We
immediately hit the best thing about Las Vegas: the buffets. Not the cheap
ones, either. We popped for the top-of-the line buffets. The casinos still
offered them to their more discerning customers with the understanding that
those customers would never have an appetite to that would change the
profitability of such a gourmet offering.
But they
hadn’t reckoned with the near-bottomless appetite of storm riders, turning the
house advantage against them. None of us bothered with plates, and we elbowed
each other for the lobsters and entire racks of lamb and sides of prime beef.
Wally, who had managed to push ahead of the pack, politely warned the person
cutting the beef “You better haul out everything. We’re going to clean you
out.”
And we did,
and not just the entrees. Natalie and I hit up the sundae bar.
“Sir, miss, here are the dessert
bowls,” a twenty-something man pointed at the teacup-sized bowls.
“We’re good,” Nat said, positioning
the dinner plate under the ice cream machine and spinning it slowly to layer a
mammoth foot-tall pyramid of ice cream on the plate. Each layer went down with
architectural precision, and she alternated flavors. I stood by tossing
sprinkles, Oreo crumbs, chocolate chips and spraying caramel and chocolate
sauce down like it was a mortar to cement the layers to one another. The
twenty-something’s eyes bulged, and he took a picture to put on some social
whatever.
“This was just a test. We’ll come back
for the real deal after this one,” I told the guy.
“Make sure to top off all the
machines,” Nat warned.