Buffet

There's probably some Australopithecine lizard brain thing that triggers my sense of conspiratorial intimacy whenever I go below street level to dine or drink. That or something about strangers gathering in dimly lit subterranean chambers appeals to the suppressed romantic in me. Genetic or poetic, it hardly matters when once below ground I'm facing a flank of chafing dishes offering mouth-watering food from the Indian subcontinent. 12:27 p.m. We make our way down the steps and enter Akbar , 823 N. Charles St. Judging from the size of the crowd, my dining companion and I are far from the only Australopithecine romantics in Baltimore.

On Thursday, the entire staffs of 38 Studios and Big Huge Games were given pink slips. The company, which released “Kingdoms of Amalur: Reckoning” (which I reviewed in February ), was in partnership with the state of Rhode Island to bring jobs into the state and give former MLB pitcher Curt Schilling's 38 Studios fuel to evolve into a big-time game developer. The company was in the midst of developing a project called “Copernicus,” an MMORPG based in the same universe as “Amalur.” Big Huge Games, based in Timonium, became a subsidiary of 38 Studios almost three years ago to the day. The Sun's Gus Sentementes was over at Big Huge ' s offices before being booted out today , but it seems the entire teams at both companies have indeed been let go. WPRI has an exce llent timeline of how the tax credit and loan between the state of Rhode Island and 38 Studios developed.

It started -- as it so often does -- with a call from a reader. I had to try the buffet at Mr. Chan Szechuan Restaurant. For $10, she said, you get a delicious all-you-can-eat buffet every Friday and Sunday night.So off I went, taking two friends. It never occurred to me that if you're offering enormous amounts of food for a small amount of money, a few people might show up. My first piece of advice is, make reservations. We waited only a half-hour for a table and counted ourselves lucky.

The Maryland Live Casino is getting closer.The Cordish Cos.have announced June 6 as the opening date for its $500 million gaming and entertainment complex. The food and beverage team at Maryland Live has been in place for months, preparing for the casino's first guests. The casino's executive chef is Rudy Volpe, most recently of Carmine's in Washington, and the director of food and beverage for the casino is Greg Van Stone, most recently the director of restaurants for the Waldorf Astoria in Orlando, Fla. Volpe and Van Stone will be responsible for the casino's food operations, including the Live Market Buffet , an Asian noodle bar and a Phillips Seafood outlet.

Sometimes good restaurants start out when the owner needs a place to eat. I have no idea if Great Fortune (10026 York Road, Cockeysville) will be a great restaurant (it's scheduled to open this week or next), but I do know that the owner - Lo, as he likes to be known - wants a place where he can get a fresh, consistently good lunch in under an hour. His new place is a buffet restaurant with a regular menu of Chinese food. The buffet will have a cold section, with 20 to 30 salads and salad items, and two hot bars.

Some people favor quantity over quality. Cactus Willies is the place for them - an all-you-can-eat buffet for only $7.49 a person.That's $7.49 for all the steak you want, all the barbecued, baked or fried chicken, all the fried or broiled fish, vegetables, potatoes, stuffing, salads of every kind, breads and pies and . . . well, you get the idea.On a hilltop above Cromwell Bridge Road, Cactus Willies is part of a chain of restaurants owned by managing partners Robert Katz and Brett Austin.

The new Imperial Gourmet (2014 E. Joppa Road) is really two restaurants in one. One dining room offers an all-you-can-eat buffet, with more than 130 Chinese, Japanese, Italian and American dishes. During the week, lunch costs $6.95, and dinner $12.95. On the weekend, prices are $8.95 and $14.95, respectively. The other dining room, says owner Danny Chen, who also has a restaurant in York, Pa., is a "fine dining" restaurant with a dance floor and sushi bar. The cuisines served there are Chinese and Japanese.

Breakfast out, other than the fast-food variety, is a special occasion for many people. Breakfast out means Sunday brunch, a vacation treat, a major commitment of time and money. It's not the sort of thing most people do without significant forethought.How nice it was, then, to meet my husband one recent Friday morning at the Inner Harbor Sheraton for its weekday buffet breakfast. And not expensive, either. At $4.95 for all you want, the cost was only marginally more than food on Styrofoam and certainly much less than a dressed-up weekend outing.

If you're unfamiliar with Korean food, the buffet line at Purim Oak offers a fine introduction.Not being a big fan of buffets, I barely glanced at it after walking down the long ramp that leads into the Towson restaurant's paneled dining rooms. It took 10 minutes of wrestling with the eight-page menu to realize that my friends and I needed help -- more than our waitress was able to provide.There were categories for everything from rice to barbecue -- the one for home-style stews alone listed 16 choices.

There are few better cures for a horrendous day at work than a free happy-hour buffet. But "free" doesn't always mean "good" when it comes to bar food. Here are three city bars with solid buffets and drink specials. Kooper's Tavern From 4 p.m. to 7 p.m. every Friday, Kooper's Tavern (1702 Thames St., 410-563-5423, koopers. com) produces this glorious spread of crab dip with pita chips, mussels and make-your-own fajitas. All drafts except for Black and Tan and Guinness are $2.50 (the two exceptions are $4)

News Roundup •••• Former major league pitcher Curt Schilling's 38 Studios, which released “Kingdoms of Amalur: Reckoning” in February, is in financial hot water with the state of Rhode Island. Taking cash from the state to move from Massachusetts seemed like a good idea when the company was projecting huge sales from its games. Instead, 38 Studios can't pay its employees or pay the state back. Yikes. [ The Boston Globe ] •••• Wired ran a gorgeous preview with lots of screens of the Unreal 4 Engine, which could be the backbone of next-gen console games.

News Roundup •••• Wouldn't it be fun to buy a monthly fee for your Xbox and Kinect like you do with your cell phone? It looks like that's going to be an option for folks who want to pay $99 for hardware then shell out around $15 a month as a subscription fee. [ The Verge , h/t @ KingPajamas ] •••• Bethesda has been hard at work at “The Elder Scrolls Online” since 2007, but its existence was finally confirmed this week. The MMO will take place before the events of the console games, and from the early details released, seems like it will be your bog standard medieval fantasy MMO set in a world players already know.

News Roundup •••• Adam Sessler, host of G4TV's gaming flagship “X-Play,” has left the network and the long-running show. Sessler was a fixture on the network's previous incarnations, ZDTV and TechTV, having co-hosted “X-Play” with Morgan Webb for nearly a decade. [ Kotaku ] •••• A new study has found that playing “Tetris” can ease the symptoms of post-traumatic stress disorder. It can also get you kicked out of math class if you play it too conspicuously on your TI-86 calculator.

News Roundup •••• “Halo 4” got a November 6th release date, announced in completely subtle fashion through a 10-minute spot on “Conan.” Details of the gameplay have already started to surface. To make you feel especially old, it will have been 11 years since the original “Halo” came out. [ Team Coco ] •••• Bethesda released the debut trailer for Arkane Studios' new first-person action game “Dishonored.” Based on the cinematic clip, it definitely looks like a must-play.

News Roundup •••• It was a busy week down in Bethesda, with the “Skyrim” developers trademarking the game's signature “Fus Ro Dah” shout. Crap, now I owe them $17. More pertient to gamers is the announcement that over 200 voice commands will be added via a free Kinect support download for Xbox 360 users later this month. [ PC Ga mer , PC Mag ] •••• ... but the National Academy of Video Game Testers and Reviews says “Minecraft” is better.

News Roundup •••• The PAX East gaming convention kicks off today in Boston, with the fans and journalists eager to get a hands-on look at titles like Harmonix's newest offering, “Rock Band Blitz.” It's expected that Nintendo will share some more Wii U news, along with a rumored “ amazing announcement ” from BioWare. [ Pax East ] •••• Newly-minted NBA superstar Jeremy Lin is catching up on his gaming while recovering from surgery.

YOU CAN TELL it's fall in Northwest Carroll when the weekend feasts and festivals begin. On Sunday, Union Bridge Lions Club is sponsoring its seventh annual chicken and ham buffet at Union Bridge Community Center on Ladiesburg Road.Food will be served from 11: 30 a.m. to 3 p.m. The Lions hold two feasts each year, so if you miss this one, the next one isn't until spring.Club member John Laudermilch is planning and cooking most of the menu, an all-you-can-eat buffet, and Tommy Hyde will fry the chicken.

If you're still driving to Washington for Ethiopian food, you probably don't know about Five Seasons at 322 N. Charles St. Seven nights a week owners Rebecca Atnafou and Solomon Belay serve an a la carte Ethiopian dinner; Monday through Friday there's an international lunch buffet for $6.99 with dishes from Asia, Latin America, Uganda and Kenya as well as Ethiopia. On Fridays the buffet features mostly seafood. Dinner specialties include a vegetarian sampler that offers choices like spicy red lentils, collard greens and cabbage.

News Roundup •••• According to Kotaku, the next PlayStation is codenamed "Orbis," it will be out next year and will not be friendly to used games or PlayStation 3 games. No word on if it blocks the door to your house and collects a toll every time you try and leave. [ Kotaku ] •••• "SimCity" will require a live internet connection to start playing, and will be an "internet-dependent" gaming experience. The emphasis on multiplayer seems like a convenient excuse to employ serious digital rights management, no?

News Roundup   •••• Like the Muppets and the Russians before them, the “Angry Birds” have taken to space. You can download the game now . I haven't reached the ending yet but I've already got a strongly-worded email to Rovio about it saved as a draft just in case. [ Rovio ] •••• Lawmakers in California and Virginia are proposing a bill that would require almost all video games to carry a warning label stating “exposure to violent video games has been linked to aggressive behavior.” That makes me so angry I just want to go and punch a defenseless person and steal their coins.