A Chinese food influencer and live-streamer finds himself at the center of controversy today over whether limits can be placed on the amount of food one can consume at all-you-can-eat establishments.
Known simply as Mr. Kang, the livestreamer complained on Hunan TV of discrimination after being kicked out of the Handadi Seafood BBQ Buffet for eating too much. “I can eat a lot – is that a fault?” Kang asked.
Apparently the owner of the restaurant thinks so. “Every time he comes here, I lose a few hundred yuan,” he said. “Even when he drinks soy milk, he can drink 20 or 30 bottles. When he eats the pork trotters, he consumes the whole tray of them. And for prawns, usually people use tongs to pick them up, he uses a tray to take them all.”
The issue has sparked fierce debate over whether limits can be placed on buffet dining or whether the freedom to eat is universal and should not be infringed upon. Freedom to eat absolutists argue it is the dining right that makes all the others possible.
“Where does it end? You start with all-you-can-eat is not really all-you-can-eat. Next you’re limiting free refills on soft drinks. Then fortune cookies are extra. Do we really want to go down that slippery slope?” asks popular YouTube food scholar, Professor Waffles.
Others feel strict limitations should be placed on eating influencers and live-streamers, even suggesting outright bans on all-you-can-eat buffets.
For now, Mr. Kang will have to explore new frontiers in buffet dining elsewhere as he and all other live-streamers have been blacklisted from the establishment.
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