The words all-you-can-eat buffet usually conjure up images of people lined up like cattle in Las Vegas, wolfing down fried chicken 24 hours a day.
But not all buffets are so bent on clogging up your arteries. One place that serves good food in a buffet-style format is Himalaya’s Restaurant at 2010 14th St.
The restaurant is located in the basement of the building right next to the Boulder Theater. The walls are dark orange and loaded with pictures from Nepal, Tibet and India. Authentic music from this region of the world fills the space, and oil lamps on the tables add to the feeling that one is actually dining in the Himalayas.
The restaurant offers food from all three of the aforementioned countries, as well as an extensive drink menu featuring wines by the bottle and authentic beer from the region. From 11 a.m. to 2:30 p.m. and 5 to 8:30 p.m. everyday, the restaurant offers a buffet of its most popular dishes.
Upon being seated, my girlfriend and I decided that we would try the buffet. I went over and filled my plate with Naan, Lentil Soup, Chicken Tika Masala, Saag and a hearty serving of white rice.
The food was relatively good. The Naan, which is a traditional Tandoor oven-baked bread, tasted like it should, with a nice chewy crust, but it would have been better had it been fresher. The Saag, a pureed spinach dish, was also satisfactory but also could have benefited from being fresher. The best part of the meal was definitely the Lentil soup and the Chicken Tika Masala, which both tasted as if they were prepared right when we got there.
The fact that some of the items could have been fresher is one of the downsides of eating at a buffet, as it is hard to tell when the dish was made. If we had ordered fresh food, I am sure it would have been even better.
The buffet cost $13.95, and for that amount of money it would have been nice if they changed out their buffet items more often. So, next time I hit up Himalaya’s, I will probably order from the menu and skip the buffet.
One menu meal prepared fresh is better than a truckload of meals left to sit under a heat lamp, which is definitely something to consider when in Las Vegas.
