When ordering isn’t on the menu

“How does it work?”

That’s the first question friends ask about Kevin Gillespie’s restaurant, Gunshow, after I have explained its nontraditional format. Chefs bring several portions of a just-finished dish from the kitchen to shop around the dining room. They are yours for the taking; you don’t order, you just sit there like Henry VIII (or perhaps Jabba the Hutt) and wait for the next temptation to pass under your nose.

But I know what people are really asking: They want to know if this system works. Do all the components — pacing, portion, flavors and preparations — add up in a way that puts you in that happy state of exultant satiety? Or do you walk away feeling like you’ve been the subject of a psychology experiment and still need a cheeseburger?

I repeat the line that has become rote to this restaurant’s waitstaff: Gunshow serves its meals like a dim sum parlor or a Brazilian churrascaria — the two most popular kinds of restaurants without menus.

But then I began to think, “Really?” Each of these meals comes together from dishes brought to the table. But they flow differently, satisfy differently, and offer their own kinds of pleasures. I decided to do some field work.

Canton House seemed a logical place to start. This Buford Highway dim sum standby routinely gets top marks from the public and almost never makes the cut with critics.

It’s a busy machine, clean and efficient, churning out a reliable product. It takes our waiter about 6 seconds to secure our tea order (we ask for earthy-tasting Pu-erh rather the proffered jasmine) and then the first cart of steamed dishes comes clattering our way.

Ah, that first moment of glory as the cart attendant tongs all the steamy favorites — clang, clang, clang — onto the table for perusal.

“Shrimp dumpling.” Clang. “Pork dumpling.” Clang. “Tofu skin roll. Steamed pork bun. Steamed chicken bun. Meatball. Spare rib.” On and on.

We say what we always say: “Yes. Yes. Yes. Oh … why not?” So much choice!

Our mouths are full when the fried cart arrives. “Taro puff. Egg roll. Shrimp toast.” We’re a little more selective, but now here comes the baked pastry cart hot on its heels. We surely need some egg tarts, and don’t we want a baked pork bun to compare with the steamed?

Such is my fate at dim sum: I can’t pace myself. There always comes that point in the meal where the starch parade overwhelms and we start to long for something fresh to cut through it. An order of stir-fried watercress with garlic (always my favorite of the green vegetables in a Cantonese restaurant) does the trick.

Before we go, I put in an order for one of the dim sum items I had turned down previously when our table started loading up, the sticky rice bundle. I’m so glad I did because it’s one of the best items from this kitchen. Coins of sweet lap cheung sausage, chicken, mushroom and all sorts of other treats are buried in the well-seasoned rice.

There are still a dozen or more dumplings and buns on the table when we cry “uncle,” and a waitress swoops in to package them up.

We also have to work to pace ourselves at Fogo de Chaõ, the Buckhead churrascaria that was the first in town and remains the best of the bunch. But I have to hand it to those Brazilians — they’ve got it all figured out. You go help yourself to the vegetables and cold cuts from the salad bar. You count on starches (mashed potatoes, fried polenta, gooey cheese rolls) to just show up at the table. But the meat? Ah, the meat. That, you must beckon forth.

When the handy dandy paper disk by your plate is on the red side, the gaucho-outfitted waiters, circling the room with cuts of meat impaled on brochettes, know to leave you alone. But when you flip it to the green side, they start swarming around you like flies to a slice of watermelon at a picnic. Meat, meat, meat. You want meat and more meat? Please.

I’m the kind of person who wants to try a bite of everything, which means that I quickly end up with Thor’s dinner, heaped and bloody. My savvy friend goes for the gold. He wants only picanha — the furled cut of top sirloin that is this restaurant’s signature. He knows he can wait because the service here never stops, never slows, never leaves hyperdrive for an instant. Our basket of cheese rolls, which have grown cold enough to resist, gets replaced with hot, fresh ones. Resistance is futile.

If there’s a cut of meat you want to try, you can summon any of the dozens of waiters roaming about and let it be known.

I would recommend not letting the waiters clear your salad plate before starting the meat-palooza because that’s the quickest path to a food stupor. Nothing like a bite of fat, crisp asparagus or roasted red pepper to keep your carnivorous palate from pummeling you.

By the way, the all-inclusive price ($51.50 at dinner) may seem steep. (That’s more than dim sum for three at Canton House.) But it’s a fair amount for a reliable splurge.

You certainly won’t spend any less at Gunshow, where the plates cost around $15 apiece, and you’ll need at least three per person.

Every night, the three chefs running the kitchen put out about a dozen savory plates and three desserts. Each cook prepares his or her dishes in a set order — say, a batch of shrimp and grits with chorizo, followed by a batch Jamaican curried goat, etc. You will jump in at some point during this rotation and start going. You may feel a bit like the kid who has to ride the ostrich on the merry-go-round, instead of the elephant, because that’s the one in front of you.

But you know what? There’s a crazy Zen to this. Your meal will happen like none other, and if you can get into the groove, you’ll find it rewarding.

It really behooves you to dine with a group that shares. My wife and I and two of our kids eat our way through most of the menu by employing that sharing calculus unique to families. When three tiny turkey mole enchiladas (delicious) come our way, we have the halvsies all figured out.

I manage to scoop up three of the wonderfully crisp and sweet shrimp from the shrimp and grits because I abdicated half my share of pork skin “risotto” (a signature dish made with farro and pulverized cracklins) to the child who made googly eyes at first bite. There is some competition over the Indian spiced beets with raita and stewed chick peas, and we keep waiting for it to come around again, but alas.

I have a few issues with the service format at Gunshow — four, precisely. One, there are no serving utensils, which would make sharing a little more appealing in high flu season. Two, we have to ask our waiter a couple of times to replace our share plates. The stunning dish called “late autumn breakfast,” which features a corn pancake with beech mushrooms and a swipe of huckleberry sauce, doesn’t need to compete with the hot chile and allspice of curried goat gravy. Three, there’s always some kind of nasty-fun sandwich, which makes a galumphing appearance in the middle of the meal. Do we really all want to take a bite of Tunnbrodrulle, a squishy Swedish gut bomb filled with hot dog, mashed potatoes and shrimp? Four, this meal does get long. We were looking forward to trying the braised beef short rib, but got too full and ready to move on before it emerged from the kitchen.

But I’ve been to Gunshow twice now, and both times have walked out feeling charged by the experience, happy with the flavors lingering in my mouth, and mostly sated. I’m not sure I’d want to navigate that restaurant with nonsharers. But I’m thrilled to put away the menu and just see what arrives at the table. I want to try it all.