Fine Dining

26 January 2025

By Royal Flushes

CINDY: When I first went to the casinos I was slender. Now I am not slender. I’m not fat but I am no longer slender either. At home I am a moderate eater. In the casino I am not a moderate eater. I am a devourer. I eat breakfast. I eat lunch. I have snacks and I always eat a fine dinner at a good restaurant. I do not skimp on eating at fancy places.

ABBY: Me too.

CINDY: I do drink, in moderation, but I enjoy a drink or three.

ABBY: Me too.

CINDY: It is a rare occurrence when I get sloshed but in the past decades of casino trips it did happen at times. Not many but enough to make me warry of going over my three-drink minimum.

ABBY: Me too.

CINDY: I believe the worst place to eat when you visit a casino hotel is the buffet. In the better casino-hotels, the buffets are a world to themselves.

ABBY: They are actually many worlds to themselves. You can dine on food that comes from all over the world. There’s French, Thai, Chinese, Italian, German and on and on it goes. When I eat at a buffet I make sure that I have a little or a lot of as many countries as I can force into my stomach.

CINDY: Me too. We are devourers in the buffets. I actually think that the majority of buffet eaters are devourers. We are – to make it plain as can be – raiders of the world’s cuisine. We buffet eaters are an attacking force. We are, in a sense, levelers of countries. Every few feet we go into another world.

ABBY: To enjoy the world’s food, we don’t have to travel from country to country. No. We just have to walk a few feet to the next station.

CINDY: Do we have to face climbing the alps? No. Turn left. Step five paces and you are in another land.

ABBY: I think the buffet lovers might enjoy the buffets more than they actually enjoy gambling at the various casino games. Maybe.

CINDY: It is possible. If you want to diet to lose weight, the worst place to go is the casinos’ buffets. It is probably impossible for the fat people of the world to resist stocking up their plates for the scrumptious meals – and I do mean meals in the plural – ahead of them. How can you go to a buffet and not indulge? You can’t.

ABBY: Maybe there are some people out there who can maintain their healthy eating habits when dining in a buffet but – I have not actually met many of them.

CINDY: I think there are tricks people use when they buffet eat. At first they don’t load up their dishes. They take a medium amount of food. This is so other buffet eaters can see them exercise caution. That will soon leave them on their second, third, tenth trip up to the lines. I mean, why have to wait on a line to get your food? You’re there so take what you can stuff on your plates.

ABBY: As gambling writers, we don’t really see many articles about the dangers of buffets. We do have some about overindulging in drinking but nothing like – can I say this crassly? Yep. Nothing about eating like a pig! That does more people in overall than drinking.

CINDY: The bottom line is to be very, very careful about buffet eating. They are dangerous areas to visit and if you stay awhile your weight gain will be noticeable as time marches on.

ABBY: Take that from two devourers!