Lunch with Fat People

Wednesdays are my days to try out new places, and today, I set out to check out Domo Dogs, the new Japanese fusion hot dog cart, in the parking lot of H-Mart, on 99w in Portland/Tigard. Alas, they are only open on weekends, so scouring the parking lot there, I saw I had few lunch options, and I was rarin’ to go, so to speak.

Hmmm, says I, “Hometown Buffet” – maybe they have all the burgers you can eat and a bodacious fixin’s bar?

I waddled in, paid my $6.99 (plus $1.28 for the unlimited beverage bar, quite a deal, includes soft drinks, lemonade, milk, coffee, hot tea, Icee’s in 3 flavors) – and wandered around the 2 L shaped, and 1 circular serving stations. Pretty nice salads, if I cared, a wide variety of the preassembled kind, like tuna, macaroni, slaws, potato, and lots of fresh fix it yourself ingredients, and i generously helped myself to cottage cheese, black olives, and bacon bits.

On to the soups – 4 varieties, I took a bowl of chicken soup, not too skimpy on the ingredients, but a little too generous with the celery, for my taste.

A variety of breads, and spreads, real butter, honey whipped something, breaksticks, rolls.

And finally, the hot stuff. Alas, no burgers, but hot dogs, pizza, fried chicken, fish things, baked fish, baked chicken, taco bar, meat loaf, mac n cheese, buncha starches. I could have had all the hot dogs and pizza I could eat for $6.99, that sure beats any of the pizza buffets from the national chains, or the KFC buffets.

Unable to make clear decisions in all this gooey goodness, I took pretty much one of everything.

I’ve been here once before. On Saturday and Sunday mornings they have breakfast buffets, and that’s a real good deal, you can make off with pounds of bacon, ham and sausage.

I wouldn’t think they prepare much of this food on site, I would think recipe variations and quantity control could be a real problem, so I’m thinking a lot of this is commissary heat and eat type product.


No matter,it is what it is, and does what it is designed to do, fill you up with empty calories on a budget.

So why the headline? There were perhaps 40 diners when i was there, and maybe, maybe two could be called “height proportionate to weight” (and I wasn’t one of the two). This is Eden for the overweight (i.e., most of America), and they start ’em young here, whole families of porcine like noshers chowing down on Coca Cola, or sweet tea, and mashed potatoes and (your choice of chicken or beef) gravy.

Fixin’s? A whole stand-up rack of every condiment and hot sauce you can imagine! Try a little of that Tabasco on your melon!

Yummy!

I had my fill quickly, but it was a rather serene (or surreal) setting, and I doodled away in a new NYT crossword puzzle book I had picked up this morning.

There are a couple or more Hometown Buffets in Portland, they operate under different names in different parts of the country. Pretty much cheaper than any fast casual menu restaurant, at least for families, and you can add to the nuitrition disaster by finishing up with top your own ice cream sundaes, cookies, brownies, and the like.

BTW, if you happen to find yourself in this parking lot for ANY reason, there is a small meat shop called “Victors” and he has the best South African Jerky ever! Have him slice it there, tho, you’ll never be able to cut it at home. By the pound, its about half the price of the regular jerky brands!


View Larger Map



Hometown Buffet on Urbanspoon

One comment to “Lunch with Fat People”
One comment to “Lunch with Fat People”
  1. Pingback: Tweets that mention Lunch with fat people in Portland. #pdxfood, All the #hotdogs you can eat! -- Topsy.com

Leave a Reply

Your email address will not be published. Required fields are marked *