Diamond Jim's Trattoria

Relating to the review I did on Nosh, this place was another, we visited, after coming back to the casino.We were seeking a buffet restaurant to eat at and for me, it had everything a buffet should have. Sure it is not one of those HUGE buffets that you would expect, you know? Extravagant water fountains. Chocolate fountains. Everything surrounded in glass to make it look more upscale? It; however, did have some highlights. The salad bar had many options and toppings including the pasta salad, which I loved. The main food was basically comfort: fried chicken, mashed potatoes, scalloped potatoes, broccoli and cauliflower, sausage with onion and bell peppers (DO NOT MISS THIS DISH and mistake it purely for vegetables, the sausage was hidden at the bottom), mac & cheese, and white fish. There were other foods; but they were not enough to be memorable. We had a long drive back to Louisville and Lexington and I decided to ditch any kind of diary in the food, just in case. Desserts were great. They had a pineapple cake and a chocolate cake, ice cream, pineapple, strawberries, and cantaloupe for the taking. Customer service was great. The servers would check every now and then to take plates. Also, we were offered coffee without asking.

Not impressed. We came here because we saw Indiana lake perch on the menu, which Dave got. It was good, but when I asked where the perch came from, all the waitress could tell me was that it came frozen (and I assume pre breaded/fried) on a cisco truck. I ordered very badly. I got the steamed chicken and shrimp which came out smothered in teriyaki sauce and the shrimp were the most disgusting pieces of rubber I have ever encountered. Our service was great though.

They call this a bistro, but it's just a restaurant in a casino. I ordered the Philly cheese steak, which the server said was thinly sliced. It came out and looked like ground beef! She assured me it was steak, because "they chop up the leftover pieces of steak." WTF???

I dislike giving any restaurant a bad review, but I really think that they can do so much better. We were passing through town late in the evening and were told by several local people that the casino had a pretty decent restaurant. We have several casinos in St Louis and their food is pretty good, so we thought we would give it a shot, plus they were open late because its inside the casino. My husband ordered the Fried Chicken, which we thought was a pretty safe bet. I ordered something like an open face beef. The good points of the restaurant: The decor is beautiful and elegant. The wait staff is friendly, courteous and helpful and the water and soda were good and refilled promptly.The bad points: The gravy on my open faced beef was extremely salty and definitely made with a mix. The roast beef was fatty and stringy. The fried chicken's coating was so thick and hard that you literally had to jab it with your fork to break through it. Inside the meat was dry, but there was a layer of grease between the crust and the meat. You could tell that the grease was old and needed to be changed. The biscuit looked promising and possibly homemade. However; they split the biscuit in two, buttered it and fried it on the grill. All that did was make the biscuit burnt and greasy. The people at the table next to us, four of them, ordered 4 different dishes and they were different than ours. I do not know what they were, but not one of the people came close to eating half of their food before they paid their bill and left. They also did not take their leftovers with them. I noticed one other table as we left with half eaten meals on their table as well.Bottom line: While we were sitting at the table in Diamond Jim's, I called Chicago Pizza and placed a carry out order so we could have pick up a pizza to have dinner when we got back to our hotel.