What's Indian about buffets?

February 4, 2008 5:26 PM

Why do "Indian restaurant" and "all-you-can-eat lunch buffet" go together?

It seems that all or most U.S. Indian restaurants offer all-you-can-eat buffets at lunchtime. There are other buffets -- I can think of some Chinese places and some "American" places that have them, and when I used to live in Baltimore there was a place that served a $7 all-you-can-eat sushi buffet that in retrospect I feel lucky to have survived. But for no other genre of restaurant does the buffet seem as nearly compulsory as it does for Indian.

Why is this? Is there something about Indian food as opposed to Chinese, Mexican, Italian, Thai, etc. that makes it particularly suitable for the steam-table treatment? Are there buffets in restaurants in India? In Indian restaurants outside India and the U.S.? Was there some single entrepreneur in the U.S. who opened the first Indian lunch buffet and inspired everyone else to get on board?

posted by escabeche to Food & Drink (28 answers total)

Maybe so they don't have to hire and train waiters?
posted by mpls2 at 5:31 PM on February 4, 2008

Maybe because many Indian restaurants serve large portions that are meant to be shared, and this doesn't mesh well with the lunchtime crowd.
posted by bizwank at 5:39 PM on February 4, 2008

To increase the sheer level of awesomeness that Indian food brings?

That, or because folks in the US are generally ignorant of the names and contents of Indian food, and so presenting it in buffet style helps us get over the learning curve (we're much better at "ooo, that smells good, I'll try some of that!" than we are at educating ourselves on the foodstuffs of other countries.)
posted by davejay at 5:39 PM on February 4, 2008 [3 favorites]

Is there something about Indian food as opposed to Chinese, Mexican, Italian, Thai, etc. that makes it particularly suitable for the steam-table treatment?

That's certainly could be part of it, yes. Many of the most popular Indian dishes are braises (e.g. chicken tikka masala) or stews. They tend to get better with time spent stewing. Also, it's really easy to re-heat or re-purpose these dishes -- for the chicken tikka at lunch, save whatever is left at lunch, keep it hot, and serve it at dinner.
posted by Cool Papa Bell at 5:42 PM on February 4, 2008

Because in India, "thali" meals are typically all-you-can-eat?

Curries are also meant to be slow-cooked, and are very suitable for buffet presentation. They can be cooked in bulk, and the food can be reheated for weeks on end with no change in the customer experience.

Curries themselves have heaps of flavour for relatively little meat, and if you load them with enough oil, people will feel full very quickly, making it economical for the restauranteur, especially when more than 50% of what people eat is actually rice.
posted by UbuRoivas at 5:44 PM on February 4, 2008

Is there something about Indian food as opposed to Chinese

I've seen a few Chinese all you can eat buffets too.
posted by Lentrohamsanin at 5:50 PM on February 4, 2008

Going along with what UbuRoivas said, most restaurants offer lunch specials and buffets to clear out "inventory" prepared the evening before.

To generalize a bit from Cool Papa Bell's comment, Chinese, Thai and Indian restaurant food tends to be rice with a "main course" that consists of cubed meats or veggies in sauce. These types of meals are a natural for the buffet. Other cuisines in the US tend to have more discrete, presentational main courses—two tacos as opposed to a ladle of vindaloo over two scoops of rice.
posted by infinitewindow at 5:59 PM on February 4, 2008

Incidentally, at least in NW Arkansas and SW Missouri, Chinese restaurants have the monopoly on All You Can Eat buffets. The scattered Indians restaurants...not so much. I was actually surprised to learn otherwise.
posted by Atreides at 6:04 PM on February 4, 2008

Along with what everyone else has said, family style food like this is uniquely suited to a style that lets you try lots of different dishes. We're used to ordering lots of stuff and sharing, right? If you're by yourself, a buffet is the only way to have a similar experience.
posted by kingjoeshmoe at 6:07 PM on February 4, 2008

I don't know about the all-you-can-eat aspect, but yes, generally Indian food is very well-suited to the steam-table treatment. Indian food is often simmered for up to 4 hours to allow the spices to blend with the other ingredients before it's considered ready to be served, and only improves after more time has passed. Keeping it on low heat for several hours will do nothing to degrade the taste or texture.
posted by fuzzbean at 6:08 PM on February 4, 2008

Asian food in general is usually rice with sides of meat, veges, seafood, fish, etc etc. You take your rice, and you pick and choose. Chinese food tends to have more sole dishes too, but the buffet style is definitely there. Indian food also has standalone dishes (the breads - naan, pratha, chapati, etc).

Will disagree about training waiters - you'll get served by all sorts of waiters in a Malaysian Indian restaurant/mamak stall even if they have the buffet thing.
posted by divabat at 6:27 PM on February 4, 2008

Just to throw a few reasons out there:
1) Indians really like buffets. I can't count the number of buffets I've been to in India for special occasions, even at really fancy places. There's just not the same stigma attached to buffets as there is here. At most restaurants, even non-buffet ones, eating family style is the norm. It's a very small step from there to a buffet.
2) Like Cool Papa Bell said a lot of Indian food actually gets better by sitting out there, unlike say fried chicken or pork chops.
3) Buffets to me are the most like what Indian meals are like at home. A bunch of dishes sitting out on a table and people helping themselves in whatever order they choose. There's no concept of separate courses so the appetizer, soup, entree, dessert system doesn't lend itself very readily to Indian food.
posted by peacheater at 6:29 PM on February 4, 2008 [1 favorite]

This is total speculation, but their might be a cultural relationship to the practice of Langar. Most Indian restaurants in the US are Punjabi; the Punjab is the heartland of Sikhism.
posted by mr_roboto at 6:30 PM on February 4, 2008

It's a money thing. We like to get the most for our dollar, and if you can eat more, the food technically gets cheaper.
posted by spiderskull at 7:07 PM on February 4, 2008

Maybe since Indian food has been a *relatively* recent introduction to mainstream american diets, a buffet is an easier way for newcomers to sample a whole bunch of different stuff instead of having to commit to one entree that they aren't familiar with.
posted by ian1977 at 7:19 PM on February 4, 2008

The national dish in Nepal is called dhal baht, and it is served on a huge (read: car tyre sized) dish with separate compartments for rice, dhal, curry, and pickle. Half way through eating it, the waiter will approach with a steaming dish and fill up anything you've eaten until you're well and truly stuffed.

This is Nepal, not India, but I can tell you that the all-you-can-eat deal isn't just a Western marketing thing, as it's definitely all the rage there.
posted by twirlypen at 8:48 PM on February 4, 2008

twirlypen: that's the Nepali equivalent of the thali, or of the banana-leaf meals in the south of India. Eat-until-you-can-eat-no-more is the rule.
posted by UbuRoivas at 9:08 PM on February 4, 2008

Most Indian places here in Japan are also all-you-can-eat, so it's not just an American thing. I'd have to go with the idea that curries and such are easily cooked in large batches relatively cheaply, so it's an economical way to go.

And it's delicious.
posted by Jhoosier at 9:18 PM on February 4, 2008

Because Indian food is often variations on a basic set of ingredients, so easy to prepare, amend, keep, all the stuff others have said.

Though I must say All You Eat Pizza seems more common and typical to me.
posted by A189Nut at 4:56 AM on February 5, 2008

nthing that it's at least partially because of the inverse law of buffet food. Nearly all food gets worse the longer it sits on a steam table, however, the inverse is true for indian food.
posted by craven_morhead at 6:11 AM on February 5, 2008

Mongolian restaurants are similar but through in a slight twist....you pick out the raw ingredients and take them up to an hibachi style grill and they cook it for you. (this has atleast been the experience of most Mongolian restaurants I've been to).

This alone kind of makes me believe that cultural restaurants try to imitate their successful competitors. (as evident with General Tso, which is a dish that was invented here in the U.S. and copied by virtually every other Chinese resturant). In the case of Indian food, I have been to take out places as well that make-to-order and don't offer a buffet...the gist is that you're paying more for less as a customer, and unless the place is REALLY REALLY good it isn't going to survive as the demand for Indian food is not as high as Chinese in most areas in the U.S. (I'd assume...but I do believe the market is growing very fast).

This is why I think buffets work, pretty much for the same reasons mentioned by other responses above. It's lower overhead and cheaper for the customer for what they get. The menus are pretty much named the same (though the food can still be prepared entirely differently). But due to the copy-cat effect we also see with Chinese restaurants, an American has a better customer experience when they know what to expect.
posted by samsara at 8:28 AM on February 5, 2008

erm... There are plenty of Indians and Indian restaurants in the UK. Indian buffets, not so much -- plenty of Chinese ones mind.

It's definitely a USian thing...
posted by electriccynic at 10:00 AM on February 5, 2008

electriccynic: As noted above, Indian buffets are common in Asia, so it's most definitely *not* just an American thing.

I find the lack of cultural awareness here rather embarrassing...not so much in the question but in many of the answers!
posted by divabat at 5:11 PM on February 5, 2008 [1 favorite]

I think he was inferring that by combining US and Asian into USian.
posted by samsara at 11:02 PM on February 5, 2008

No. USian is what annoying people call Americans. Sorry, Canada.
posted by mr_roboto at 11:08 PM on February 5, 2008

Tiffin/dabbawala services are, in essence, individuated buffets: whatever's being cooked that day, divvied out and delivered.

Indian buffets, not so much

Well, it depends. The Sunday lunch buffet at Indian restaurants in the UK is pretty well established in certain places, as I took advantage of it at college [mumble] years ago.
posted by holgate at 11:38 PM on February 5, 2008

No. USian is what annoying people call Americans. Sorry, Canada.

Hey I just read that link and found out USian is deragatory! *shakes fist at electriccynic*
posted by samsara at 7:07 AM on February 6, 2008

Eh. It's not necessarily derogatory. Many people, especially in Canada and certain corners of South America, feel the need for a separate adjective distinguishing "of/from the United States of America" from "of/from somewhere else in the western hemisphere", simply for clarity's sake. In fact, Spanish has such a term, estadounidense. (at least, according to the Spanish class I took in middle school in Michigan it does. . . .)

Of course, the fact that the USA isn't the only country known as the United States of X could make this not-particularly-clarifying, but. . .
posted by FlyingMonkey at 2:39 PM on February 20, 2008