An elevated gamble: Ameristar Centennial Buffet

On a bright Saturday afternoon at the end of my spring break, ES and I drove a half hour out of Denver and up into the mountain gambling towns of Black Hawk and Central City. While mellower than Atlantic City and certainly smaller and quieter than Las Vegas, these two towns boast a number of large casinos interspersed with humbler ones, all set along a gulch that had once been a hub for gold mining and processing.

Upon arrival, we stepped outside and breathed in the cold, crisp air. Behind the casinos tree-speckled mountains rose in the background, and the sun shone high overhead. Since we had arrived around noon, our first stop was Ameristar—one of the newer casinos to arrive to Black Hawk—to eat lunch.

Ameristar's Centennial Buffet is pretty standard "international buffet" fare, with the notable addition of a pho station amid the steam tables of American, Mexican, Chinese, and Italian offerings. ES got himself a bowl and declared it actually okay.

This, by the way, is also where I hatched a renovation idea for pho restaurants: installing a buffet station for the garnishes—sprouts, limes, mint, jalapenos, cilantro, etc.—instead of having servers bring over a pre-plated portion for each table. I don't know about you, but whenever I eat pho the garnishes never seem to match what I want; I rarely put in as many sprouts or herbs, and I always end up asking for more limes. A serve-yourself buffet station would allow everyone to get exactly what they need, and decrease waste for the restaurant, too. Brilliant…no?

Err, anyway. Back to the buffet. Pictured here are mac and cheese, corn souffle, meatballs in gravy, a king crab leg, breaded mini hot dogs, a spring roll, a piece of country fried steak with cream gravy, and a piece of smoked salmon with capers. All of it not bad, all of it not great.

The same could be said for the desserts, where one bite of each was pretty much enough. But that's how it goes with buffets, isn't it? You don't go for the high quality of each and every dish, but rather for the unfettered ability to sample your way through as much as you can.


We spent the rest of the afternoon letting our stomachs digest by taking a stroll down the main strip of Black Hawk. Afterward we drove a mile over to the much quieter Central City, where we found tiny casinos set up in houses and former bars and restaurants; it was delightfully strange to walk into a kitchen or a living room and to find it lined with working slot machines. All in all it was a wonderful day excursion, a unique little part of Colorado that I was happy to explore.

Also, one day I'm going to save up my money and buy these ten acres. With views, privacy, access, power, and its own gold mine, surely this is the perfect purchase?

A buffet gamble

Walk along 40th Road in Flushing, Queens at any given time and you'll find a row of charter buses, all waiting to ferry gamblers to Atlantic City or nearby casinos like Mohegan Sun and Turning Stone. The companies that run these buses also offer remarkably low-priced fares: typically ten or fifteen dollars per person for round-trip transportation, a meal at the casino's buffet, and a ten- or twenty-dollar voucher for table gambling money. As long as you refrain from losing everything you own at the casino after you arrive, you have a pretty good deal. (But if you do lose all your money, you'll still at least have a ride back!)

Taking advantage of one of these offers, my parents and I headed to Foxwoods Casino for an afternoon. Since none of us were interested in gambling at the tables, we traded off our vouchers (i.e. sold them to the guys waiting at the bus drop-off for people like us) and headed for Festival Buffet to eat lunch instead. The food is just as you might expect for a buffet in a casino—some items were good (the surprisingly tender slice of London broil, the shrimp cocktail, all things battered and fried) but most of them were mediocre (all of the food at the Chinese and Mexican stations, any attempt at seafood). Still, while sheer quantity doesn't usually make up for quality, in this case some combination of both factors made the meal decent enough.

Thus fortified, we spent the next few hours at the penny and nickel slot machines. Once we blew about twenty bucks we took the bus back and called it a day. What can I say? My parents and I may love a bargain, but gamblers we are not.

Meandering in Montreal, Part 2: Le Taj, Fairmount Bagels, Le Cheval, and Pho 32 revisited

Catch up here! Meandering in Montreal, Part 1


AS had announced his desire to try one of the numerous Indian buffets in the area, so the next morning after checking out of the hotel we headed to Le Taj for lunch, a large open restaurant with high ceilings and uncrowded tables. The price for the buffet was something around $12, and boasted a good selection of dishes for both vegetarians and non-vegetarians.

Here's my plate. From what I can remember, there's lamb curry, fish curry, a samosa, lentils, tandoori chicken, string beans, eggplant and potato curry, a fritter, pickled cabbage, and curried cauliflower on there. Except for the fried goods which were too greasy, most items were fresh, well-balanced, and of good quality; the naan, which usually gets dried out on buffet steam tables, was fluffy and moist too. I especially enjoyed the fish curry made with tender hunks of salmon, a fish that was a surprisingly good match for the strong flavors and spices.

I was surprised by the dessert table too, which had really fresh gulab jamun (still hot and crisp-edged despite its syrup soak), mildly sweet, moist squares made with semolina flour, and kheer, a creamy Indian rice pudding flavored with rosewater and cardamom. At most buffets you don't get this many dessert options.

Not sure of what else to do, we found ourselves back on Rue Mont-Royal, hoping that a stroll in the daytime would prove less frigid than our nighttime sprint. After walking around for a while we headed to Fairmont Bagels, a Montreal institution for the boiled-and-baked good. It was crowded both inside and out, with orders being rapidly placed and filled at the narrow counter. I made my way to the front and asked for a dozen: half everything, three onion, and three poppy seed.

(I didn't taste them until I got home, but when I did was terribly disappointed. I'd heard so much about the unique, Montreal-style bagel, and expected something pretty extraordinary. After toasting one of them to restore its crust, I bit into the bagel and found myself with a mouthful of bland, vaguely chewy bread. Later, when I examined the bag, I saw the words "salt-free." Let me just say this: these bagels need some salt, and the much-touted Montreal-style bagel is just not great. Sorry.)

It's been said that no visit to Montreal is complete without poutine, and we weren't about to miss out. Unfortunately, the place I had wanted to try—Patati Patata—was filled to the brim with other poutine-noshers and for the four of us, simply too crowded to attempt. After trying desperately to look up other good options in the area, we gave up and headed to Casino de Montreal as planned, hoping that in one of its restaurants the dish would be on offer.

It seemed like a miss at first until I spotted the little placard sitting on the bar at Le Cheval, one of the snack and bar areas roped off from the rest of the casino. Poutine wasn't available on its own, but could be purchased as part of a set meal including either one or two hot dogs and a drink. We went for the deal.

I'm sure this wasn't the best version I could have tried, or even anywhere close. The fries were frozen, the thin gravy probably canned, and the cheese curds soft and tasteless, melting in a way that was completely unlike the fresh, squeaky curds I had envisioned. Still, it gave me a taste of what I might be looking for. And according to TL, TVD, and AS, the hot dogs were decent too.

After that, we headed out. We crossed the border successfully, drove six hours a little less successfully due to the administration of a speeding ticket, and finally reached Manhattan near midnight, starving.

Where else but K-town to satisfy a late-night dinner craving? We headed straight for Pho 32 & Shabu, where one server alone was handling the entire restaurant. At that hour, there weren't many people in there, but nearly all the empty tables were piled high with abandoned plates and food because he didn't have enough time to clear them. It looked as if people had been called out of the restaurant for a sudden fire drill.

TL and I split an order of the fried chicken dumplings, which had the exact shape and filling as the Ling Ling brand potstickers I wrote about. I'm almost positive they are the same—just look at 'em! I should start frying my own.

I got pho with extra meatballs, and it was perfect. Not a perfect bowl of pho—the broth was weak, the herbs and vegetation pitiful, and there were too many onions and not enough noodles—but a perfect thing to eat on a cold night after a long drive home. Something about parting ways after a trip always seems sad to me, so I was glad to have a final meal with AS and TVD before TL and I headed back to Astoria. Even then, I was sorry to say goodbye.

East Buffet will knock you flat, but not in the good way

Photo by TL

Years ago, when I first went to East Buffet, the place was the shit. My family and I would drive all the way out to Huntington to eat at one of the first Chinese/Asian high-end "super" buffets around, and it was even more exciting when branches began opening closer by in Elmhurst and other areas of Queens. Unfortunately, after a long hiatus I ate at the Flushing location a few months ago with TL, and realized the place is now just simply…shitty. At a mere $7.99 for the weekend lunch (slashed from $15.99 through their seemingly perpetual 50% off promotion) I didn't feel overcharged, but I did feel stuffed to the gills with greasy, mediocre, not-so-fresh food. Maybe it was because we arrived at the tail-end of lunch service, but I remember the place just being better all around.

There are two areas of the buffet where you can really make things worth your while, though. One is the sushi bar, which while not excellent by any means, is decent enough. I'd advise the maki over the nigiri, since we're not talking amazing raw fish here.

Photo by TL

The other area is the Peking Duck station, where a man carves slices of meat and skin directly off the bird, layers them atop fluffy pockets of steamed bread, and then hands the plate back so you can dress the combination with with hoisin sauce, cucumber shreds, and slivered scallions as you please. TL came back to the table bearing six of the lil' babies, since the station was about to close (good man). The duck was fatty and the skin soggy—a mark of good Peking Duck is crisp, lacquered skin with the fat rendered out of it—but even bad Peking Duck tends to be pretty enjoyable. Especially when it's unlimited.

So don't go to East Buffet expecting great food (or even good service). But do go expecting mediocre/average Chinese food in wide array, with some sushi and Peking Duck thrown in. And make sure you ready yourself for passing out immediately afterward, which is exactly what TL and I found ourselves doing after our meal.

For a foodie bride, a meal-centric hen party

For JL's bachelorette party, we bridesmaids decided to whisk our girl off to a weekend in Atlantic City, NJ. With several months to go before the actual wedding, we all had a little leeway to drink, play, and eat to our heart's content—and so we did.

The twelve of us rented an enormous, beautiful house in nearby Brigantine, NJ, which along with five large bedrooms, three bathrooms, two living rooms, and an elevator, came with a spacious kitchen equipped with two sinks and miles of counter space. We put this to good use by preparing two meals over the weekend, a dinner and a brunch. Friday, the night we arrived, we made asparagus, baked salmon, steaks, bread with fontina and caramelized onions, and slices of buffalo mozzarella with tomatoes; the next morning we made roasted fingerling potatoes, scrambled eggs, omelettes, and fried up some Canadian ham (see JL's post here).

We whiled away Saturday afternoon shopping at the surrounding outlets, and then set out for dinner at Sonsie, located at the Pier Shops at Caesars. We chose this restaurant because of the presence of truffle fries and blue cheese fries on the menu, which JL has a special fondness for (check out her post). Here, the parmesan truffle fries were more successful than the blue cheese fries, the former being crispier and less heavy than the latter.

I ordered the filet mignon, which came with asparagus, a grilled portobello mushroom, and what the menu billed as a "stuffed Pommes Anna," a wedge of crisped potato cake with a layer of mushrooms and some other veg in the middle of it. The steak, which I had ordered medium rare, was perfectly cooked and really flavorful; I enjoyed every bite. The mushroom and stuffed Pommes Anna however were really salty. With the meat they were manageable, but alone they were too much.

We spent the rest of the night club-hopping and partying (we managed to hook up with a random bachelor party, which turned out to be a serendipitous pairing). Afterwards, most of us ended up at the Metropolitan, a 24-hour cafe/diner inside the Borgata. I ordered the Florentine egg-white omelette (spinach, mushroom, and onion), which was surprisingly well-prepared. It came with a side of home fries that were of the "deep-fried cubes" variety, something like seasoned french fries in square form. Yum.

The same preparation of home fries made a reappearance in the steam tables of the Borgata Buffet when we went there for brunch the next day. Most of the offerings here were a cut above other standard buffets, with the most notable being the plump, excellent shrimp in the shrimp cocktail, which both JL and I went back several times for. I also liked the mini waffles, the mini chocolate-coconut muffin, and the smoked salmon.

We parted ways after eating, with two cars headed home and one car headed for another round of outlet shopping, and so it was at the buffet that we all bid each other farewell. In a few months JL will enter the land of marriage, and given her enthusiasm for food, it was appropriate that her bachelorette party was so full of tasty eats. All in all, a successful weekend!

For the full set of (food) photos, click here.

Two Chicks in The Big Easy, day 2: Too much buffet, and bad fried chicken

Catch up! Day 1.

The next day, MH and I woke up late. We were both hungry, and I decided that I wanted to hit up one of the jazz brunches I kept seeing advertised. MH was kind enough to humor me even though she hates buffets.

The garden dining area of The Court of the Two Sisters was beautiful, full of trailing wisteria and fountains. But their buffet was indoors, in a space that felt rather dark and empty. Stepping between the two areas meant a change in mood that was slightly disorienting.

There were lots of items on offer though, at least eighty I believe.

Here's my sampler plate, clockwise from top: biscuit (slightly sweet, tasty); crabmeat pasta salad; Cajun pasta salad; flounder and crabmeat roulade (good); curried chicken salad, eggplant-andouille casserole (tasty); spicy andouille; cheesy shrimp pasta (good); duck l'orange (tough and flavorless); jambalaya (much too salty); and braised veal (tough and too salty).

I also snagged us a plate of boiled crawfish and shrimp, with a good dollop of rémoulade on the side. Unfortunately, the shrimp were desperately overcooked and had turned into little curves of pink rubber, and the crawfish were much too salty. I tried the sauce with one, but that was salty too. I quickly abandoned the entire plate.

My second plate, clockwise from top: crawfish salad; sweet potato and andouille salad (surprisingly vinegary); potato salad chunk; shrimp étouffée on rice; potatoes au gratin; more cheesy shrimp pasta; another flounder and crabmeat roulade; and in the middle, more eggplant-andouille casserole.

I also tried a bit of sherried turtle soup, which tasted like beef broth; if there was supposed to be a turtley flavor—whatever that may mean—the soup didn't have it.

Then it was on to dessert. Two plates, mine and MH's: Bananas Foster (buttery and too sweet); whiskey bread pudding (solid as a brick); pecan pie (decent filling, bad crust); king cake (stale); chocolate cream-filled cupcake (tasty in a Ding-Dong kinda way); brownie; chocolate cake; vanilla ice cream (half-melted and foamy in texture).

I can't say it was a stellar meal, but, um, sitting in the courtyard and listening to the jazz trio was nice. And it was filling at least?

We spent the rest of the day making our way along the waterfront and walking around the French Quarter and the French Market. Neither of us felt hungry even as it hit late evening.

But when we left the Quarter and stepped onto Canal Street, we spotted a Popeyes. Before our trip, we had heard from several different people that the Popeyes outposts in New Orleans were excellent. MH and I were curious what all the fuss was about, and had even contemplated staging a NYC-NOLA taste-off to see how they compared. We figured it was as good a time as any to give the chain a try.

Remembering our meal now, I can't believe that the results of a taste-off would have been too different. The spicy chicken in our two-piece meal tasted like KFC, and wasn't spicy; the gummy biscuits tasted overwhelmingly of artificial butter; the Cajun fries were decent but not extraordinary; and the chicken étouffée was just okay. And I liked the Cajun rice, but I suspect it might have been because it was the only item that wasn't mouth-dryingly salty.

Were we putting too much expectation on what was, in the end, fast food? Did we just get a shoddy meal? It doesn't matter, I suppose, because we didn't go back again for a second try. We weren't doing too well on the eats that day.

To be continued....

Two Chicks in The Big Easy:
Day 1: All fried, all the time
Day 2: Too much buffet, and bad fried chicken
Day 3: Our beignet addiction takes hold
Day 4: Still fried, but deliciousness at last
Day 5: Food court and dive bar surprises
Day 6: Giant salads, muffalattas, and no beignets
Day 7: "Beignet...done that"

Starting the day with fried chicken and gospel

Last Sunday, I went with TC and fam to check out the Sunday Gospel Brunch at B. B. King. I was excited about going for two reasons: 1) the opportunity to see the Harlem Gospel Choir live, and 2) the extensive buffet menu of Southern food promised on B. B. King's website. I almost never eat Southern food, mainly because it isn't very healthy, but also because I don't have many dining companions who are interested. A gospel brunch at one of the biggest tourist venues in Times Square isn't the same as eating chicken and waffles at some joint up in the hundreds, but I'll take whatever opportunities I can get.

That day, Kosovo had just declared its independence, and my walk from the train station to the club was filled with the wild honking of Kosovars celebrating. People were grouped on the street or hanging out of their car windows, waving flags and cheering in excitement. I couldn't help but smile at their joy.

But when I arrived to B. B. Kings at 12:30 pm, the time specified on the ticket, this huge line awaited me.

I was a little dismayed, but then realized I really was in for the full New York tourist experience. It was about half an hour before they finally opened the doors and started ushering us in.

Once we entered though, things were fairly organized. A woman led the group of us to a padded circular booth along the outside walls of the room. It was crowded—more like a booth for three than for five—but we settled in well enough. Given the approximately six hundred people in the room, B. B. King had a specific method for allowing everyone access to the buffet: they had created four lines at two long, identical buffet tables that could be reached from either side, and called up sections one at a time to go fill their plates.

Here's mine, clockwise from the top: grits, a piece of fried chicken, jambalaya, collard greens, a biscuit, a piece of fried catfish, some pasta salad, and a scoop of mac 'n' cheese. None of it was anything to make a Southerner proud. But the collard greens were spicy, and the fried chicken, while soggy-crusted, was juicy and well seasoned. And later on I snagged some pieces of perfectly crisp bacon, which pretty much makes everything right with the world.

Most of the food at the Sunday Gospel Brunch was mediocre—about what you would anticipate from a giant buffet held in a nightclub. But some of it was also better than I expected. And when your meal is followed by an exuberant group of gospel singers belting out "Oh Happy Day," you just can't help but agree.