Flied Rice.

Let me start by saying that my least favorite thing about Idaho and Utah is their lack of good chinese food. Some house special lo mein is sometimes just what the doctor ordered but it is hard to find anywhere in Idaho or Utah that has any lo mein that is up to par.

Ah, but I am in Indiana. An abundance of cheap and great chinese food is nearly every mile. Fantastic! Last night, I ventured to the all encompassing Chinese buffet. A few questions arise from my experience there. Before I dive into that however, I thought I'd share that when I was little, I used to go to the China Buffet with my mom and we always went to the same one. I was obsessed with wonton soup and the little crunchy chinese noodles. So my mom would get the buffet, and I would get soup. The owners of the restaurant caught on and got to the point where they wouldn't even charge us for my soup. How nice :) (BTW, I think soup was my go to food as a child...soup with lots of crunchy things in it.)

So we ventured to the buffet. It was 9pm so it's always "risky", as Charles put it, to go to a buffet so late at night. The food has been sitting out for who knows how long. Everything looked fresh so we decided to jump in head first.

Question number one: Why do we need new plates EVERY time we go back to the buffet? I know it is for sanitary reasons, but what are those reasons? So I googled it. Of course. Google knows everything right? Okay, well actually, us smart humans know things that the Google search engine finds and Voila. Here's what I got: if you take a dirty plate back up to the buffet line, there is risk for you contaminating the food. Okay. Makes sense I guess.

Question number two: Did you know that french fries, fried zucchini, texas toast, and chicken nuggets are chinese food! They seem to be on every chinese buffet I go to and this one is no different. I enjoy the fact that I can get some beef and broccoli with a side of french fries. That's America folks.

So, that was my lovely night at the China Buffet. YUM.

PS. Ham should never be an ingredient in chinese food. Ever.