Billabongs: How to eat there.

In Maitland, at Easts Bowling Club, there is a place, a special place, called Billabongs.

Billabongs is a buffet-style family restaurant, legendary among the people of the Hunter Valley. It is an Eat Street Challenge all by itself: seafood, salads, carvery, BBQ, chinese food, soups, ice-creams, desserts and slices. A hundred tables and a dozen bain maries, and scenic views of lawn bowling. What Maitland lacks in good thai it makes up for amply in Bowling Club All You Can Eat $16.50 lunches.
The aim of a trip to Billabongs is to eat as much as you can without feeling sick. If you want to uneat, you have gone too far. You just want to be as full as you possibly can get, without sweating and groaning.
My tip is, start with salad. Get some lettuce into your stomach as a healthy cushion, and then put all the meat you like on top of it. You may think that this is wasting valuable stomach space, but it primes the digestion for the meat that follows. This theory has been affirmed and validated by my sister who said she heard somewhere that you should always eat roughage first, so it must be pretty true.
Secondly, if you bite into something disappointing, don't waste valuable stomach real estate on it—put it aside.
Finally, be careful with the desserts. A mix of ice-cream, pavlova, coconut slice and mudcake, sprinkled with mini-marshmallows, looks wonderful… but it doesn't sit so well on top of all the chinese food, seafood, BBQ pork, etc etc that you just ate. Restrain yourself at this crucial point and you will be able to roll back to the carpark fat and happy, with no regrets.

OR, if you want to eat lots of ice-cream, restrain your self with the pork-chops. Choose one or the other and plan ahead.

Oh, a bonus tip for hardcore, buffet pants wearing Billabongs junkies: lean to the right. This won't make you feel better, but if eating a lot is your priority you will be able to eat more, because you are encouraging your stomach to empty quicker. Lean to the right. This is actual medical advice my other sister received in hospital when she had intestinal surgery, and it seemed applicable for buffet situations.