Tuesday, August 3, 2010

The Tuesday night Texan buffet at the Grand Villa Casino


We arrived at the buffet at around 6:45 pm to find that the ribs were gone. We choose this as the opening line because this mere fact set the mood for the entire evening that we spent at the casino. The advertisement (complete with a lovely picture of decadent, tender ribs slathered in sauce, and barbecued corn) paints a picture of deliciousness available at the snap of a finger. As we entered, we told our waiter that we wanted to savor the buffet, and were not made aware that a large party that had previously been, had cleaned out their entire supply of ribs. Had they have informed us, we probably wouldn't be writing this critique, let alone this blog. The saving grace of this 12.95 plus tax experience was that the corn muffins (tiny corn breads) were actually quite good, and the tiny chicken wings they replaced the ribs with were a) "more expensive than the ribs" (incompetent casino cook, verbatim) and b) good, once you managed to retrieve the morsels of meat from the bones. The corn/red pepper melange was watery, the "roast potatoes" (deemed chloratoes) tasted of chlorinated pool water, the ribs were invisible, the beef sandwiches aged my arteries, and the half glass of iced tea cost more than a 2L pop at safeway. The refills WERE free, but at this point, we were fed up with the no ribs situation, and the no waiter/waitress situation. After sitting around for about ten minutes while figuring out what we were going to do, and whether or not we were going to pay for a buffet that ran out of ribs, my husband decided on a burgar, which came about twenty minutes later with a very tiny serving of shoestring potato fries (no chlorine this time, thank GOD.) The meal actually left us feeling incredibly full, but we were left wondering if it was our arteries that felt full, or the chloratoes working their magic on the lining of our stomachs. We may be back for a second go, and just to make sure we didn't get one rare, bad night, but if it wasn't for our need to be fair judging, we would NOT go back.

On a scale of "I should have gone to Pizza Hut" to "I would spend a million bucks here", I would definitely not go as far as the former. However, we would have been happier with fast food. 


Service: 1/5
-no buffet instruction, didn't ask for drinks, seated ourselves, and we were not informed that the ribs were not available
Food:
Quality: 4.5/10
Quantity: 9/10*
*as it was a buffet, you could essentially eat as much as you want. As one of the staples of the advertised foods was missing (delicious, holy ribs) we knocked it down by one. 
Atmostphere: 3/5
-not particularely buzzing, quiet, apart from casino dinging and clanging (to be expected), hostile cook that attempted to convince us that chicken wings cost more than giant ribs, no entertainment.

Out of a possible 30 points, we give this buffet option a 17.5. 

Hope this helps!

Wishes of many good eats,

Yours faithfully,

Chatterbox and Fussy







4 comments:

  1. We do, we're not employed or anything. This is just for fun! The buffet was like 13 plus tax. But no ribs? It's a sin. SIN.

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  2. I"m a friend of Karyn's and saw your blog though her facebook. I live in Texas and if the ribs are gone, the Texans would go home....They should have substituted brisket or pulled pork for the ribs, not chicken wings. They should have had "sides" which are usually squash casserole, potato salad, green beans cooked with bacon, etc. Your meal came from some part of Texas I haven't visited....
    Jennifer

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  3. Heya, Jennifer, and thanks for checking out our blog-tastic ways!!! I agree with you, we should have left, but we had already filled our plates...and were told that more ribs were coming. So awful!!!! The pulled pork was alright, but we definitely went for the ribs. Maybe we will give it a second chance, because the rib bones looked MASSIVE and were slathered in dark bbq sauce. We're going to have to beat the big parties next time!!!!!
    Keep eating :)
    xo

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