P.N.ZOYTLOW

Las Vegas is a rich in the mythology of America. Located unexpectedly in the bleak desert of southern Nevada, it is nevertheless a magnet for many and its reputation for electrical excess and overpowering sensory glitz is unparalleled. Those living there know other facets to the city of more than half a million population: university town, retirement destination, family neighborhoods, and natural areas. But for most who come to visit by the millions each year, “Vegas”  means shopping, gambling, and entertainment.   Dozens of iconic casinos dominate the urban landscape, their names (Caesar’s Palace, Bellagio, MGM Grand, Tropicana, and so on) as familiar as those of baseball teams.  “The Strip” is an American cultural Mecca which many feel obligated to see once in this lifetime. To do so gives one that special edge of sophistication: “Sure!  We’ve  been to Vegas!”

For this particular Field Report, the focus is on one of the many magnets that the visitor may have in mind when visiting Las Vegas: eating. Really eating. More specifically, the Las Vegas Buffet. Every major casino features a Buffet, usually Lunch, or Dinner and sometimes Breakfast.  So do less magnificent venues of gambling, the result being that on any day somewhere between 70 and 90 Buffets are offered as an attractant to those who would not only eat, but hopefully gamble as well. The gambling industry attempts to appear generous in the bestowing of benefits and rewards while at the same time skimming cash out of the wallets of  patrons who sit before the slot machines or at the gaming tables. Naturally, casinos compete on all levels to draw in the guest: plush rooms and service, fantastic architecture, big-name entertainment, sex, and food.

Using the customary scrupulous standards which govern these Field Reports, this Observer chose a particular casino, Tumbleweed Junction (name changed) to visit a Dinner Buffet. In keeping with the strictly established time constraints, seventy-five minutes of research time was allowed.

The Tumbleweed Junction is not in the prime location of “The Strip” the favored two or so miles of Las Vegas Boulevard with its replicas of famous structures from Rome, Paris, Venice, New York and the pyramid that is the Luxor Hotel. Rather, it is a satellite casino, built several miles further out and easily seen because it dominates its neighborhood.  Tumbleweed Junction is a sprawling, fiercely illuminated complex of stores, lodging, and places to eat. Central to it all is the casino, a series of great chambers whose floors are devoted to gambling. These are noisy places, for the slot machines give off a great bubbling  brew of sounds which may include train whistles, hit tunes, carnival sounds, or various electronic beeps, warbles and hoots. The sound level, while not exactly painful, has the effect of entrancing those who sit hunched in front of the consoles, observing the mad rollings and pulsations of the machines. For those with the will to look elsewhere,  there is the appeal of being in a Mediterranean setting with Italian Rennaissance faux-building fronts all around. You are in a Venetian piazza filled with a carnival of slot machines. And, should you look up, there is a most pleasant ceiling, the colors of the evening sky with a few puffy clouds to convince you that, after all, you are living on a lovely day in a gorgeous world.

Tumbleweed Junction has a number of restaurants and snack bars, offering different cuisines at different prices. The centerpiece is the Buffet and to reach it you must pass through lanes and avenues of slot machines and roulette or poker tables. The management hopes you will be seduced by this hedonism to stop and play. Can you really just come to the Tumbleweed to eat? They are betting you can’t.

The Dinner Buffet may begin as early as 4:00 PM and serve late into the evening to accommodate the starving. No one wants to stand in line, but that is what most must do if arriving at five or thereafter. In the case of the Tumbleweed, the wait was ninety minutes, a long ordeal given the din of the nearby machines. But ahead lay the seated bliss of unlimited food in a less raucous setting.  Once the patron reaches the head of the line a number of clerks process the cost of the Buffet, a type of negotiation whose variables included whatever coupons, reward certificates, or special privilege cards (for “loyalty” to the casino) one might have. In this case, the normal cost would be $18.00 per person. A Buffet on the Strip at a “luxury” casino would cost more.

Such is the volume of guests in this huge space (perhaps 300 to 400) that the hostesses communicate  via two-way radios. “I got four. (Over).”  “OK, almost ready in Section B. (Over).  Six coming up, need two highchairs. (Over).” “Got it. (Over and Out).”  Still chattering away, the hostess will lead you to the table which now becomes a kind of Operations Center for your presumably voluminous feasting.  An unspoken rule: If you don’t intend to overeat, don’t come here! A Las Vegas Buffet differs from a cafeteria in that one does not push a tray along from point A to point B. Rather, one may address the food from any angle, point A to point Z.

Like many Buffets in LV, the Tumbleweed features enormous quantities and varieties of food spread over hundreds of feet of counters where food is displayed and occasionally prepared (such as an omelet). More than one hundred choices were available at six major “stations:” Soups and Salads, Desserts, Asian, American “favorites,” Italian, Roasted Meats, Seafood, and Mexican items. An examination of the Italian station revealed:

tomato, artichoke & spinach pizza; sausage pizzas,  Canadian bacon & pineapple pizza, fettuccini Alfredo, spaghetti Bolognese, spaghetti carbinara and marinara with meatballs; baked penne pasta; chicken parmigiana; chicken cacciatore, cioppino; Italian sausage and grilled eggplant; several standard soups, roasted garlic, garlic toast.

Similar ranges of offerings could be described at other stations. The American station is usually the least interesting at any Buffet and features items that do not fit in other categories or are more suited for children such as macaroni and cheese, corn-on-the cob, hot dogs,  and some sort of pink gelatin fluff with marshmallow bits. The one surprise in this area at the Tumbleweed Station was a pan of steaming, buttered, ham-infused collard greens, a tradition in the South with origins in slavery. Although it is not the purpose of this report to judge the quality of the food, it so happens that this was a clear winner. Make a note of it.

Unlike a conventional cafeteria with guests standing in line, telling a server his or her choice to fill up a tray, here each guest fills a plate, takes it back, eats, goes back to the line, fills a new plate, repeats the process as many times as may be required to be sated. There are very few servers to observe one’s choices: your over-indulgences are your private business alone. The wise eater begins with a survey of all that is available, evolve a strategy for where to put the early emphasis, e.g something like Chinese barbequed ribs, and what sort of secondary choices, e.g crab legs will be chosen. The experienced eater will avoid bread or other filling carbohydrates. The worldly eater will choose only those rare offerings which may be difficult to obtain elsewhere, emphasizing those victuals which are more costly in the market.  And remember, you will eat until you cannot do so anymore. Leave room for several deserts. The crude amateur will attempt to eat something of everything offered and may be overheard to say to others at the table, “I didn’t see the eggrolls;  gotta go back.”

Tumbleweed Junction’s Friday Buffet (and this was in the time frame known to Christians as Lent) had a focus on fish and seafood. The big draw this evening was the ever-popular crab legs, dispensed from a huge mound by a kitchen worker. Next to him stood a woman wearing surgical gloves as she scooped up fistfuls of boiled peel-and-eat shrimp. This section of the counter was the only one at which guests had to wait, The rest of the offerings were easily accessed.  Nearby was a pile of raw oysters, Oysters Rockefeller, and clams. Further down the line, hidden among the Asian and Italian offerings were variations on salmon and tilapia. Nearly every table had at least one guest cracking and ripping apart crab legs.  Purists in the know will point out that there are several species of  “snow crabs” and the name is used carelessly to disguise use of less costly ones. No one at the Tumbleweed was interested in such details.

In addition to the kitchen staff, the hostesses with their radios, and the payment clerks,  the Buffet also had a crew of overworked wait persons whose principal tasks were to serve the drinks (water, lemonade, coffee etc) and to clear away the plates that piled up between guests’ trips to the food counters. During the period of observation for this Field Report, the help plainly could not keep up with the volume of consumption and tables began to accumulate tottering plates of food that had, in many cases, been only partially consumed. Wasting food is a strategic and inevitable necessity in keeping with the culture of excess that is Las Vegas.

By inconspicuous wanderings through the place, a number of conclusions were possible. Due to time and space limitations here, only three tables could be examined. Of course, extreme discretion was mandatory here as no one wants to be a research subject during something as personal as gorging.

Table 1.  A couple approx. 40 years of age. On a third chair was placed a large stuffed elk-like creature. The man had consumed two plates of crab legs, a plate of turkey and gravy on white rice,  spaghetti, and had two glasses of ice water in front of him. Corn on the cob was also in evidence. His companion, a woman with tri-colored hair, had a plate of clams, several slices of meat-covered pizza, and a slab of prime rib with sweet potatoes on the side. She drank a carbonated soft drink.  None of the clams had been eaten and  had been pushed to the side.

Table 2.  Lone man, rather young (30-35) but very obese. No seafood except for a plate of uneaten clams: mainly Italian pasta with marinara sauce, sliced ham, chicken cacciatore, beef tacos, and two wedges of pie, apple and cherry. Pink lemonade and Diet Coke.

Table 3.  Older couple with grandchild. Grandparents working on a large plate of boiled shrimp, taking turns leading child to the counters. Evidence of Chinese egg foo young. Many dishes with soft-serve ice cream covered with chocolate sauce. Bowl of bisque of tomato soup with sourdough bread and peanut butter.

Table 4, Woman with an oxygen breathing device: Crab legs, Polish sausage, vanilla pudding, cheese tacos, chocolate brownies, macaroons, strawberry gelato, clam chowder, Cantonese stir-fried vegetables, corn muffins, meatloaf, prime rib of beef, roasted jalapeno peppers and iced tea.

These are cursory impressions of what had been selected whether consumed or not.  As such, they are imperfect samplings. Nevertheless, some theoretical conclusions are possible:

People will not eat the clams even if they are, like the crab legs, a target item.

People intuitively know their American Literature and can recall and take to heart Mark Twain’s advice: “Part of the secret of a success in life is to eat what you like and let the food fight it out inside.”  In particular, suspend all notions of what goes well together. Operate under the assumption that it’s all good, but avoid the clams.

People put aside their Fear of the Lord at a Buffet for they recall and then ignore, even during Lent, the Biblical advice found in  Proverbs 23:2 “Put a knife to your throat if you are given to gluttony.”  Eat the clams and a knife may not be necessary.

Ah, there’s the word. gluttony, derived from the Latin for “to gulp down.”  Is that what the Buffet is about? Most likely, absent burst stomachs or fierce vomiting, all we can assume here is a flirtation with true gluttony.  Or the Grim Reaper. We gamble with this particular sin, as we gamble with the machines that call to us outside the dining hall.  Only the fortunate will glance up to see the rosy clouds in that classical sky.