Most questionable “Chinese” buffet item

You have to break your fortune cookie apart if you don't want to accidentally ingest one of those little slips of paper that they always seem to stick inside of those things. Obviously they're not going to kill you, but there's also no nutritional value to those little slips of paper. And if you've never broken a fortune cookie apart before, they're kind of brittle and prone to snapping apart into many tiny pieces. So I'd definitely call that questionable food design, yeah.

While I agree with your premise, I'd like to point out that idiom isn't often used to mean what it actually means. But like "hoi polloi" or "nonplussed" it has become one of those things that is so commonly misused that it has almost evolved to mean something else. Apologies for the pedantism.

Anyway, The More You Know...

 afterdeadline.blogs.nytimes.com/2008/09/25/begging-the-question-again/

Are you talking about actually looking at a menu and ordering a cheeseburger?  That is wild.  I've seen it on buffets before, but it falls into the same category as the pizza: clearly just there to appease picky eaters.

This is my first thought for the type of people who go to Chinese restaurants and order burgers- one would think with his overall appetite, Homer wouldn't be so picky.
Nuevo Laredo, my choice Mexican restaurant back in Atlanta, did list a hamburger way down in the bottom corner of the menu, with the caption "Para los gringos"

Chicken fingers. Come on, just eat the goddamn wings, dude.

Maybe a Texas thing, but I've been to more than one Chinese buffet in the area that had tacos, and one that had "house special empanadas" on the line. I, uh, never get them. I also see mac-and-cheese, french fries and potato wedges with some regularity.

The biggest headscratcher for me doesn't even have a name. There's one buffet around here that does a hot seafood "salad" which (as best I can tell) is squid, krab and tiny bay scallops all sloshed with mayonnaise, blanketed in cheddar cheese, and baked. Why is it a headscratcher? Because I find it shamefully delicious.

Ice Cream, not the soft serve, but the ice cream in buckets you have to scoop out. Many a kid has probably stuck their hand all up in that, it is like the chocolate fountain at american buffets.

the only thing that comes to mind for this question is that time I went to a buffet place, got a donut and it was filled with chicken gravy

Do you have a Chinese buffet round these here parts? My inner child misses them and there are so many it's hard to know where to go.

I automatically think of this:

Not one that stands above the rest. The one I went to in Frisco, called Grand Wall I think, was pretty good. Weirdly addictive wonton soup, and they had "special chorizo fried rice" on the line all the time, and that was good. But it's still a Chinese buffet and most their food was par.

And there's one at 75 and Parker, down the way from the Burlington Coat Factory. Not sure the name, but that's the one that has the cheesy seafood bake that I so adore. They also have fried calamari on the line. By no means the world's best, but my love of fried calamari is such that I can handle a pretty low standard.

But in terms of, "here's a Chinese buffet that's actually legit that I would heartily recommend to any friend and/or restaurant critic!"  Uh, no.

A friend of mine went to a food-fair Chinese buffet place in the mall, one of those "pick 2 items plus noodles or rice" places.

Anyhow, the fried shrimp she got turned out to be not shelled before it was battered and fried. Rather a bit more crunchy than most people like.