School Lunch

Not all schools offer their students pre-packaged industrial goop. The last school I worked for had a cook staff on hand, preparing every meal by hand. Some stuff came out of cans, but a lot of it was good. I miss the chili cheese fries. Pasta wasn't bad by half.

Yum Yum Diner

If you take the 215 freeway North through Riverside, you'll see a small restaurant off to the side as you pass the La Cadena Drive exit in Colton.

Yum Yum Diner. I liked the name. Reviews on Yelp seemed to do the place justice. It wasn't too far from a Denny's, so obviously they're doing one or two things right to stay in business. Prices are decent.

When I visited Yum Yum, something inspired to order a dish that never crossed my palate before. Liver and onions. Well, whatever else may be said, they certainly did a decent job of preparing it. The liver was strong, but it wasn't unbearable. Leaving it to the professionals this time around paid off. Don't remind me of the time I tried to cook beef kidney!

New China Buffet

This is unofficially my 100th post, but that includes a few edits. It's the 90th. Either way I decided to put up a post with lots of photos and less writing.

Last October I stopped by New China Buffet, another inexpensive all-you-can-eat establishment in San Bernardino. Lunch runs for $6.99 including soft drinks, tea, and coffee.

The wasabi was creamier than usual. I wouldn't go here for the sushi in any case.

At this point the wait staff became irritated with me and stopped collecting my empty plates. 

Some may debate the quality, but the quantity's certainly abundant.

Local Competiton

Matt Stonie and I have this ongoing conversation about the relative value of buffets. He thinks I should avoid Hometown Buffet. When a new Asian buffet recently opened in Colton, I decided to take the Megatoad's advice.

This place is a bit on the small side physically. Given the local restaurant scene, they have their work cut out for them. Located off the Washington St-Mt Vernon Ave exit on the 215 freeway, they're smack dab in the middle of about 20 fast-food joints, sit-down establishments, Starbucks Coffee, Walmart, and about a block away from an established all-you-can-eat sushi restaurant.

Three miles east in San Bernardino you'll hit Hospitality Lane, where you'll see about 35 restaurants including the infamous King Buffet. Buffet Star needs to make an impression around here.

I spent about an hour dining here. My visit occurred on the first Saturday they were in operation, two days after their grand opening on March 24. Weekend meals are priced at $10.95, weekday lunch is $6.95, and weekday dinners run $9.95. Given the neighborhood, the prices seem reasonable.

As per my typical habit at Asian buffets, I started with sushi.


This was better than I expected. Most $10-12 buffets that I've frequented don't put out much raw fish. They typically dole out mostly California rolls, but here they were rolling out tuna and salmon in addition to imitation crab. They were fresh too. As far as value went, this was probably my best sushi haul since discovering Daikoku Japanese Steak House in Victorville with its $15 all-you-can-eat sushi roll special.

The Caterpillar Rolls were excellent. The nigiri was very fresh. Some of the sashimi strips more closely resembled large insects than pieces of sushi. Their wasabi was nice and strong. The avocado was plentiful.


A crowded plate with some 24 pieces. They were large portions.


At this point, the sushi chef noticed that I had been to the serving station several times. He wanted to make sure I liked the food! Well, I was honest.


The salt-and-pepper shrimp was a bit greasy but well done.

And more.


The egg roll, sesame balls, and cream cheese wantons were all fresh. There's also one piece of nigiri on this plate. Couldn't resist one final raw parting gift.


The requisite fruit plate. Watermelon was my favorite selection.


My evil sugar habit finally asserts itself. Coconut macaroons, chocolate pudding, banana creme pudding, brownie, and cake square. "Sweet Tooth" would have been proud of this plate - and the two following.

Instead of the standard soft serve machine, this place has a deep freezer with huge canisters of real ice cream and serving scoops. I appreciated the difference.


No better way to end a meal than with 8 scoops of ice cream, a pile of cookies, a brownie, and vanilla pudding. Those last two plates were awesome.

Honestly, I had no idea no much I'd eaten at that point. Buffets should install scales at their tables. Sometimes it's best to play it safe, so I stopped here and finished my glass of water.

This place needs to stick around. It's got some good stuff. All 11 plates' worth.

Matt was right... avoiding the $5 breakfast paid off big time.

110....

As in pieces of sushi. Not the freeway running through Pasadena.


This is the largest certified dose of sushi I have crossed paths with. There were California rolls, nigiri pieces, and legitimate raw fish thrown in for good measure. It went down at King Buffet in San Bernardino, so suffice it to say that the meal didn't end with these four plates.

Another day, I'll challenge the plate record at Sushilicious in Irvine, CA. Johnnie Excel pushed it to 60, and then Stephanie Torres pressed it to 61. Well... 62 is a steep mountain to climb, but such mountains have been climbed before.

Gotta put on my hiking boots and head to Orange County.

I gotta give a big shout-out to Donsturdy.com for their video of my attempt at the Kitchen Sink at San Francisco Creamery. Awesome guys - totally into competitive eating and food fighting. I see big things for them this year.

More about the Kitchen Sink next time!

Feeling Rustic

For a total refreshment, this post won't be about over-the-board engorgement. It will be about food. Cheap food that I've eaten time and again.

Trevor's Rustic Inn in San Bernardino, CA serves a $5.99 steak dinner Wednesday and Saturday evenings. It's a price most people can't believe, with a taste that gives you a lot of value for your dollar. This isn't mass-produced buffet slop. It is quite good.

You get an 8 oz sirloin slab of meat cooked any way you want it, a salad, vegetables, baked potato, and dinner roll.

It can be satisfying to eat a meal without walking away feeling like an over-inflated balloon.

Though a nagging question keeps rising up in the back of my mind.

How many of these dinners could one man eat?

Pancake Gauntlet

Friday evening found me visiting the International House of Pancakes in San Bernardino. For several years now, the annual $4.99 all-you-can-eat pancake had rolled through without attracting too much attention. 2011 would be different. Mostly because the smaller challenges don't really.... well.... pose a challenge for me.

This is the year to push things a little bit further. No better way than to dive into pancakes. It's not a food that especially strikes my fancy. I have difficulty with grains and starches so I knew this would push my tolerance.


The delivery concept is simple enough. Your server brings you three pancakes and follows up with three more at a time until you've had enough. This is remarkably similar to the AYCE program Denny's runs with their own pancakes.

Anyone hoping to achieve hot cake greatness is going to need to speed up the process considerably if they're hoping to put up some big numbers. You can't just spend 3-4 hours waiting for small orders of buttermilk pancakes to arrive.

So I told the server I wanted 30 pancakes.

The look on her face was priceless. I wish someone had a camera handy. She told me they could bring out six at a time, but even then the process wasn't terribly rapid. I would wait long moments after finishing my first few orders. That was precious time lost! Instead of just sitting there letting your stomach settle, you need to keep eating.


Just looking at these pictures makes me feel heavy. The experience was roughly what you would expect. Easy in the beginning, but increasingly brutal as time wears on. I used maple and strawberry syrup to vary the taste but that only goes so far. The buttermilk is overpowering and the texture is eventually unappealing. :(

For a change of pace, I reported my progress via Mobile Facebook during the eating process. When I completed 27 pancakes, that was already a personal best. But I needed to push. Had to break 30... so one more order was brought out.

33 pancakes was all that I could stand. Done and done. Ironically, all the food I consumed probably did not exceed 2.5 lbs. Bread is simply a different animal. Give me 10 lbs of ice cream any day.

According to the IHOP menu, each order of 3 pancakes packs an impressive 490 calories. Did I really put down almost 5400 calories?? It didn't feel like it.

The server was amazed. But apparently the record for that IHOP location was an astounding 70 pancakes, consumed by an anonymous male.

11,000+ calories in pancakes? Flour? That's ludicrous. But still, no candidate for the 20k Club.

As far as pancakes go, I'm done. Check back with me in a year.