An ode to the SAB
super asian buffet / sketchy asian buffet / sus asian buffet / sad asian buffet
My first SAB was named New King’s Buffet. The things that stand out most in my memory are the colors: the green trimming along the windows, the large sign. The curling script that spelled out the name of the restaurant, a dark yellow. The bright red-orange of the crab that my parents would wait anxiously for the restaurant staff to restock; the floppy, watery sticks of white flesh that they heaped onto my plate after they had cracked the legs open with their bare hands and the tines of a fork. The thick, oily browns of kung pao chicken, stir-fried beef, floury noodles flavored with only soy sauce and MSG. The machine-piped flowers on those chunks of frosted white cake, glowing with vibrant blues, greens, and reds. Red fish laid over white rice, sliced so thin it always looked pink, and then drowned in creamy white mayonnaise. The bright orange and pink and brown of the little cake squares that sat in orderly rows, covered with a thick layer of oily cream and then a sheen of translucent jelly; the way they tasted exactly like their colors: sickly orange and plasticky strawberry and coffee so sweet it scratched the edges of my throat as it went down. The cubes of strawberry jello — a wobbling, translucent red.
At best, the food was mediocre; at worst, each bite was a dangerous gamble with food poisoning.
I loved it.
There was something magical about this infinite stream of food, not quite the feasts my grandmothers would cook for me back in Taiwan; not quite the aggressively sauced meat that Applebee’s served by the ounce. The four members of my family would step into the darkly lit dining room of New King’s Buffet and reemerge transformed by the copious amounts of shellfish and soy sauce in our stomachs: petty arguments settled, our worries temporarily forgotten. Or, at least, that’s how it felt to me.
Inside, the real world shrank. We had paid our $15 for dinner, and now, the only thing that mattered was making the most out of the money we had already spent. It was a game. Not just a physical one — how much you could cram into your empty stomach — but also a strategic one. What foods to start with, so you wouldn’t fill up too soon. Which foods to avoid completely — fried chicken was frowned upon; fried rice was a hard no.
But good things never last. In 2020, New King’s Buffet shut down, weakened by the slow, steady erosion of its customer base that began with the birth of Makoto — a newer, mildly-pricier SAB in the area with a fancier-sounding name— and finally felled by the swift attack of the coronavirus. Today, in its place, a Panda Express stands — serving a fraction of the same food with none of the freedom, the unbridled joy.
It wasn’t until after I arrived at college that I realized this wasn’t an experience unique to my childhood. That many of my friends, Asian and otherwise, had their own version of New King’s Buffet back home — their own SAB, a term that I coined maybe 30 minutes ago.
Super Asian Buffet, because a SAB is indeed a buffet that is super Asian, but also an Asian buffet that is super, in the same way that a supermarket is a market that is super. In the same way that we call someone superhuman when they seem so powerful they can’t possibly just be human.
Sketchy Asian Buffet. Sus Asian Buffet. Because, really, how do they serve that much seafood at such low prices? (Potentially) Shitty Asian Buffet, because, again, how do they serve that much seafood at such low prices?
Sad Asian Buffet, because maybe, it’s a reminder of whatever childhood magic I no longer possess, now that I’m old enough to check myself into a hotel and drink and gamble and a whole list of other things that the magical doors of 21 unlock for you. Because, even as I ramble on about how wonderful New King’s Buffet was — the spell it could cast on my elementary-schooler brain — do I really remember how it was back then? Do I still know how it felt to be seven years old; to push open the glass doors and step into the clouds of hibachi smoke, to hear my parents ask the waiters for a table for four; to parade along the rows of glistening meats and vegetables slick with oil, empty plate clutched in my fingers like Pandora’s Box?
When I went home for spring break, my family and I went to Makoto. The prices had grown, but so had the variety of food. They had sashimi now, and steamed oysters, and both steamed and deep-fried crab. And yet, as much as I wanted to convince myself that it was the same, it really wasn’t.
For starters, my parents are vegetarian now, which meant that the only things they could fill their plates with were veggie stir-fried noodles, steamed broccoli, and oil-soaked tempura. And because they no longer felt the need to peel crab for us, because they know my sister and I are old enough to figure out the geometry of a crab leg — to find the softest part of the shell, calculate the best angle to stab a fork into it — and because my sister never liked crab enough to invest the effort required to extricate the meat, I was the only one piling crab legs onto my plate. As my dad speared a floppy carrot with his fork, my mom started on an orange, and my sister declared she was full, I pried open the spiny shells alone, pulling out the soft swathes of meat and letting the salty juices leave sticky traces across my palm.
“Let’s never come here again,” someone said after the meal — I don’t remember who, but definitely not me. The food had not been perfect. The sashimi was warm and slightly grainy, the crab legs tiny and waterlogged, the oysters flavorless despite the faint brushing of black bean sauce across their tops. In a past life, I would’ve loved it regardless. But now, I found myself nodding along as everybody agreed to choose another restaurant next time, even though it felt like a betrayal. Maybe it was the maturing of my taste buds, or the vague awareness of things like calories and sodium levels and blood sugar that social media had imposed onto me. Maybe I just wasn’t feeling well that day. Or maybe it was because, even as I was sitting there with my family, I felt strangely alone. Like I was the only one truly living the SAB experience.
Maybe the story I’m telling is just a shell, the powdery remains of a crab leg heaped on my dad’s empty plate. Maybe, being three times her age, I no longer have the right to tap into the mind of seven-year-old Susan, to write like I understand her — because maybe, I don’t. Not anymore.
Stupid Asian Buffet, because the amount of food there is really stupid, and maybe everyone who goes there is a little bit stupid, because it can’t possibly be good for you — or maybe because you make stupid decisions, like getting a fifth plate when you could barely finish your fourth. Satisfying Asian Buffet, because how could anyone walk into a palace of infinite food of infinite varieties and not come out satisfied?
Susan’s Asian Buffet, maybe, if we’re being self-indulgent, but, again, this is not something that just belongs to me. Over the years, I’ve exchanged the same stories with my friends from different cities: stories of Asian parents scolding us for plates filled with too many carbohydrates, of stuffing ourselves to the point of throwing up, of favorite dishes and least favorite dishes — because somehow, even thousands of miles apart, every SAB somehow manages to serve some permutation of the exact same foods.
And so, today, on our way back to campus from a retreat, we decided to go to a SAB. I let myself forget about the strangeness of my spring break SAB visit; how the familiarity felt foreign. Finding one was easy enough; navigating through the suburban traffic lights of Malden, Mass. to get there was somewhat harder.
The Flaming Grill Buffet was different than I’d imagined. Instead of the booths that graced the SABs of my hometown, it was lined with almost industrial-seeming rows of folding tables and wooden chairs. The ceiling was lit up with strips of neon blue, and the dishes of food were organized in disjoint strips across the middle instead of snaking around the room like they did at home. But when we sat down and the waiter approached us with the same water cups as they had at New King’s Buffet and at Makoto — the clear, blue ones; bumpy on the outside, smooth on the inside; inscribed with “Coca-Cola” in curving white letters — I knew that everything was the same.
But different, too, because here I was, with people who have never seen me cry over a botched piano performance, but who have seen me learn the ukulele in two months and then perform it (badly) on stage. People who have never seen me do a cartwheel, who have never watched me play in a tennis match, but have seen me running down the Infinite whenever I’m late for class. People who have never sang the entire first act of the Jekyll and Hyde musical with me from end to end, but who have cooked 30-person meals with me, who have sat with me through infinite hours of movies and stupid TV shows, who have watched me stay up until sunrise working through some problem set.
Different, because this restaurant didn’t have the crab legs that defined my SAB experience back home, but they did have raw oysters, which I first tried at Viale down Mass Ave for $1 each and then immediately fell in love with. Different, but the same, because there I was again, heaping seafood onto my plate: stacks of oysters, splotches of cocktail sauce, the occasional wedge of lemon. The same, but different, because there was a voice that urged everyone to load up on the seafood, to stop wasting their stomachs on fried bread and rice, but this time, it was my voice, and not my mom’s. Different, because then we laughed about it, and all went on eating the things we wanted to anyway. The same, because I kept snapping pictures of each plate that I ate, but different, because I stopped when I wanted to, not when I had to. The same, because I decided to end my meal with the red jello — like I always did — but different, because we all agreed that it wouldn’t be right for me to not have one final oyster, would it? The same, because the waiter came over and asked us if we were done — in Chinese — but different, because the person she asked was me, and not my dad. Different, because maybe we hadn’t actually “defeated” the buffet — cost them more than they cost us — but the same, because we walked out dazed and stuffed and happy.
Different, but the same, because I was reminded of why I first fell in love with the SAB. Because you can take all the time you want, deciding if you want to spend the rest of your stomach space on the cheesy mussels or the ones soaked in sweet-sour sauce; if you want to have a slice of the chocolate cake or the vanilla one. There appear to be infinite options, but really, as long as you pace yourself, you can try at least a little bit of everything that you want before making a decision. There is no ticking clock, no time bomb. There is no reason to decide now, because the SAB will still be there in five minutes, in ten. Because the bright-red glazed fish and slightly burnt chicken skewers probably won’t disappear — and even if they do, they’ll be refilled soon. There’s no need to worry about them running out; about other SAB-enjoyers stealing the whole tray. A SAB meal is never a competition. It is a shared experience.
As my time at MIT slowly crawls to an end, it’s hard to think about all the things I haven’t tried. Because I’ve been burnt out, or because I forgot to log a deadline into my Google Calendar, or because I didn’t pass a resume screen — or because I simply didn’t have time.
The same, because you come in as a freshman, or as a hungry diner, and everything looks bright and shiny and appealing. The chicken glazed with sticky orange sauce, or the golden sesame balls still hot from the fryer; a club for that thing you’ve always wanted to try, a lab exploring the one idea that keeps you awake at night.
Different, because a SAB isn’t going anywhere during your meal, but MIT never stops for anyone. This is something I’m still struggling to come to terms with. Did I meet all of the people that I was destined to meet, experience all the things that I would’ve wanted to do? Or did one of the countless mistakes I’ve made accidentally sever the red string that would’ve led me to a subject I was truly passionate about, an activity that could’ve become the backbone of my life? At the end of the day, did I do MIT right?
Different, but the same, because something might seem like the right way to do a SAB. Seafood, beef, no carbohydrates. Four plates, filled to the brim, minimum. But is there really a right way? Is there really a rule? Does it really matter what you’ve missed out on if, in the end, you’re happy?
Different, because I went to Flaming Grill Buffet today, instead of King’s Buffet, or Makoto. Different, because I can tell people I live in Boston and they know exactly where that is; because I don’t have to spend five minutes explaining that no, I’m not from the nation’s capital, but from the state with the same name; that no, my Vancouver is in Washington, not Canada.
Different, because I am now 21, not seven. Because I have now been to four countries, instead of two. Because instead of six states, I have now been to 19. Because I have wandered through a city at 2 a.m., because I have performed surgery on a mouse’s brain, because I have been to a bar. Because even though I never dream in Chinese anymore, I’ve started to speak it to myself in my head because I know how much it matters. Because people continue to shift in and out of my life, even as they stay in my mind, my habits, the way I think. Because I am starting to understand who I am not, even if I still don’t understand who I am.
The same, because wherever I am — Boston or Vancouver, SAB or MIT — I’ll always be trying to figure out how to live in a way that makes me happy. Different, because my definition of happiness continues to change every day, but the same, because I’ll never stop trying to figure it out. And because, at least for now, I think the SAB is going to keep its place in my heart.
Today, as I made my way through my fourth plate of oysters, it was easy to forget that I’d ever been unhappy. And I thought they were pretty good oysters too — bigger than the ones at Viale; soft and fresh-tasting, with a slight hint of the sea.