The horror

You enter a different world when you cross the California / Nevada border. A world full of sin. And, I’m not just talking about the gambling. I’m talking about hotel buffets—troughs of food just open for the taking, without self-control, without concerns for wastefulness, without any sense of self-awareness.

I haven’t been to a buffet in years. I think the last time I went to one, it was at the Hometown Buffet with my parents. That was my parents’ idea of a nice dinner. And I’ve never felt a yearning to gorge myself at a buffet. So, when one of my directors from work suggested we eat at the Harrah’s buffet in the part of Lake Tahoe that no longer resides in California but in Nevada (we literally walked ten feet from our hotel in California into Nevada), I secretly cringed, but acquiesced.

To say that whole process was an ordeal would be an overstatement but not a gross one. We had to search our way through the clouds of smoke in the bottom floor casino to the elevator that took us up 18 floors to the restaurant. We waited in a line, paid the cashier, got seated, and then it was off with our plates.

I scoped out my choices on our way to the table and eyed the baked salmon, roasted potatoes, green beans (their vegetable—only one—of the day), and cabernet mushrooms. They weren’t bad but they weren’t good either. Everything was much too salty and over-seasoned. The food actually started to hurt the roof of my mouth—I think the salt was burning it off. I suppose that’s what the chefs must do to appease such a wide range of palates.

My second round was for some salad and their Asian foods, which I should have known to be sub-par. The selection of Asian food was actually quite impressive. There was dim sum, noodles, dumplings, seaweed salad, California and unagi rolls. I picked up some of the rolls, a shrimp dumpling, and a pork dumpling. The rolls were cold and hard. The shrimp dumpling’s wrapper was too starchy. And the pork dumpling had a strange and unappealing texture. The salad was decent.

But the quality of the food and having to get up and serve myself aren’t the only things I have issues with at buffets. It’s watching people mound the food up on their plates so that they form little pyramids and wondering how they’re going to be able to balance it back to their seats and eat all of it. It’s watching people whose body hang over the waist of their pants eat large salads of iceberg lettuce and blue cheese dressing, and following that up with three other plates of food and Diet Coke. It’s seeing little kids walk to and from the dessert area four or five times, each with a different treat, and their parents somehow allowing that be okay. Have they no self-control? Or, are they just getting more bang for their buck?

I don’t know. I do know that I wanted to leave that place quickly, cross back in to California, and hide in my hotel room for the rest of the night.