fancycwabs

Remember that scene in Casino Royale where James Bond, in shorts, a T-shirt that reads "Our Hoes Are Complimentary", and a fanny pack, goes to the casino buffet and eats way too much? Then he has a heart attack, and runs himself to his sports car and has to defibrillate himself with Vesper Lynd's help? That was the inspiration for tonight's mission.

Food Network personality and star of that one Cameron Crowe movie that pretty much cemented his status as a has-been Paula Deen has lent her culinary skills to the buffet at the retooled Harrah's (formerly Grand) Casino in Tunica, and since it's close, and I'm a bachelor this week, I thought I'd give it a shot.

Paula is known for her love of butter and cigarettes, having given the world fried butter balls and, um, beef a la emphysema, I guess. Her buffet opening was covered with fanfare and sounds of trumpets by the Commercial Appeal, which, like Food Network, is owned by Scripps-Howard, so its objectivity was possibly questionable¹.

Like most inland Mississippi casinos, Harrah's is built on a huge barge.

I hadn't been there since it was called the Grand--probably in 2003 or so. It was, in terms of area, probably the biggest gaming floor in Tunica. It had a fairly decent home-cooking restaurant at one time, which was replaced by a sports bar.

On the trip down (you can take the sexiest interstate, I-69, from Memphis. It's about a half hour trip) you're periodically greeted with Paula Deen's giant head telling you that she hopes you're hungry. I try not to take photographs and drive simultaneously (unless the photo's awesome and unique), but inside the casino, there's plenty more Paula Deen head to be found.

The buffet, on weekdays, runs about $20 after tax. I paid, got seated, ordered some sweet tea, and hit the home cookin' section.

Let's go over the food in detail, clockwise starting from noon:
1:00 The brunswick stew wasn't bad, but was kinda ordinary when it came to it.
3:00 Cheesy Meatloaf. That's right--it's meatloaf in a white cheddar sauce. And sadly, delicious, like all the good things a cheeseburger is, or one of those Italian rolled-up pinwheel skirt steaks that suddenly become worth way more than skirt steak is worth once you stuff 'em with basil and mozzerella.
5:00 Pork tenderloin. A little dry--I think it'd been on the steam table a little too long.
7:00 Mashed potatoes (from potatoes, not a box, but ordinary) and gravy (not from a can, and quite good actually).
10:00 Creamed corn. Similar to MacKenzie's or PictSweet from the tube. There's a certain sort of creamed corn you get at family reunions and church potlucks in the South that no restaurant I've been to has been able to duplicate, although The Cupboard comes close.
11:00 Chicken and rice casserole. More cheese.
Center Pork stew. Not bad, but not particularly memorable.

You'll notice that everything's earthtones. They had broccoli and green beans, but the broccoli looked ordinary and the green beans undercooked, so I left them for another time. Hidden under the pork stew are some fairly good butterbeans. I also had a piece of fried chicken which, for buffet fried chicken, was remarkably moist and mostly kept its crust on.

Available on the buffet and from wandering servers are hoe cakes and cheese biscuits. The hoe cakes are pretty good, and the cheese biscuits are, um, awesome. Exceptionally light, crusty, hot, they soaked up the butter provided with a playfulness unseen in quickbreads.

The second trip, I hit the seafood and barbecue sections:

Again, clockwise:
1:00 A grilled oyster with parmesean was excellent (and HUGE); similar to those found at Drago's in Metairie, LA, I'm told.
2:00 A barbecued rib (wet) was chewy, and rather unimpressive. Not much in terms of smoke, the sauce was wasn't anything special, either.
3:00 Cheese grits weren't bad. On a buffet they run that risk, so this is admirable.
5:00 Collard greens were excellent. But I like collard greens.
7:00 The pulled pork, similar to the barbecued rib, was kinda "eh." It didn't taste bad, per se, but so close to a city renowned for its various barbecue options and dedication to the craft, serving barbecued pork that could just as easily been cooked all day in a crock pot isn't something worth a special trip.
8:00 A crab cake was um, well, I probably won't get another one.
9:00 The fried shrimp, on the other had, was quite tasty. And I don't eat shrimp this far inland because you never know how it got from the ocean to the table (and more often than not, you don't want to know)
10:00 Potato salad was very well-done. Firm new potatoes tossed in a dressing similar to something I make myself (although I use roasted garlic).
11:00 Erster. As long as they're fresh, it's hard to screw up a raw oyster, and these tasted fresh.

Also, I had a piece of catfish, which was just a little fishy. Strange that the products that could most easily be locally-sourced tasted off, and the products that required serious transportation were mostly excellent.

I took a look at the salad bar (it looked okay) and checked out the soup selections (Cream of mushroom and wild rice and chicken noodle), then hit the dessert bar to see what was available. A wide selection presented itself: assorted cakes, pies, and pastries, ice cream by the scoop with assorted toppings, and bulk candy. I got two, in the interest of science:

The thing on the right is bread pudding, heavy with cinnamon and quite tasty (if a little overdone).

I thought that the thing on the left was coconut cream pie or somesuch. As it happens, I have no idea what it was. The filling tasted like sugar and the cruelest chemical, isoamyl acetate, and instead of being creamy, came apart like sheets of mica, if mica were formed by petrifying custard. Because it wasn't any identifiable flavor, I shall henceforth refer to it as ass pie and never touch it again.

Shame that the last thing I ate (and if I'd eaten any more I'd have made myself sick) was the worst thing I'd selected. In any case, I fled the buffet and went looking for a video poker machine, where I won back the $20 that the buffet had cost, but had to call an attendant when it wouldn't pay up.

1 Having met the primary food reviewer for the CA, I have no question of her willingness to provide an honest opinion of the place. The CA has a "no bad reviews" restaurant policy, generated in part because a bad review in the paper can close a restaurant as fickle as the business is. Paula Deen's buffet didn't really have this risk, but there was a certain amount of access granted, and the co-ownership thing, that would lead one to a more-subjective review, probably.