Personally, I always thought it would be magical to eat all the lobster I could. And much to my great delight, Orlando is blessed with a half dozen or so “All-you-can-eat” Lobster feasts. So after days, even weeks, of putting that thought out of my mind, I never-the-less decided the time had come to live the fantasy. We studied all the ads, read reviews on line, and made our selection and picked our date night. Dinner time approached and we pulled into the parking lot of the restaurant we had selected, but just before going in, we ducked in to one of those discount ticket places next to it to see about some tickets for Sea World the next day.
Before wrapping up that discussion I asked, “ So how’s the buffet next door?”
I expected to hear that it was great. The sign looked nice. The reviews had been stellar. But the guy behind the counter hung his head and, more or less talking to the floor, answered me with a single word, “Terrible….”
Long story short, he sent us off in another direction and so the Boston Lobster Fest became the new dinner destination. Nice looking place. Nice looking buffet. Instructions given. On your mark, get set, go!
Admittedly we did not waste much time “getting into it.” Marilyn’s first plate was filled with lobster and lots of snow crab legs. I took a more measured course filling my first plate with oysters, mussels, and clams. Also on the line and tasted by me were Maine steamer clams, hard shell crabs, fish of all types (mostly broiled), scallops, and just about everything seafood you could hope for. But this was to be a night of magic, fantasy and focus, so off to the lobster line I went, again and again and again and again and again and again and yet again. Count the “agains” and you’ll know how many lobsters I ate before my personal capacity meter registered full. After one lobster, Marilyn took the safe route and ate only crab, which she does prefer. Crabs on the line come as gigantic legs, some in clusters, some as singles, but not what you would term as “countable.” I know her! This choice made her feast less measurable and therefore even more enjoyable.
What we can tell you for sure is that the price we paid was a mere pittance of what we consumed in any way you care to measure. We didn’t even take the time to tie the bibs on. The waiter did issue his mandatory reminder that crab and lobster are messy, but we told him, as we kept eating, that we had lived in Maine for lots of years, so if we did mess up our go-to-dinner duds we would simple “wear it” out proudly when we left the place. (Actually, even I stayed fairly clean.)
So perhaps this was an all you can eat night. But perhaps it was true gluttony at its finest hour. The difference between the two is what makes one memorable and the other not so. If you are reading this- you, too, have gone to the buffet and come home more than full. I’m sure you enjoyed it at the time, but the real question is, “Do you REMEMBER it?” Because a buffet all the time is merely overeating, whereas a rare indulgence in the sublime is a noteworthy occasion. I have eaten at Country Buffet. Good. But not memorable. Chinese? Many times. Good. Not memorable. And so on.
I am reminded of a few such memorable times. There was the time my parents took me to the all you can eat shrimp buffet at the old Shillington diner. I ate nothing but shrimp. The next time I went there they had closed. Some say it was a family issue but I’m pretty sure I finished them off with all the shrimp I ate. Then there was the night in Honduras when Marilyn ate what was surely a two pound prime rib at dinner before we went to another restaurant to watch the heavyweight prize fight on their large screen TV and she promptly ate an enormous hamburger and a plate of fries. Whenever I recount that story, she always adds, “I needed rare meat,” so I include it here as part and parcel to the truth. I am also reminded of the first time I ever came to Florida and came across an all you can eat lasagna deal; the waitress brought me my first ice cube sized piece of cold lasagna and NEVER came back to the table. After two hours, another server came over to tell me, basically, “Yes it was all you can eat, and we have no more , so that IS all you can eat.” Not everything is memorable for the same reason. And finally I am reminded of my mother’s story from her childhood. Loved fried eggs. Could never get enough, and one day told my grandfather,
“Just once I would like to eat my fill of fried eggs.”
My grandfather’s response to that was to buy a flat of huge duck eggs and make her eat every one of them. Maybe that’s why I can’t recall my mother eating eggs too many times in my house growing up.
Have you ever really thought about “pigging out” as a momentous time in your life? Where were you when Kennedy was shot? When Princess Di died? When Man first stepped on the moon? When you ate all the lobster you ever dreamed of eating? Where were you then?
We had a marvelous two days at Sea World. Retail price? About 250 bucks. But we didn’t pay that. We did the classic discount ticket routine known to all, or at least darn near all, who come to Orlando with theme parks on the agenda. Here’s how the deal works. Stop in at any, or every, place that advertises “Discount Park Tickets.” It really doesn’t matter what park (or show) you want to visit- Disney, Epcot, Sea World, Bush Gardens, you name it. See what they have to offer. The basic premise is that if you will give them a couple hours of your time during which time they will try to sell you a timeshare, a condo, a new house, a cruise, what have you, they will then reward your time with discounted, and in some cases free, tickets for anywhere you want to go. We visited the Westgate Timeshare project. It was a gorgeous property and we did learn a lot by spending our time there. Admittedly we were curious and did ask questions so we “invested” about 3 or more hours rather than the 90 minutes they asked us for. And for our time we received 4 tickets to Sea World (two for each of two days) for the grand sum of $12.00. The savings were substantial. In addition to our tickets, we got an “entertainment book” similar to the ones we used to buy back home in Cape Coral. The book has a value of about 40 bucks or so and inside it are literally thousands of dollars in savings for other activities. One use usually pays for the book and so when it is free- even better. It’s good for a year so when we get to Tampa and Bush Gardens it will pay us handsomely again. I suppose we didn’t need to do that, but it seems to be part of the Orlando culture and, you know, when in Rome….”Sea World is a magical place too. They have a little bit of everything there- rides, birds, fish, sea mammals of all kinds, good food at theme eateries. You can send a diver down (and watch him through the glass) for an oyster guaranteed to have a cultured pearl. You can buy raw fish and feed the seals and stingrays, that is if you can figure out how to keep all the birds from stealing your fish. The storks have become masterful at robbing everyone of their fish treats from little kids to trainers, even the pre-loaded, lid-covered fish stations the handlers use during show times, and a couple even tried taking fish out of the mouth of Shamu. Perhaps that is the answer to the question, “Why are there so many birds standing on one leg at sea world?
I tried and tried to think what I would write about our time at Sea World. Everything I thought about was either too shallow or too deep (gotta love a water image). I suppose writing is by definition a public thing, but my time, our time, at this place just feels more private to me than most things I do. This I can tell you. We needed two days to take it all in, and even then we were rushed. There are places there where I could stand in awe and watch all day. But having said that, I do not feel like a spectator. As a diver, I have been in the water with many of these creatures and feel connected to them in ways I do not understand. I accept that connection, appreciate that connection, and take comfort in that connection. I often feel more like part of the ocean life cycle which I am not a natural part of than the cycle of life that plays itself out above the waves to which I was born. I am always drawn back to water, no matter how removed from it my life becomes at times. And when I am at places where the world is the sea, there is always a part of me that stays behind when I move on. Some people say they can hear the ocean in a shell placed to their ear. Me? I hear it all the time, but keep lots of shells around just in case that were ever to change.
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