U & Me Revolving Hot Pot (12384 S Apopka Vineland Rd, Orlando, FL) required masks om entry though many guests did not have masks. The sign on the door said that temperature checks were required but none were done.

I had written an article about how restaurants were embracing robots to serve in the age of COVID-19. I learned about this robot hot pot restaurant and wanted to sketch. A shirt robot with a purple cap lead us to our table. Don’t get in the way of this robot however because it would rudely tell you to get out of it’s way. A chair from our table had slipped a few inched out into the aisle and that was enough to get the desert robot to have a melt down.

A conveyor belt circled the seating area offering dished full of vegetables and noodled that could be added to a broth that is boiled on four electric burners on each table. I ordered a pork broth from our flesh and blood server. He has a mom who is an artist and thus appreciated my sketching. The robots couldn’t give a flying fig. My mask came off to around my neck for the duration of the meal since my chance of getting infected by the Delta variant that is gaining steam in America is about 10% since I have had both vaccine shots. I have eaten out three times this week since Pam has family in town and it is a strange adjustment after over a year of isolation. The open all you can eat bar to our left was full of sea food and that is what I sampled the most myself.

A robotic recording sang happy birthday to a table behind us. D found a live worm in one of her bowls of vegetables which was less than appealing and fly’s did make the rounds to each table. I thought buffets had gone the way of the dodo bird on cruise ships and in restaurants. However ‘All you can eat’ is irresistibly American and worth the risk of possible infection and death.