All-you-can-eat buffet restaurants are a boon for those who enjoy eating till their heart's content. 

However, a group of seven friends has raised the bar when it comes to eating their money's worth at a buffet restaurant in China. 

Media platform Star Video reported that six men and one woman, all in their 20s, went to a buffet restaurant in Qingdao, China's eastern Shandong province on May 3 at 5pm and stayed till closing at 9.30pm.

Taking up three tables, the video showed the tables flooded with empty dishes stacked on top each other and hundreds of crab shells laid out across their tables. 

According to Star Video, the group polished off some 300 crabs, 80 desserts and 50 boxes of durian.

One of the group members surnamed Zhang, told Star Video that he and his friends have big appetites and claimed that it was the norm for people in their age group to consume such large amounts of food. 

Zhang shared: "The seafood this season is expensive but we all still wanted eat seafood and so we chose a seafood buffet restaurant."

He insisted that what they ate was not excessive but just enough for them.

"By midnight, one friend in the group said he was hungry again and wanted to go out again to eat more, but because it was too late, he didn't," Zhang said.

An employee from the restaurant told Star Video that each table is given two hours of dining time.

However, due to a busy night on that day, they forgot to keep track of Zhang and his friends' dining times leading to them spending over four hours at the restaurant. 

Even though gorging large amounts of food at a buffet is a common sight, Zhang and his friends' video caused much controversy with many netizens disgusted at their behaviour. 

One even commented, “The restaurant’s boss had the bad luck to get customers like you. By the way, are you fine after eating so much?"

Back in 2020, China's biggest short-video and social media platforms said they will punish users seen to be wasting food in their broadcasts, cracking down on so-called "big stomach kings" as the government urges against food wastage in the middle of a pandemic, reported Reuters then. 

President Xi Jinping called food wastage "shameful" then, as the country also sought to curb a growing trend among internet celebrities who have gained hordes of fans in recent years by eating large amounts of food in a short time on video.

ALSO READ: Man tries to eat 10 durians in hour-long Mao Shan Wang buffet, here's why you shouldn't

ashwini.balan@asiaone.com

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