It's interesting to see the rise of these cafeteria-style places serving mainland Chinese food. Like Zhengliuji, this small local chain has individually-portioned pots laid out in a spread.
But instead of scaldingly hot ceramic pots, these are encased in plastic for you to pick up easily yourself. At the end of the spread lies the payment counter, which at first glance looks like a scale like at Hundred Grains. But it's actually an optical recognition system employed to calculate your total bill. I suppose that this format is not that different from economic rice or nasi padang in the sense that it's pre-cooked food laid out in a spread to go with rice for you to pick what you want, but these are individually portioned and expedited by technology.
Oh yeah, the food was edible, but lukewarm. And that mapo doufu in the center was more acidic than it was spicy. At least it was cheap and fast, which was probably more of their priority.
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