The buffet at River Rock casino

Every year my family has our Christmas dinner at the buffet at River Rock casino. It’s been interesting to see how their food selections have remained the same or changed through the years.

For example, I was super surprise that they got rid of their chocolate fountain! This post will mostly be me showing you what they have to offer with a few side comments

Chinese food

★★★

The “Chinese food” area. It doesn’t come close to real Chinese food so I wouldn’t recommend that you take much from this area.

Salad bar

★★★

The salad bar where they offer a variety of greens (spinach, spring mix, lettuce, iceberg), salads (potato, quinoa, couscous) and toppings (corn, cucumber, bacon, ham)

Seafood bar

★★★

This place was new to me. They had a chilled seafood “bar” next to the salad area where they had tubs of mussels, clams and shrimp. They also had sauces nearby for you to use for dipping (cocktail sauce, Tabasco, mustard)

For some reason I found the marinated mussels to be bitter and wasn’t a fan of them.

Proteins

★★★

Then it was the meat area…the turkey looked appealing but looks are deceiving because it was quite dry.

The prime rib was hit or miss but it was quite fatty and each slice that the people at my family got had a huge piece of fat on it. yuk.

The condiments for the meats

Sushi bar

★★★

Then there was the sushi bar and they had little dishes of sashimi with 2 pieces on each. I didn’t think they should present them this way because when people wanted more than 2 pieces they end up taking a bunch of these small dishes onto their plates.

The fish wasnt too high of quality in that there wasn’t really a “fish” taste to it. It woul be what you would expect if you went to a cheaper Japanese restaurant (ex. sushi garden, sushi town or sushi california)

I wasn’t very impressed with the sushi. The rice wasn’t up to par and I didn’t really spend much of my time here.

The European area? I decided to call it this because there was lobster ravioli and bouillabaisse here. The bouillabaisse was actually one of the things I ate the most of here but it was quite salty. The seafood in it was just shrimp, mussels and clams. I preferred to get my shellfish here over the cold versions by the salad bar. They also had baked salmon but it looked really dry and over cooked so I didn’t take any

Lobster ravioli

★★★

The lobster ravioli was something I haven’t had here before. There was way too much cheese and didn’t have much lobster flavor in there at all. I didn’t end up finishing it but brother deer thought it was okay for what it was.

The dessert area! Like I mentioned earlier, they got rid of the chocolate fountain. I’m not sure if it was just for the holidays they did this but it wasn’t there this time.

They also got rid of their soft serve machine ): and replaced it with a freezer full of frozen treats like popsicles and orange icecream. DEFINITELY wasn’t happy about this because last time I was here they had gingerbread ice cream and I adored it!

Cookie area

Eggnog pannacotta and berry mousse

Gingerbread cake and orange mousse

Desserts

★★

Close up of all the desserts they had…although they had lots to offer, I wasn’t exceptionally impressed by any of them. I found the gingerbread and opera cakes really flakey and dry. It wasn’t moist at all. The mousses were okay but nothing memorable. I thought they had way too many mousses and not much of anything else. I liked their offerings the previous years better. ): Disappointed.

One of my may plates!

Summary