The one with the World's Longest Buffet Eastwood

Last Saturday, October 22, 2005, will go down as a day of infamy for the corporate planners of Eastwood City in Libis, when they will remember their fiasco, the World's Longest Buffet.

Touted as a Guinness Book of World Records contender, The World's Longest Buffet at Eastwood City featured a 350-meter-long buffet table with more than 400 dishes from 36 restaurants and ten different kinds of cuisine. Really? You could've fooled me, because I didn't get to eat one bite.

Come to think of it, with more than 4,000 tickets sold, the expected long line alone should've warned me not to go to Eastwood's World's Longest Buffet in Libis, Pasig City. Did I listen? Of course not. The result was one of the most trying, frustrating experiences of my life.

You can imagine the traffic. It took us 45 minutes to find parking inside Eastwood City. You can imagine - 4,000 people are going to bring at least 800 cars, assuming a five-per-car ratio. That was problem no.1.

Problem No.2 was upon our arrival, there was no more food. That's right. No more food at the Eastwood's World's Longest Buffet. That was around 730PM. I know naysayers can say, you should've been there early. Not the point. The World's Longest Buffet should have FOOD. We paid P350 per person, P1400 in total, to EAT. We had a right to eat.

After leaving in a huff, waiting 30 minutes plus plus for food that took forever to arrive (when it did, other revelers swooped in so fast on those little morsels, it was like Animal Farm. We left and had a delightful meal at A Veneto's. I heard people were able to get their money back. Wow! They ate and got their money back! What a deal... for then. I was with my 70-year-old father in law, my 56-year-old mother in law, and a brother with a sore foot. I wasn't going anywhere.

I can't think of anything positive to say about that godawful World's Longest Buffet. Eastwood City, you gained publicity - and negative publicity is still publicity, they say - but good luck on trying to pull off a stunt like this one again. Here are four simple rules:

1. Don't sell more tickets than your parking can accommodate.
2. Don't sell more tickets than what the restaurants can produce. I doubt too many people "ate to their heart's content."
3. Two words: FINGER FOODS.
4. Another two words: CROWD CONTROL. Survival of the fittest shouldn't work here because we paid for the right to eat.

World's Longest Buffet Eastwood. Truly, the world's longest. The longest wait to park, the longest line to eat, the longest wait for food to be replenished...