SPIN CYCLE : Pass the butter, and Paula Deen
Posted on Sunday, June 22, 2008
URL: http://www.nwanews.com/adg/Style/229405/
TUNICA, Miss. — In casino communities, one notices plenty of advertisements for help hot lines: “Gambling problem ?” followed by a toll-free number.
After a recent weekend Tunica trip, we decided more addiction help should be available to visitors: “Eating problem ? Call (800 )....”
That’s because our stay included a survey of the newest Delta casino dining attraction — a pudgy paradise known as the Paula Deen Buffet.
For the benefit of the one person who doesn’t know who Deen is (also known as Werner, he who edits this column from under his Food Network-deficient rock ): The Savannah, Ga.-dwelling patron saint of Southern-fried fat has a drawl as thick as her recipe followers’ midsections. The 61-year-old is a down-home, defrosted Martha Stewart who has countless cookbooks, multiple shows, a magazine and a merchandise line selling everything from biscuit mix to apparel with menopause jokes, to floral centerpieces.
Any relation to that other cooking Dean, that sausage guy, Jimmy ? Maybe not in blood, but definitely in grease.
The Paula Deen Buffet, the third restaurant for Deen (who owns The Lady & Sons and co-owns Uncle Bubba’s Oyster House, both in Savannah ), opened last month in the newly refurbished Harrah’s Tunica (formerly the Grand Casino Tunica ).
And the new all-you-can-eat restaurant, to borrow an old Saturday Night Live line, is like butter.
Literally, butter. And cream. And sugar. And then some more butter.
Before one can begin piling their plate (s ) (it’s not uncommon to see folks balancing two at a time ) at the second-floor restaurant designed to resemble Deen’s house — right down to a screened-in porch — there is a matter of paying (prices are $ 8. 99 for breakfast, $ 10. 99 for lunch and $ 17. 99 for dinner, except for Friday and Saturday when the dinner price is $ 22. 99 ).
And there is the matter of waiting in a snaking roped-off cashier line that, when we visited, had about 50 people (no biggie, the restaurant has seating for 560 ).
And waiting in the seating line that extended back into the gift store (pushing everything from Paula Deen lighters to playing cards ). And then — after being led past flat-screens showing the impresario engaged in her craft and being seated (we were assigned to the Parlor, the charming centermost area featuring large chandeliers, a fireplace and dim lighting well suited for face stuffing ) — waiting in the sometimes lengthy buffet station lines.
There are five such food sections designated on the maps (!) placed on each table. They are marked as follows: A. Little Jack’s Corner (desserts ), B. Captain Michael’s Smokehouse (smoked meats ), C. The Lady & Sons (Southern food ), D. Uncle Bubba’s Oyster House (seafood ) and E. Granny Paula’s Garden (salad ).
That just happens to be how we’d rank the stations in order of importance, too. Salad ? At a Paula Deen restaurant ? What a waste of perfectly good stomach space ! We did, however, eye and pick at the bounty of fresh produce that could be drizzled with unmarked dressings that dared anyone to ask if any were — heh — fat-free. The corn bread posed proudly at one end like it was a vegetable.
But we mainly went for stuff that is deep-fried and smothered with gravy. And, at Paula Deen’s, everything — even the gravy — comes with gravy. White gravy. Brown gravy. Maybe the green beans don’t come with gravy. But only because they come with cheese sauce.
We gave oily thumbs up to the juicy fried chicken, justright fried catfish and the tender, and thickly spiced and sauced, ribs. As for sides, our favorites were the crisp fried okra, the buttery mashed potatoes and the fried grease, er, green tomatoes. While not a Paula Deen signature, the Friday night steamed crab legs were a salty hit.
But it was the hoecakes that were music to our mouths, as well as ears. We didn’t know what hoecakes — delicious panfried corn bread discs — were. All we knew was a bell would sound when they were hot, and the least athletic customer would come Olympic-sprinting for them. We might have raced too, had we not noticed that servers eventually pass them — plus warm buttery sponges known as cheese biscuits — around to seated diners. And had we not been too full to move.
For research’s sake, we persevered and lumbered to the dessert station where we noticed several desserts — bread pudding, pie slices, etc. — diners could serve themselves. Then there were the others kept behind glass cases, like Paula’s Ooey Gooey Butter Cake, a Food Network regular that begged sampling.
“May I try the butter cake ?” I asked.
“We have Ooey Go o e y Butter Cake,” the staff member corrected, speaking slowly to me as she sensed I was not a native speaker of Deen-ese.
I didn’t expect much when I was presented with a tiny nondescript square that looked like a bar cookie and not cake. But when I bit into the sweetest, most fattening thing I ever tried or will try (with the exception of the second helping I would later regret going back for ), it all made sense. These desserts were kept behind the counter like a controlled substance for safety reasons.
We didn’t linger very long in the gift shop. We figured we didn’t need to own the ruffled colored plates used in the restaurant or any cookie cutters. Because we’d certainly never be able to look at food again.
In our stuffed state, we never wanted to see Paula Deen again either.... hey, isn’t that her on the slot machine ?
Yes, at the foot of the escalator leading away from the buffet there was a row of penny machines with her likeness, sayings (“ Hey, y’all ! ” ) and — what else — depictions of indulgent foods spinning around on the reels as the machines beeped, sang and rang.
Ringing ! Wait ! Are there hoecakes ? Where ?!
The Paula Deen Buffet is open 7 a. m.-10 p. m. Sunday-Thursday and 7 a. m.-1 a. m. Friday-Saturday. For more information, call (800 ) 946-4946 or visit www. harrahs. com. Dish up some e-mail:
jchristman@arkansasonline. com Spin Cycle is a weekly smirk at pop culture.