Other kitchen utensils you might not have considered using when plating and/or at the table:
• Small silicone tongs (e.g. https://www.amazon.ca/Fuyamp-Kitchen-Cooking-Silicone-Grilli...) — great for "family-style" service of oily spaghetti, salads, etc. Much better grip on saucy foods than laquered wooden "salad hands." No need to wind pasta around anything; just pick it up. Works much better than a spoon/ladle for breaking up a mound of sticky sweet-and-sour pork — you're pulling and twisting, rather than pushing.
• Kitchen shears — some foods (e.g. Korean short ribs) that are extremely annoying to slice/saw the meat off the bone of with a steak knife, can be scissored through with ease. Also work great for cutting open crab legs.
• Handheld cheese wire slicer (e.g. https://www.amazon.ca/Cheese-Slicer-Stainless-Steel-Cutter/d... — don't bother with the ones with a little roller in them for "depth of cut adjustment", it'll just get gummed up) — rather than pre-slicing your cheese for charcuterie snacking (and having it all dry out), you can just bring the block to the table and slice it as you need it.
• A mini-sized silicone spatula (e.g. https://www.amazon.ca/HLMY-Silicone-Resistant-Baking-Essenti...)... for spreading butter on toast. Yes, really. I just figured this one out yesterday, since I already had the spatula on hand from making eggs, and figured I may-as-well try. It works better than any butter knife I ever used; even the fancy wide-bladed "spreading knives." Much less butter left stuck to the utensil in the end. And it makes sense — buttering toast isn't all that different than icing a cake.
Why bother with the silicone tongs? Just get some plain Winco nine- and sixteen-inch tongs. They'll last forever in a home kitchen and you can use them with temperatures that would ruin the silicone cover.
You would use the silicone tongs to avoid scratching your delicate non-stick pan. And since they are temperature safe up to 480F, you are not that likely to ruin them with heat unless you are doing something silly. Personally, I use kitchen-supply-story tongs like you suggest, but these might serve a niche.
With few exceptions, your cooking oil would have to be smoking profusely before the pan is hot enough to damage silicone. At that point it's not quite hot enough to ruin the Teflon either.
• Small silicone tongs (e.g. https://www.amazon.ca/Fuyamp-Kitchen-Cooking-Silicone-Grilli...) — great for "family-style" service of oily spaghetti, salads, etc. Much better grip on saucy foods than laquered wooden "salad hands." No need to wind pasta around anything; just pick it up. Works much better than a spoon/ladle for breaking up a mound of sticky sweet-and-sour pork — you're pulling and twisting, rather than pushing.
• Kitchen shears — some foods (e.g. Korean short ribs) that are extremely annoying to slice/saw the meat off the bone of with a steak knife, can be scissored through with ease. Also work great for cutting open crab legs.
• Handheld cheese wire slicer (e.g. https://www.amazon.ca/Cheese-Slicer-Stainless-Steel-Cutter/d... — don't bother with the ones with a little roller in them for "depth of cut adjustment", it'll just get gummed up) — rather than pre-slicing your cheese for charcuterie snacking (and having it all dry out), you can just bring the block to the table and slice it as you need it.
• A mini-sized silicone spatula (e.g. https://www.amazon.ca/HLMY-Silicone-Resistant-Baking-Essenti...)... for spreading butter on toast. Yes, really. I just figured this one out yesterday, since I already had the spatula on hand from making eggs, and figured I may-as-well try. It works better than any butter knife I ever used; even the fancy wide-bladed "spreading knives." Much less butter left stuck to the utensil in the end. And it makes sense — buttering toast isn't all that different than icing a cake.