I've been retired for 11 years and have eaten lunch at quite a number of restaurants in northern Virginia; seven were buffets. The good buffets are in small ethnic restaurants that have a small number of dishes and a substantial number of customers so that the food does not sit in a steam table for several hours before it is eaten. I have regularly patronized three of them, which are Thai, Indian (India), and Chinese.

The most successful of the three is the Thai restaurant which typically has seven hot dishes (two noodle, two or three meat, and the rest vegetable). They also have two soups, several trays for making a salad, and two desserts. All of their dishes are well prepared and served fresh at the proper temperature. The small Indian and Chinese buffets I like also try to make sure all of their dishes are well prepared and served at the proper temperatures.

The bad buffets are the big ones. We have four in our area: three serve American and Asian food, and the fourth serves just American. The meat dishes are usually tough, not well prepared, not served at hot enough temperature, and poor quality meat to start with. There are hundreds of trays of food put out at 11:00 a.m. or so and not changed until closing. The food is terrible.

All of these serve lunch in the price range of 10 to 12 dollars. The Thai restaurant is very good -- as good as the downtown Washington Thai restaurants, but with more limited choices. The small Indian and Chinese are also good enough to warrant continued patronage. The big ones are bad at any price. All of these big ones appear to be chains. The small one are local independents.

We also have a couple of restaurants that have very good salad bars, which are like buffets. They are cheap as soup and salad bar or sandwich and salad bar. Price 10 to 15 dollars.