This is no time to chew a piece of cucumber.”

5. Before you fill your plate, do a quick scan of the items on the table. Just so you know what all there is on offer. SO you know what to pounce on.

6. Skip the breads (naan, parathas, rotis) and rice: Why bother trying to fill your tummy with these when there are other things on offer. Of course the strategy might not work, if there are curries and dals on offer and you skip the rice.

7. Choose what you eat with care. Why bother with the potato bhaji when there is avial on offer?

8. Take a look at the desserts. Rock hard gulab jamuns and down in the dumps kheer are not worth leaving valuable tummy space.

9. A lot of buffets include free beverages. We all know that gassy drinks take up more tummy space. Skip them. Stick with water – tiny lil sips of water.

10. Learn from the veterans. The ones who are taking second servings. They’ve already tasted the stuff and are going for the stuff they’ve liked in round 2.