The Steak House

The manager obviously took it upon himself that day to tell his staff how to operate on this Christmas Eve. He must have told them that any customer who is talking is not eating and must therefore be pushed out onto the street at the earliest opportunity. I decided that this must be the case as my chocolate cake plate was whipped from under my bowed head by an enthusiastic and determined waitress. I was left in the aftermath of the hurricane with a suitable streak of chocolate remains on my nose and left cheek and a feeling of not being wanted.

Steak Houses are a common eatery in Taiwan ranging from the lowest of the low offering tough boot soles and debatable animal steaks to those that only the rich and wealthy can afford to visit. But all offer similar fare albeit some better served than others, and all are crowded on most festive occasions and on any other day as well.

These places become animal markets where normal human beings turn into raging and starved beasts out for the kill. The ever common buffet becomes a meeting point of jabbing elbows and flying plates, of desperation and curses as the "free" food is piled high on plates that defeat gravity. By the time the actual steak arrives at the table the customer's eye this offering from an already bloated and sunken position, stuffed to overflowing with excess from the buffet a mere steak has no immediate place. But being Taiwanese a second wind is found and down the steak goes to be followed by a dozen cream cakes, six glasses of jelly, three caramel whips, an ice cream cone supporting nine different scoops of flavor and a veritable orchard of fruits.

We entered our "posh" steak house, it being X-mas Eve - early to avoid the Christmas rush and to hopefully get to the buffet whilst the food was still on the platters. And we had timed it nicely, we were amongst the first few in and during the first half of our meal it was relaxed and quiet without screams and shouts from desperate eaters surrounding us.

We received our steaks in good order having first eaten a suitable mixture of sushi; salad, soups and sea-food (if you can't beat them join them) and as usual it arrived with a side serving of spaghetti in tomato sauce. I have never worked this out as even the picture in the menu depicts a potato but here it is Italian style and whether the restaurant is a fast-food eatery or a five-star restaurant all steaks get served with pasta or noodles. It was during my musings about this weird mixture of cultures that I suddenly noticed that I had to shout loudly to talk to my wife, that life seemed to be moving inwards and that the buffet table was no longer visible due to throng surrounding it. Christmas Eve was in full swing.

The buffet table issued out many a skilled professional in "how to pile you plate as high as possible" as plates of salad resembling the Leaning Towers of Pisa wobbled outwards and bowls of soup that seemed to hold liquid higher than the rim frothed forth. Families occupied positions at the table, the fathers sole duty to get as much salad onto the plate as possible, the mothers to get as much sushi onto hers, the daughter concentrated on the soups using an extra-large brought along tureen and the son gleefully stuffed his face with cream cakes whilst stuffing sea-food into his pockets.

Some highly tuned and eager amateurs broke cardinal rules by standing at the buffet table whilst eating, a matter of concern for nobody except the families doctor in days to come. Others eager eaters, who occupied choice positions along the table, chose to hurl outwards certain food items to colleagues waiting at the edge: if it missed the intended mark another could always be sent. But for us who had hoped to escape this theater of human failure we looked on in shock and amazement.

Whilst I delicately started on my one thin slice of chocolate cake and watched the lady at the next table returning with a little plate piled high with ten large slices of water-melon (an appetizer rather than a dessert), I heard a large crash behind me. Looking round I saw a sight that deserved to be captured on camera for all-time: a large women sat on the ground with a whole jelly shivering in her lap, and opposite her sat a young boy dressed in a variety of garden vegetables suitably coated in a gooey mixture of Thousand Island dressing. This upset in the gathering and eating mission did not stop for long: the lady quickly scooped up the Jelly with an experienced hand and deposited it in the recovered bowl. Whilst she went to her table to eat the well-saved dessert, the boy shrugged off the vegetable head-dress and without further ado returned to the buffet table to reload - leaving behind a vegetable patch on the carpet.

On un-cricking my neck from its swiveled position I turned around to see a waiter narrowly missing being sliced off at the neck. He had bent down next to a table with two young girls talking volubly, presumably to retrieve some food that had missed the mouth. The girls though seemed oblivious to his presence and one was dramatically waving her knife around in the air in an attempt to describe some amazing situation. The waiter standing up from his task lent forward slightly as some desperate soul charged back to the buffet with a mouth full and an empty hand. As he lent forward the weaving knife just nicked his throat, the girl totally oblivious to her near arrest for murder continued as before whilst the waiter reeled backwards in shock. This backwards action and sudden shock caused him to dislodge a customer who was returning from the buffet with a plate piled high with cream buns and chocolate gateaux. This mixture of patisseries ended up on the floor to the poor customers chagrin and the waiter stared in helpless wonder at the havoc created whilst clutching his throat and squeaking madly.

The man with the cakes returned five minutes later, with another plate piled twice as high (that was him happy), the girls continued talking and waving knives around totally oblivious to the scenario recently played out and the waiter was not seen again that night.

As my nearly finished plate of chocolate cake was whipped out from under my bowed head I decided that it was time to make a timely exit. To leave the place before murder occurred, before a customer exploded due to overeating, or before the buffet table collapsed and produced panic amongst the desperate.

So we left and I paid the princely sum of 3000NTD (50 pounds) to an otherwise bored cashier! Her time would not start till later when the current feeders retired for the night along with their bags and containers of purloined food, the steaks that they could not fit in to their overloaded stomachs, the cream cakes that missed the mouths and fell into a handy and open plastic box at their feet and the packets of tea and sugar that just wait to be plucked from an otherwise ignored tray.

The kind lady did point out that I had some skid marks of chocolate cake on my nose, but even that did not cause me to leave a tip. If this had been a zoo, an oasis for starved trekkers after a three week desert crossing without food or water, the end of the world and the last meal or a theater production then I would have applauded. But this was just another day in the year, another day of many that come around ever frequently and so without a tip left and without a clap at the amazing production we retired for the night to peace and quiet and without a morsel of food in sight.

We will return though as this is a production that deserves a re-run. This is a show that will never tire and should family or friends visit what better entertainment than the performance always on show at the local steak house!