An All-You-Can-Eat Defeat

(I am in a small beach town in the south of France vacationing with my husband and my son. The first night there, we go to an all-you-can-eat buffet near the beach. I have never tried most of the seafood they have in the buffet so I decide to take just a little bit of the things I want to try so I will not be wasting food in case I do not like it. I next go back to the buffet to get a full plate this time. After putting some rice, vegetables, and a few seafoods on it, I decide that I also want to take some mussels. The waiter is checking the trays to see what needs to be refilled. I am about to grab the spoon to take mussels when he grabs it instead and tells me:)

Waiter: *in French* “Since you already had mussels, you cannot take any more.”

Me: “Is this not an all-you-can-eat buffet, like the sign says in front of the restaurant?”

Waiter: “It is, but for the mussels, it’s only one serving per meal.”

(He stayed there, in front of the platter with the serving spoon in hand, looking angry. I was starting to feel really uncomfortable and the guy was not budging so I decided to go back to my table. I immediately told my husband what had just happened. The waiter heard me and quickly disappeared into the kitchen. A good ten minutes later, another waiter came to replace him. My husband told him what his colleague had told me earlier and he did not understand why he would have said something like that. He added that it must have been a misunderstanding but I know it was not — French is my mother tongue. My son and my husband had quite a few more plates before we paid and left, but since I had knots in my stomach, because of the rude waiter, I barely touched my plate. We saw him come out of hiding when we left the restaurant.)