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Buffets around here are strictly a proletarian thing -- your choice is all-you-can-eat Chinese, all-you-can-eat fried seafood, or all-you-can-eat KFC. I can't even begin to imagine what an upscale "all you can eat" place would be like. All-you-can-eat avocado toast?
The Marriott I referenced did an all you can eat lobster buffet that was - when I was growing up - quite expensive, so we never went.
In my twenties, a girlfriend's parents took me to a all-you-can-eat brunch buffet at the Waldorf Astoria and it was a bit like a Roman Bacchanalia.
There were long and large tables overflowing with food - a table with every brunch pastry you could image, a table piled high with every kind of fruit, another table with seafood (all fresh shrimp, lobster, crab, etc.), a "carving" station of several meats (roast beef, turkey, ham), an omelette "station" where a chef (in full regalia) would make you an omelette to order (the choice of ingredients - all there - were incredible), ditto a pasta "station," ditto a pancake and waffle "station," plus tables of cereals, more eggs, sushi, more things I'm forgetting and, then, several tables of sweets - cakes, cookies, ice-cream (I think a sundae "bar"), puddings, petite fours, candies, Italian pastries and on and on.
It was all opulently displayed - on tablecloth-covered tables, in attractive serving dishes with flowers everywhere and several ice sculptures. There were many waiters/waitresses to whisk any used plates or napkins away (and fresh napkins, cloth of course, just appeared when you were up getting food). Soft drinks - juices, sodas, etc., - where included as where mimosas and Bloody Mary's, other alcohol drinks were extra if memory serves.
There was a string quartet playing off to the side.
It was all overwhelming and a bit crazy. I'm sure I'm forgetting some of the foods as the tables went on and on. Not my thing, but I am glad I experienced it once in my life.
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