California Native American Casino Food

[Toliver]

I searched for a previous discussion regarding this theme but came up empty. If the moderators find one, feel free to merge this into it.

The last time I had been to the Barona Indian reservation to gamble, the casino was little more than a big black tent housing slot machines. I recently returned for a birthday celebration and what a world of difference. There's a huge "resort" hotel out there now next to a large Vegas-like casino.

We actually didn't come to gamble...believe it or not we came for the buffet. My brother had eaten there a month or so ago and wanted me to take an extra day off from work so we could go there on a Friday, early enough to miss the dinner rush.

I wasn't expecting much. I've been to some good buffets in Las Vegas and have experienced quite a few bad ones, too. It was when I encountered the roast duck that I decided the Barona Buffet was going to be one of the good ones.

The buffet is set up similarly to the World Buffet found at the Rio Hotel & Casino in Las Vegas. It's split up into different sections representing world cuisines from Italian to Mexican to Chinese, etc.

I started with a Mongolian stir fry. There's a small salad-bar style set up with chopped up veggies (you get more of a selection at the Rio). You put what you want on your plate, add some sauce (I believe there were 6 sauces to choose from) and can choose from beef, pork, chicken or shrimp. There's also some containers of soy sauce, minced garlic, chili flakes and a red chili paste.

They take your plate and dump the contents onto the Mongolian BBQ (a giant circular griddle, actually) and stir fry it, eventually adding in the meat at the appropriate time. Then it's all put back onto your plate. Needless to say, it's better to use restraint when loading your plate prior to the stir frying. My brother ended up having to finish my sister-in-law's stir fry because it was too much food for her.

I found the roast duck in the Chinese section. True to form, it was large pieces of duck with bone-in. While the skin wasn't crispy, it was still quite delicious and a great surprise.

In the American section, they had small pieces of steak with a parsley butter sauce that actually tasted as if it has been grilled on your backyard BBQ. The steak was surprisingly tender and flavorful and the pieces were small enough that it seemed to be just the right amount to satisfy. There was also a sort of pot roast that tasted as though it had been marinated with some sort of wine. And instead of the regular steamed broccoli, they served broccoli-raab instead.

I am sorry to say I didn't even get near the Italian or Mexican (with a build-your-own-taco-bar) sections. My niece did say the garlic bread was awesome (we tried to tell her to stay away from the "filler", but of course, she didn't listen ).

The dessert bar had a tremendous amount of offerings, including personal-sized pecan pies and lemon tarts. They also made Banana Fosters to order.

It was because of the duck and the Banana Fosters that I decided to post about the buffet.

Every employee I encountered in the casino and the buffet was extremely professional and quite eager to help. They made quite an impression on me.

If you sign up to become a member of their "Club Barona" (they give you a card with a magnetic strip that you can put into the slot machine so they can keep track of the amount of money you gamble away) you can get 20% off the price of the buffet so it's worth the 5 minutes or so it takes to sign up. Note that the cost of the buffet changes from day to day (click the link above to see the differences).

Barona also has an upscale steak house (click on the link above to access the menu) as well as a simple food court (they even have a Rubio's in their food court! - great fish tacos ).

Oh, and if your slot mahcine is hot and you don't want to leave it, they even have "curb-side" dining...they bring the food to you at the slot machine. It's mentioned on the web site but their link didn't work, but they have a specific menu for "slot machine dining". I saw the carts while I was in the casino.

There are two drawbacks to this recommendation of Barona. The first is that smoking is allowed in the casino but fortunately, I believe the entire buffet and food court area is non-smoking. And the second is that you do have to travel quite the meandering two-lane road to get out to the casino/resort. Traffic can be very heavy on the road to Barona.

Anyone else have any food experiences in California Indian Reservation Casinos to either recommend or warn about?

[hzrt8w]

I love to go and have buffet at casinos, especially in Las Vegas and Reno. The Indian casino buffet are good too. I think they offer great buffet at a very reasonable price to attract patrons. I think they probably have to subsidize for your meal. But they make the money back at the slot machines or black jack tables. We have no interest in gambling, but always like to poke our heads into the buffet areas at every casino.

The last ones we had were at Pala Casino (near Temecula) and Thunder Valley Casino (near Lincoln). Can't recall the details, but both good.

[Chris Cognac]

the buffet at the Morongo is nothing short of amazing...fresh, cooked to order and just plain good...worth a try if you are near the Morongo but not worth a long drive....

[Toliver]

Wow. I thought the drive to the Barona Indian reservation was bad. To get to the Valley View Casino, you need to drive out past where God lost His keys.

The casino is operated by the San Pasqual Band of Mission Indians. To get to the casino you have to drive north through the city of Escondido which is about 30 minutes north of San Diego. Then you turn east onto yet another ubiquitous two-lane road that winds precariously through the mountains and past a rather pungent chicken farm.

Smaller than the Barona casino, it was still quite crowded for a Wednesday night (the night before Thanskgiving).

The buffet was also quite different than Barona's though it was still good. The buffet area is U-shaped with a center Dessert island in the middle. The food was set up in stations on a counter top. At the top center of the "U" shape, is the grill station, the carving station and the stir-fry section.

The salads were first up on the right as you enter the buffet area. The salads were pre-made and there wasn't really a salad bar set up. After the salads was the fish section. The night I was there they had deep fried catfish with hush puppies as well as a crab-stuffed cod, with roast fingerling potatoes as a side.

Then came a Japanese "section" (not really a section but a grouping of serving platters and buffet servers) with pre-made sushi with kimchi and wasabi. Next to this came the Chinese section with quite a bit more offerings, from deep fried shrimp to a kung pow stir-fry. The serving dishes didn't hold a great quantity but that turned out to be a good thing because this meant the chefs had to keep making the dishes fresh over and over again.

In the center section was the carving station which featured fall-off-the-bone spare ribs. This section also had the "normal" sides like mashed potatoes, steamed veggies (they had brussel sprouts sautéed with bacon the night I was there) as well as meatloaf (which was far suprior to any meatloaf I've ever eaten) and salmon in a white sauce which was also very good.

The friends who came with me had decided Wednesday night was the best night to visit the casino because Wednesday night was usually "pork chop night". Unfortunately for them the chef at the grill said "pork chop night" was moved to the weekends and as a substitute they were serving bone-in rib eye steaks. Not pieces of steak...they were serving entire rib eye steaks. Though the steaks were on the thin side, they were wonderful...tender and juicy with that grilled-on-an-open-flame flavor. While my friends were busy throwing a fit because it was supposed to be "pork chop night" I moved on to the next section which was Italian food. They had a surprisingly varied anti-pasta section and scored bonus points from me for having those small mozzerella balls in olive oil. I made the mistake of trying the stromboli which was filled with a pork mixture that was extremely rich (not a good thing to eat at a buffet!).

The last few stations of the buffet were the "comfort" foods...fried chicken, biscuits, mac & cheese, etc.

As it states on their web site, their buffet was voted the #1 buffet by Casino Gaming Guide (whatever that publication is). I think the Barona Buffet has the slight edge over Valley View due to the poor dessert section at Valley View. Barona's offerings were quite large and varied in comparison.

A family friend told me they had been to the Valley View buffet on a night when they were grilling filet mignons, so the grilled meat selection does vary depending on the night or the whim of the casino.

Again, signing up for a "Club" card (that keeps track of your gambling) gets you a reduced price on the buffet. The night I signed up for a club card, I actually received a free admission to the buffet.

The casino also offers more bells & whistles than Barona. Valley View has free soda fountains on the casino floor for their customers and the icing on the cake was that they featured Pepsi & other Pepsi products.

As Chris mentioned in his post, because of the torturous drive, Valley View really shouldn't be a destination unless you're in the area. It took a very long time to get there.

Anoher good thing about Vally View was their non-smoking section is actually a completely separate room, unlike Barona. The bad thing was that once the casino got crowded (and, boy, did it!) there weren't many free (as in not being played) slot machines.

Was it worth it? Since I had never been there before, I'd say yes. Will I go back again? Maybe...if someone else drives and we can seal the air vents in the vehicle before driving past the chicken farm.

[PamelaF]

My only Indian casino experience is with http://www.thundervalleyresort.com]Thunder Valley in/near Lincoln in Placer County. When I used to live in Roseville, (a suburb about 20 miles northeast of Sacramento) I was about ten minutes away. I am not a gambler (no judgment, just don’t enjoy it) so the only reason I ever ventured there was to check out the food.

I tried the buffet a couple of times and was not impressed. They also had “international” stations. I believe the Chinese food-themed options were some of the best dishes they had, light and tasty with vegetables. Most of the rest of it was just starch and meat. The Mexican-themed items were way too heavy with sauce and cheese. The Italian-themed steam table pasta, well, steam table pasta says it all, right?

They are reasonably priced, ranging from $9.99 for breakfast to $24.95 for the weekend seafood special buffet. I never went for breakfast or brunch, maybe that would be better.

The casino also has a branch of Frank Fat’s (Sacramento institution that is turning into a chain). Am I the only person that thinks that whoever started P.F. Chang’s got their inspiration from Frank Fat’s? There is also a café that offers run of the mill “american” food.

There is a high-end steak house with entrée prices that go up to $75 for the surf and turf, $48 for Alaskan king crab. I guess they can get away with this because anyone who would pay that much is probably spending their jackpot from the gaming machines. The reviewer from the Sacramento Bee gave the steakhouse a good review a couple of years ago for the food, but noted that the service was not up to what one would expect at that price level. It is a lovely room. The entire casino is nicely decorated, they have a lot of fountains and water features that use beautiful natural stone and river rocks.

I don’t want to make this sound too negative, because I did find a reason to return to Thunder Valley many times.

There is a Fat Burger franchise in the food court.

Great burgers, cooked to order, and home-made onion rings. Fat Burger has best onion rings I have ever had (and I take my onion ring research seriously). Because they are in the casino they are open 24/7. Highway 65, about 10 miles off of Interstate 80. Onion rings!

One caveat, smoking is allowed in the building. I have never noticed a non-smoking section.

[mizducky]

I haven't tried the buffet at the Viejas Casino, but I have had some lovely food at the branch of China Camp they have there. The menu is mostly Chinese-American standards, but with a few more "authentic" items slipped in here and there (for instance, they have a whole section of congees, including with thousand-year egg). I had a dish of chow fun there that was excellent. If I recall correctly, the restaurant itself was smoke-free. There are the usual assortment of other eateries in the casino (high-end joint, buffet, coffee shop/deli, etc.), plus a food court in the outlet mall across the street. And unlike a number of other casinos, Viejas is relatively easy to get to--a straight shot east out of San Diego on the I-8. (I've never been to the Valley View, but I have been out to the Harrah's in that same general direction, and man, it does feel you're driving to the end of the world, especially at night.)

Edited December 11, 2005 by mizducky (log)

[Stupid_American]

Another good perk at Valley View is one free buffet during your birthday month.

My favorite item there is the pecan/walnut pie!

[Toliver]

I haven't tried the buffet at the Viejas Casino...

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The word-of-mouth I've heard is that their buffet isn't worth mentioning.

Maybe it has to do with ease of access. Valley View, which is no easy drive, offered more perks and good food to their patrons and at Barona's, a little less of a drive, the buffet was still quite nice. Perhaps because Viejas is the one Indian casino in the county that's the easiest to get to so they think they don't have to try that hard when it comes to their food offerings.

Do you know if their China Camp Express is related to the China Camp restaurant that is next to Fat City off Pacific Highway?

Another good perk at Valley View is one free buffet during your birthday month.

My favorite item there is the pecan/walnut pie!

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Funny you should mention that...the two women who went to Valley View with me each brought back a slice of pecan pie to our table before even getting their dinner. So it must be good if it was the first thing they sought out in the buffet.

[mizducky]

Do you know if their China Camp Express is related to the China Camp restaurant that is next to Fat City off Pacific Highway?

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Y'know, I can't find anything that definitively says they're related, but I did get the general impression that the one in the Viejas casino is a branch of the Fat City location.