Originally Posted by
SKT-DK
Why is that any different compared to any other buffet? - I would hazard the statement that the only thing that can make it sanitary questionable is the people using it. But people using their hands to pick up things is a problem of any buffet no matter where.
I am in general not a fan of buffet. I will actively avoid restaurants which advertise buffet lunch or similar.
For once, as you said, a lot of people don't care about basic things like washing their hands, sneezing over the trays, touching everything with their fingers instead of using the serving tools etc. For air line lounges, it is even worse. So many random people walking by and handling the food... and at the same time the serving sizes in the SK lounges are huge. If you compare it to e.g. LX or LH lounges, they put up small offerings of the same stuff up and replace if very frequently. In the SK lounge they put like 10kg of noodle salad and let is simmer under in the open to grow gems for half a day before replacing it.
The cheese wheel is particular disgusting as it is cheese which should be cooled and on that wheel it is luke warm by 9am. Next to the cheese might spoil eventually, the hand-warm cheese tastes horrible in my opinion. At the same time you see people grabbing the cheese-block with their bare hands to hold it since they do not trust the wire contraption to keep the block in place when they cut it. After a couple of hours.... *brrrr*
The other reason I avoid buffets is a different story, not applicable to air line lounges or hotel breakfasts but for a lot of Swedish restaurants. Seems buffet is still en vogue here, even if the rest of the world moved on end of the 70s... If I go out for lunch or dinner, I want the chef to create a meal for me. Things which go well together so I have a pleasant eating experience. I do not want to self-mix my meals and have a plate full of random stuff which doesn't go together.
All of that might sound that I'm very picky and difficult to please. That is wrong, if I get simple but tasty food served under sanitary conditions, I'm fine. By the way, using a bit of caution like this over the last 15 years traveling to the worst places of this fair blue planet, I wasn't sick because of food-borne illness once!
Can't say that to some of my colleagues, one of them is always super proud that he eats everything, from every street-vendor in every part of the world. And guess what, he has been med evaced not just once. And still doesn't learn. I started not sending him to places outside of developed countries for that reason. And now he is complaining the other people get to eat the good authentic stuff
