Review of The Nugget Casino in West Wendover, Nevada

After a long week of seeing the sights and spending lots of cash in Salt Lake City, my family and I found ourselves both hungry and low on cash as supper time approached. We didn't want fast food, but had few options. Luckily, we were in a small casino town, West Wendover, Nevada.

We stopped at Wendover Nugget to see what kind of specials they were having. Like many casinos around the state, especially in northeastern Nevada, things were pretty slow on the floor. Only a few people sitting around playing slots, a few playing poker, two people at a bar and not much else happening.
The special at the coffee shop happened to be chicken cordon bleu with vegetables and mashed potatoes with a choice of soup or salad for $6.95. The price was right, but had me a little cautious.

The wait staff were courteous and prompt with beverages. The salad I got was well more than my original expectation. I thought it would simply be some iceberg lettuce and the dressing. While it was iceberg lettuce, it also had carrots, cherry tomatoes and cheese on it, and it was of good size. The dressing came in a reasonably sized serving cup on the side.

My wife's chicken noodle soup was out of this world. It has been many years since I had a homemade soup like this that was this good. The noodles seemed homemade, giving an extra dimension of pizzazz. And it was properly seasoned, and not overly thick or too thin in consistency.

Unfortunately the rest of the meal wasn't as good as the starter. The chicken cordon bleu was of the variety you'd get frozen in a package from Schwan's or some similar manufacturer. In their case, I'd assume it was Sysco. What's more, they were cold in the middle, indicating they were barely cooked through. The outside crust was crispy and the cheese was melty, but the piece of ham in the center was cold.

The green beans, too, were the type that was frozen and them heated up. Anyone who has had frozen versus canned or even fresh green beans knows frozen green beans are tougher and have an odd taste to them. In one bit of good luck, the mashed potatoes were freshly mashed and not made from a box mix. The gravy, however, was pretty standard.

And, what's more, the small loaf of bread that came with the meal was tough on the outside, indicating it was frozen at some point, or was stale and heated in a microwave to give it another shot at life. But what can you say for $6.95? After awhile, though, I had to wonder if I should've just gone to Burger King.

On the flipside, I wouldn't mind trying one of their cakes or pies on a return visit. They look absolutely divine sitting in the display case. And I'd be willing to give the restaurant another shot. Because it's the special, that's the item the chef needs to get rid of the most from the freezer, and with the state of things many casinos are having to cut back on the quality and sometimes quantity of their food items.