Unfortunately, some of our favorite foods are of the All You Can Eat varieties. We love hanging out at AYCE Hot Pot, Korean Barbecue, and sometimes even sushi joints. But... with great eating comes even greater ways to make your money stretch. These places aren't cheap, so we are here to tell you how to maximize every dollar spent and make your next All You Can Eat meal worth it. 

Here are our Top 5 tips for AYCE spots (in no particular order)

Aim for the premiums (beef, lamb, seafood).

This tip is all about maximizing that cost. You’re easily paying close to $35-40 at some of these spots, so you definitely want to make your meal worth it. Some keywords to look for would be wagyu or kobe beef. If they don’t have that, then always select the meats that have “premium” written next to it. Hopefully you don’t have gout or high cholesterol because beef will almost always be the biggest bang for your dollar - next to seafood, but this really depends on your restaurant. That being said, meats like lamb or pork should be solid 2nd options and chicken will rank bottom on our list of meats. If you happen to be a seafood spot (AYCE sushi or hot pot with seafood emphasis), then seafood can be high priority. Aim for the expensive fish - salmon, tuna, hamachi, or more costly options - clams, crab, oysters.

Skip the carbs until the very end.

This is AYCE eating 101 - don’t fill up on carbs! As tempting as a bowl of rice or that bundle of noodles sound, it costs the restaurant very little to produce, but takes up valuable space in your stomach. Try to avoid eating carbs until the very end of your meal where you can’t stomach another plate of meat but want something to wrap up your meal with. Vegetables are a great way to break up the monotony and take up little space. Plus, you will thank us later when you’re sitting on the porcelain throne.

Make different sauces.

You don’t want to taste the same thing the entire meal - this is where making sauces come in handy. Though is rule is mainly for hot pot, you can apply the same theory to any other place. Main thing is to break up the flavor monotony. If you’re at KBBQ, use the banchans that come with your meal to spice things up and make different wraps. For sushi, try to see what you can or can’t dip in soy sauce/soy sauce + wasabi. Mix and match different flavors to keep your meal and taste buds moving forward.

If you think you can eat one more plate, you probably can’t.

This tip is really from personal experience. Remember, you don’t want to pay more than you already do. Many of these restaurants have a “food wasting fee” or of the like to make sure you don’t over order and can’t finish. If you feel like you want to eat just a little bit more, this is where you can order a side of carbs or something cheap to make sure you are optimally full. Ordering an entire plate of meat and finding out nobody else can stomach anymore food will not only make you way too full, it will forever mark you as the friend who can’t be trusted with the menu.

Hiding extra food to avoid the fee.

Assuming you followed the first 4 tips, you really should not have to resort to this tip - but we included it just incase. Oh no, you ordered 1 plate too many… what should you do? Well… you’ll have to cook it. For hot pot, this rule works since it’s easy to hide the food in the soup. For Korean BBQ, you can cook the food and distribute it accordingly just so there isn’t an entire order of uncooked meat sitting at your table for them to charge you with. There’s more to be said about this and stories to back it up on this episode, so listen in for the full details!