AFTER a splendid buffet lunch in the Sandawana Restaurant at Harare's Cresta Jameson Hotel last Wednesday, I tried unsuccessfully to return to get a photograph of various vivid victuals before the starving masses of Zimbabwe lay daily waste to them.

Lunch starts at 1230 and I'd have to get there a bit earlier to capture the mouthwatering displays before the hordes descend. Certainly arriving at a civilized 1PM and expecting the running buffet to have not almost run away was optimism personified.

I'm amazed how well these hotel carveries do. I was at the Jameson eight days after being stunned to learn Meikles Pavilion was then priced at $25 trillion and two days before returning to Meikles, when it was up to $75tn.

Jameson's was $20tn and had "just" gone up, general manager Garret Moyo said, joining me for a chat and a bite.

We'd a good old natter about the condition of hospitality in Zimbabwe and neighbouring states. He had, quite literally, "a bite" of lunch. I probably over-ate.

It was hard to resist crisp, fresh colourful salads and, having stacked a side-plate of multi-hued leaves, peppers, tomatoes, cucumber, grated carrots and raisins, coleslaw, cheese, ham and chicken, then finding a pre-dished seafood cocktail, carried two "cold stuff" items to our table.

At that stage there were no rolls; there hadn't been in supermarkets for days, but a waiter managed to find more-ish garlic bread, almost cake-like in texture, great accompaniment to now oily-vinegary-peppery salad.

It is a problem keeping buffet soup hot. Perhaps as there was a mere scraping of what had obviously been a fine cream of mushroom left and due to the tureen lid being left off, Sandawana's was tepid.

Zimbabweans don't exactly go a bundle on vichyssoise, gazpacho or other chilled or cold soups but educating some palates that way, certainly in summer, could be the answer to a perpetual poser.

Zimbos are presumably not "up" on mussels, either. The delicious bivalve shellfish is a house speciality at Flat Dog, Msasa; Kiwi types, served in creamy garlic sauce in three-legged individual potjies are always a sell out.

Steamed mussels on the Jameson buffet, however, were hardly touched although there was evidence of prawns which had accompanied them.

A difficulty in providing a really good varied buffet/carvery now is in trying to impose some sort of sensible portion control and consumer discipline on often very hungry folk who, currently, probably have little idea when they'll again eat.

As we queued for wonderful slices from a succulent huge pork roast, complete with crispy, crunchy crackling and piquant apple sauce, I saw a customer- -- granted, tall and powerfully built -- with a plate so grossly overloaded and perilously stacked with chunks of dead pig and chicken it would have made Desperate Dan and Fred Flintstone's appetites appear sparrow-like. A huge mass of protein and carbohydrates in a tottering titanic tower of trembling tastiness; I only hope he finished it.

Buffet vegetables are often overcooked to start with; keeping them satisfactorily warm in chafing dishes doesn't aid freshness, but our greens were still al dente. Long grain fluffy white rice and thin pasta in tomato sauce were two starches, then I realised that yellowish items I first thought of as chunks of small mealies or big sweetcorn were roast potatoes and great tasting they were too.

After sampling a colourful pudding display and sipping excellent freshly-brewed filter coffee I was slightly late back to work; uncomfortably replete scaling three flights of steep stairs to my desk.

I know many readers were as stunned as I that Meikles Pavilion buffet lunch or breakfast (photographed here last week) was $25tn on August 9, so will be stupefied to learn those meals cost $75tn 10 days later.

Can't comment on the lunch, which I haven't eaten for some time, but breakfast was as good, perhaps even better, than ever, on August 30; and the restaurant was full.

I'd booked into Meikles, a decision spurred by the fact we had neither water nor Zesa and I'd to change into evening wear for my good friend Nikki Lear's magical 40th birthday do in the Stewart Room.

Nikki and husband Mike flew in on the lunchtime SAA from Jo'burg, which was late, and spent most of the afternoon decorating tables with material bought "down south".

Meikles banquet buffet was even better than usual, so good I didn't reach a handsome hand-carved buttock of baby beef with thick gravy and Yorkshire pud being carved at the end of the queue.

Cold meats, salads and pickles were plenty for moi, perhaps as I'd rather stupidly called in the hotel's executive Club Lounge to watch Sarah Palin unveiled as Republican V-P choice. The 2008 centre-rightist thinking man's crumpet! I staunchly approved while sipping cold Pilsner on the verandah, trying for a breath of 11th floor breeze on a hot, airless night, nibbling things on cocktail sticks and assorted nuts, DJ on chair back, bow-tie askew.

Almost all guests (several from the Rand, Cape, UK and diplomatic corps) stuck to the invitation's "black tie" edict; some wore white-tuxedoed Red Sea rig as the night broiled; the gals were gorgeous, food and wine excellent, entertainment (by highly professional Rob Osborne and Ellie Warren) first rate. I even danced!

Mid-afternoon, feeling peckish, I'd been to an almost empty Barbour's, waited ages for one of the two surviving lifts to creak to the fourth floor, to hear almost nothing on the mini-menu was "on". Huku and chips had been the only lunch at $1 800, but there were no more spuds, so they could offer only a scraggy bit of road-runner and rice. There was no bread for plain or toasted sandwiches or "something" on toast, which was merely academic, as there was nothing to put "on toast"

They managed tea, a scone, on the cusp of staleness, with marge and cake, about half the size it would have been a year ago, with cream and Sun jam, instead of fresh strawberries or pineapple, all at a fairly hefty $700.

But at least that Meikles-owned operation was open. The café next door wasn't and hasn't been for over a year; Black Steer steakhouse and Bulldog pub at Greaterman's shut more than a month ago, as shortages, controls and consumer resistance really begin to tell.