Many of you may think that the value of a meal lies in the quantity one is served or has access to for a price. One may also make some room for ambience and service standards but portion size (and thus, satiety) remains an important way to arrive at an overall satisfaction quotient for any meal.
If you are nodding in disagreement then congratulations, you have good taste. For, if you notice, I didn’t mention quality and by quality I mean the objective gustative characteristics of a dish, as prepared by the chef, with presentation and plating all accounted for.
I can share that in the era I grew up, a good meal was a big one, with so many dishes that one couldn’t recall exactly how many one had tried by the end of a meal. To have eaten well meant to feel stuffed. The notion of dining out was centred on the idea of extracting value from a restaurant for every rupee spent.
We’ve come a long way since; gastronomy has evolved, but sadly, the family dining rituals haven’t. So inherent had the concept of a buffet become that to even imagine eating a la carte was to be considered reckless. For most parts, I am the black sheep of my family, no matter how often I try to pry them with a dinner.
So why do I, someone who eats and drinks for a living, despise buffets? Quality, for one, I still contend is highly sacrificed, first when the dish is prepared and next when it is left unattended to in a chaffing dish where is dries and dies even further. Next, a crowded buffet unsettles me; I can’t be bothered to wait in line for food or worse yet, for replenishment. Having said that, I do concede that places like 360 at The Oberoi and K3 at JW Marriott do ensure that portions are never too large and always replenished if left there too long so they are among the best buffets in town.
But my final gripe with a buffet is not so easily addressed: the variety of food is so vast and unconnected (Indian and Italian to Chinese and every other civilisation in-between) that I always come out feeling stuffed but not satisfied. Call it genetic greed but buffets remind me why my girlfriend jests that the eyes are bigger than the stomach.
An extension of this fear is my related apprehension of dining/gastronomy clubs/groups, call them what you may: Sure they are great for people who enjoy a once-in-a-while good meal in a fancy restaurant with amiable people and at affable prices; to that extent, they serve a market rather well but for someone as exigent as me, I just can’t bring myself to believe that a chef with a 50-seater restaurant can churn out 40-something courses simultaneously and not lose something in delivery. No restaurant, at least no fine dining place, is ever equipped to shell out any single dish/course at club-size consumption scales in one go. Sure enough Indian food may be easier to be served in such large quantities, Chinese too, and maybe even certain Italian preparations; but for most parts, cuisines like French and Japanese allow no such softening of standards and to ensure the high quality that the patrons at this level demand and expect, it is, to my mind, impossible to go in a group any larger than say 8 or 10 and enjoy the best possible meal. This is perhaps also my attempt at justifying why I am not a member of any social gourmet gathering. Yet.
À la carte, by comparison, may not provide the same bonhomie but it certainly affords more of a cherished commodity, privacy. The selections may be less varied and the check, considerably higher, but it is still the most uncompromised way to be entertained by a skilled chef. With smaller portions, the chef can dedicate more time to each plate. Even with a packed house the chances that everyone is on the same course are slim so the scattered cooking and service schedule make the chef’s job easier.
Table d’hôte, a lost art, needs resuscitating, for its versatility at combining the virtues of a buffet with the precision of a la carte. Till that happens, opt for smaller dining groups and be wary of exactly what type of food (and not just how much) you are really paying for.
(mail@magandeepsingh.com)