Dinner at Planet Hollywood

Helen and I drove to Planet Hollywood to cash in on a couple of buffet comps that I had earned last month by playing 3 hours of  poker during the day until 2 p.m.

They offer this, I suspect, to keep the poker room busy during what is typical a slow time. Most poker is played at night and us daytime players often have trouble finding a vigorous game before the neon lights the Strip.

Anyway, it's a pretty sweet deal for players. It's not hard to play 3 hours and receive the free buffet which is good for breakfast, lunch or dinner. The Dinner is worth $20, so you're earning almost $7 an hour for the buffet, plus $1 an hour on your player card, so it's very generous compared to other poker rooms.

So Helen and I drove down about 4 p.m. with the idea of eating, then watching Eastern Michigan play basketball. After arriving, we ran $40 through a Wheel of Fortune machine and hit....zero!
We then took the elevator down to the buffet area, which has been significantly remodeled since our last visit. The seating area is considerably smaller and the food serving area is about reduced by 1/4.
The quality of the food is the same, there are just fewer choices.

For example, the Italian section had only 3 choices and the seafood area (not our favorite anyway) also had only 4 items to choose from. And they moved the peel-and-eat shrimp from the seafood section to the salad section, who knows why?

Fortunately the Middle Eastern area was still there and I got Helen some chicken and beef kabobs, grilled vegetables, hummus and bread, green beans plus some lasagna. I opted for a big plate of shrimp and Caesar salad for starters. I followed up with chicken and beef kabobs, and lasagna. For dessert, Helen had two lemon &raspberry things, while I had two chocolate cupcakes.

Then we headed to the sports book to check out the EMU game, but we got there early and decided not to stay. The seating isn't conducive to the wheelchair and there were a handful of screaming 20-somethings who made the visit unpleasant. We drove home, watched some TV and called it a day.

But today our adventure continues...