An All-You-Can-Eat Grill Banned A Food Streamer Because It Couldn't Feed His Huge Appetite
"I can eat a lot. Is that a fault?"
Sometimes all you can eat isn't really all you can eat.
A live-streamer with a big appetite found that out the hard way in China after a seafood grill banned him for eating way too much at the buffet.
The streamer, who goes by the name Mr. Kang, shared his side of the story in an interview with Hunan TV in China, and the video has since gone super viral with more than 250 million views on Weibo.
Mr. Kang is accusing the Handadi Seafood BBQ Buffet in Changsha of discriminating against people with big appetites, according to a translation by BBC News.
"I can eat a lot," he told the TV station. "Is that a fault?"
The restaurant owner says he had no choice but to ban Mr. Kang because of how much food he was eating.
"Every time he comes here, I lose a few hundred yuan," he said. Three hundred yuan is worth about CA$60.
Mr. Kang says he's been to the restaurant several times in the past, and he's put away several pounds of food each time.
He says he ate 1.5 kilograms (3.3 pounds) of pork trotters during his first visit and nearly 4 kilograms (8.8 pounds) of prawns on another occasion.
The restaurant owner also shared his own horror stories about Kang's appetite.
"When he drinks soy milk, he can drink 20 or 30 bottles," he said. "When he eats pork trotters, he consumes the whole tray of them. And for prawns, usually people use tongs to pick them up, [but] he uses a tray to take them all."
The dispute has people up in arms on Chinese social media, where many have been debating the meaning of "all you can eat."
Others came out against streamers who share their buffet binges online — a niche that recently became a target for the ruling Chinese Communist Party.
Chinese President Xi Jinping announced that he was cracking down on food streamers last year amid food shortages in other parts of the country.
"Cultivate thrifty habits and foster a social environment where waste is shameful and thriftiness is applaudable," Xi said last year, according to the New York Times.
You can argue that there's nothing thriftier than loading up at the buffet, but that argument won't get Mr. Kang back in the door at the Handadi Seafood BBQ Buffet.
The restaurant has reportedly banned all food streamers from its all-you-can-eat menu.
This article's left-hand cover image was used for illustrative purposes only.