23 September, 2010

Seafood at the Asian Buffet


I'm not really a big fan of all-you-can-eat Asian buffets.  For one thing, the food is usually pretty ordinary and for another, I don't really like to gorge myself when I eat...not even when it's "all you can eat."  It never fails to amaze me how the human land yachts at AYCE buffets insist on getting enormously-piled plates for each trip up to the steam tables.  I mean, what the hell?  You can take as many trips up to the trough as you want - is it really necessary to take eight pounds of crab legs at a time?  Oink-feckin'-oink, dude.

But enough of that tangent.  What I really want to write about is how awesome the seafood is at the buffets around here.  When I get a jones for oysters or clams on the half shell and don't want to spend a bundle to satisfy it, I go to one of the nearby Asian buffets.  They all have very-good-or-better cherrystones and oysters (sometimes on the small side, but that's okay with me.  When I eat an oyster, I don't want to feel like I'm swallowing a baby.)  And peel-and-eat shrimp.  And fried shrimp, and a couple of kinds of fish, and various squid dishes and preparations, and on and on.  I'm perfectly happy to leave the average-quality lo mein, fried rice, and various incarnations of teriyaki alone and concentrate on the briny goodies.

Except for the aforementioned crab legs.  I don't know what it is about snow crab legs that is such a magnet for gluttons but hey, if a pan of crab legs will draw 'em off the rest of the buffet then cool.
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1 comment:

Andrew said...

I spent Christmas last year at the world's crappiest Asian buffet....
I'll always remember that holiday season -- snowed in here in this crappy small town.

And I never really liked crab. I don't understand why anyone would go through the hassle of breaking open those hard-ass shells. Seems like a lot of work to me.