Fried rooster isn’t exhausting to return by on the many nouveau-country cafeterias round city — or anyplace else: My outdated Yemeni bodega in Brooklyn used to promote it by the piece on the counter. Limitless fried rooster is a rarer hen. For that, you may head on all the way down to Good Time Nation Buffet, which appears airlifted not solely from someplace south of Marietta but in addition somewhen circa 1998. There, amid the steam trays of Salisbury steak, collard greens, baked beans, and candied yams, the companions behind the Korean eating places C As in Charlie and Kisa have recreated the Atlanta-area southern buffets of their expatriate American youth, an train in reminiscence that’s an invite to abundance. For $26.99 a head, the worth of an appetizer at many fantastic eating places round city, the one restrict is your enthusiasm.
On a current weekday night, I dined there with two of the New York–iest New Yorkers of my acquaintance: one recent off designing a high present at Vogue Week, the opposite coming from a celebration celebrating his newest triumph in alt-ceramics. These boys have hand tattoos and Comme des Garçons collections and blow off steam working 40 miles every week. And but they’d gone goggle-eyed with pleasure on the prospect of hitting a suburban buffet. “You’re actually not in New York anymore,” certainly one of them stated as we walked within the door, previous the bulletin board’s tacked-up ersatz neighborhood notices that had been set dressing in disguise. “You’re not even in New Jersey.”
I grew up in ’90s Manhattan and by no means knew an actual buffet like this. My nearest equal was the priced-per-pound steam desk on the bigger nook delis — which all by some means supplied the identical heterodox assortment of slicked lo mein and tomato-and-mozzarella caprese — and I’ve to confess I underestimated the pull this type of institution can exert. Throughout Good Time’s first month in enterprise, a line of keen pilgrims fashioned up First Avenue most days earlier than the 5 p.m. opening. “It’s so humorous that that is common,” I overheard a woman say as she peered via the restaurant’s slatted blinds. “It does look cute,” her buddy replied.
Good Time’s house owners — David Yun, Steve Choi, and Yong Min Kim — mastered this type of immersive scenography at Kisa, which is kitted out as a Seoul taxi drivers’ diner, correct all the way down to the boxy vintage TV mounted on the wall. Right here, Yun stated, they wished to incarnate the buffets, a few of them Korean owned, that had set the scene for him when he immigrated to the U.S. in 2000. The décor is important to the disorienting expertise: the dowdy plush of inexperienced carpet, the grannyish wallpaper, fake Tiffany lamps. The music is an early-aughts Atlanta Honda Civic soundtrack: Akon, Usher, Lil Jon.
Strains exterior type earlier than the restaurant opens. Inside, the décor and meals might be immediately acquainted to anybody who’s visited a conventional buffet earlier than. Hugo Yu.
Strains exterior type earlier than the restaurant opens. Inside, the décor and meals might be immediately acquainted to anybody who’s visited a conventional buffet bef… extra
Strains exterior type earlier than the restaurant opens. Inside, the décor and meals might be immediately acquainted to anybody who’s visited a conventional buffet earlier than. Hugo Yu.
The enchantment cuts throughout communities — inside, I noticed a desk of 4 elegant 50-something gents throughout from a pair feeding an toddler nibbles of Salisbury steak. Right here an East Village beardo, there a rat-tailed homosexual man. A middle-aged couple had been pushing a grandmotherly lady in a wheelchair out the door, murmuring to her in Korean. She was beaming beatifically.
The purpose of Good Time is an effective time, which isn’t the identical nearly as good cooking. “We wish to persist with the unique recipes as a lot as doable,” Yun informed me. “Nothing too out of the blue.” For edible set dressing, familiarity is an important seasoning. The rooster is crunchy sufficient, although not particularly tender; the meat loaf, sectioned into tiny squares, tastes of its caramelized ketchup high. Mashed potatoes, just a few chunks intact, are allotted utilizing an extra-large ice-cream scoop along with your alternative of pale “brown” gravy and even paler sawmill gravy. Inexperienced beans are addictively overcooked; candied yams are diabetically candy, although they hardly examine to the glycemic wallop of candy tea. There’s a build-your-own salad bar, a potbellied tureen of chicken-noodle soup, and scoops of tuna or egg salad. Desserts are probably the most egregiously institutional. But I discovered my spoon going again for the thick, wafer-dotted gloop of banana pudding. It was greater than I wished and fewer than I wished it to be, nevertheless it beckoned with an irresistible promise: There’s lots the place that got here from.
A lot of the meals could also be resolutely, even deliberately common — “Is it alleged to be unhealthy?” my ceramicist questioned — however the capability to indulge with out limits is its personal reward. The buffet is id limitless. “It’s about impulse,” the style designer stated to me, loading up a plate of Pink Scorching–glossed rooster wings. He’d hoped they had been gluten free. However he was ready to threat it in the event that they weren’t.
The insistent allure of Good Time doesn’t even actually require firsthand historical past. There may be, I’ve realized, a phrase for this borrowed nostalgia: anemoia, coined by the writer John Koenig for his Dictionary of Obscure Sorrows. At Kisa, Yun stated, “folks at all times inform me, ‘Oh, this makes me really feel like I’m in Korea again within the ’90s,’ though they’ve by no means been in Korea within the ’90s.” The previous is a overseas nation however one you could go to — briefly. “I prefer to see these full plates,” a waiter stated throughout one other meal as he introduced over slushy drinks — able to be alcoholized by the upturning of a $7 single-serve nip of Evan Williams or Southern Consolation. Even with the encouragement to get multiples and a nimble employees clearing away half-empties, give up can set in rapidly. I did my worst and by no means lasted longer than 75 minutes.
Scratchpad
Good Time Nation Buffet
Rotating Favorites
Earlier than lengthy, each day specials might be launched: Suppose fried fish, taco evening, sloppy joes. Plan your weekly visits accordingly.
Host a Celebration
Good Time has further bar house downstairs that’s accessible to lease out for personal occasions.
Tempo Your self
Not like at Vegas buffets, the high-ticket objects don’t run out right here. You’ll by no means go wanting for extra meat loaf.
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