Best Buffet -- you betcha!

With my family’s (and America’s) sudden reversal of financial fortune, we’re looking for filling, cheap eats that aren’t made out of melamine, sugar and suet. The best place in town to find them is, hands down, Souplantation. Obviously PW readers agree, since the restaurant just won Best Buffet for this year.

Our love affair with Souplantation began one bleak January several years back, when we still had money to burn. My husband stepped on the scale and announced that, despite a month-long bout of bronchitis, he’d managed to stop coughing long enough to gain 10 pounds.

He’d been smugly touting the Atkins Diet ever since losing 60 pounds in about an hour-and-a-half eating mass quantities of ground beef and blue cheese — hold the bun. His epiphany about the primacy of protein occurred as he gazed into the eyes of a hawk at the San Diego Wild Animal Park.
“Predators’ eyes point forward,” the keeper said, “so they can spot their prey.”

“And so do mine. I’m obviously a predator too!” my mate realized in a blaze of sudden cognition.
Since then, he’s eschewed vegetables (unless I disguise them in pureed soups) and fruits (except as a minor accompaniment to cheese). “Protein for predators” is a favorite mantra. Frankly, I’m surprised he hasn’t joined our cats as they stalk the birds and squirrels in the backyard.

I, on the other hand, prefer the balanced (shall I say “sane?”) diet methodology of WeightWatchers. Fruit, veggies, grains. So, after my equally painful weigh-in, we went to our separate corners of the kitchen and began our regimes.

I chopped veggies and sucked on oranges; he fried bacon and eggs, then stacked bologna on cheese for lunch. Dinners were chicken, steak, salmon and pork chops — mine with massive piles of vegetables; his with more chicken, steak, salmon and pork chops.

But, when we decided to dine out, he vetoed Italian and I vetoed Burger King. He vetoed Chinese and I vetoed McDonald’s. He vetoed Mexican and I vetoed Jack in the Box. I began to think of Tevya’s comment in “Fiddler on the Roof” — A bird may love a fish, but where would they live?

Finally, I suggested Souplantation and, miraculously, he went for it. I think he’d forgotten the 55-foot salad bar which showcases the bulk of the Souplantation offerings — fresh veggies and plenty of them. It had been years since he’d been there. But the soups and chili were firmly fixed in his memory banks.

When Pasadena’s Souplantation opened, they had less than 10 restaurants. Now the company has more than 100 in 15 states. There’s even a slick Web site with daily menus for every location. And, for us dieters, there is a nutritional breakdown for every item down to the last gram of saturated fat, protein and fiber.

You pick up a tray and plate and channel along one side of a dual-lane salad line with an overwhelming array of salads, fresh vegetables, croutons, banana chips and other garnishes, to which you help yourself before being confronted with a score or more of herbal vinegars and salad dressings.

If you come through with room on your tray, there’s the soup bar. We’re not just talking “cup of soup” here but eight or nine varieties of hearty, keep-you-warm-on-cold-winter-day style soups like potato-rosemary, cream of mushroom, and split pea with ham, most with a consistency akin to porridge. 

Souplantation’s chili (a little on the mild side, but served with sour cream, onions and cheese), clam chowder and chicken noodle soups are staples. The 15 or so others rotate, like the prepared salads, the hot pastas, the hand-crafted desserts and muffins.

Oh, didn’t I mention the muffins? Three or four different kinds per day. Then there is the pizza, foccaccia, baked potatoes and cornbread. And, of course, a fruit bar with fresh fruits, fruit salads, Jell-O, cottage cheese and yogurt. And speaking of yogurt, there’s a frozen variant (chocolate and vanilla), with vats of chocolate and caramel syrups, nuts and cherries.

The cost for all this? Under $10! (Beverages are extra, but we do water.) Parking is validated for two hours of “all you care to eat” dining. And extra-savings coupons appear regularly in the LA Times. With stocks finally close to a buy, it’s a pity the company that owns Souplantation is private.

We’re Souplantation regulars. The Atkins aficionado piles up denuded pizza crusts and downs bowl after bowl of soups and chili, which he tops with cheddar tendrils, globs of sour cream and sprinkles of fresh chives. He loads up on greens doused with heavy-duty blue cheese dressing and bacon bits.

I join him for soup (minus cheese and sour cream) and make up much more colorful, healthful salads of red cabbage, broccoli, shredded carrots, corn, kidney beans, sunflower seeds and garbanzos.

Instead of dressing, I drizzle on rice vinegar. Al Gore would be proud of the light carbon footprint I leave.

We both exit feeling full, flush and pretty damned virtuous. Except, that is, for our final forays to the muffin/baked goods area. My hand, unbidden, usually snatches up a teensy muffin; and my husband often tries a tiny dab of hot chocolate lava cake, apple cobbler or somesuch. But, then, those are the treats that soothe the soul in these troubled times and help make Souplantation the best buffet in town.