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Most of the time, people who find themselves across an eat-all-you-can spread will literally try to eat all they can. On their first trip, they'll heap their plates high with rice and about 2/3 of the available viands. On their second trip, they go for the dishes that didn't make it to their plates the previous trip. The third trip, especially if you're paying for this dine-till-you-drop extravaganza, will really just be about making this entire experience "sulit" even if your taste buds have stopped working and your gut hit full capacity 37 spoonfuls ago.

I used to agonize over buffet meals because I loved them and yet could never consume enough to make the experience worth what I paid for. "Sayang lang sa yo ang buffet, para kang ibon kung kumain," my friends would chide. But I simply could not resist them. I loved the fact that I could have a taste from a wide array of pickings. A la carte, I'd probably end up ordering four dishes, eating off each yet finishing none.

My name is Emma. And I'm a sampler eater. And the moment I realized this a few years back, I learned how to make the buffet work according to my feeding style. I had learned how to make it "sulit" without necessarily vying to consume enough food to "break even", so to speak. Here's what I learned:

During one of the free-time windows on a recent business trip to Singapore, I went to the National Museum. I was awestruck. One of the major wings, the Singaporean History wing, is this multilevel, vast exhibit area. You're handed an audio device with ear phones and a handheld control with a numbered keypad on it... The floor of the History wing is numbered, and so when you get to a particular section, you just punch in the number on the device to hear the narration about whatever is in that section. Wala lang...was truly appreciative of how they thought of a simple way for visitors to enjoy the thing at their own pace, instead of the usual "herded like cattle by museum guide" procedure.