August 31, 2015 Ranchway restaurant Dinner – Grand Buffet

August 31, 2015 Ranchway restaurant  Dinner – Grand Buffet 

I drove to Las Cruces this morning for my trial. Sammie Singh met me at the American Motel, which is super funky.  Out font is the World’s largest red chile, about 100 feet long..  The inside courtyard features a swimming pool, a koi pond, sitting areas, Grill and lots of exotic plants.  I think the proprietors  are Australian and the wife is of Thai extraction. 

After I dressed at 11:45 we drove to the Ranch for lunch.  It is really named Ranchway restaurant.  It serves Mexican food and BBQ and is a very historic restaurant on Valley Rd., which is one of the main thoroughfares.

I wanted to play it safe and ordered beef enchiladas with red chili and double beans.  Sammie and Scott ordered BBQ chicken burritos.  I asked the order taker if the served BBQ chicken and he said, “we only make a limited amount of chicken, mainly for the chicken Burritos.”  Next time I may order something with chicken. 

After the trial Scott and I went to his favorite restaurant, Grand Buffet, which is an all you can eat Chinese buffet.  It had an amazing assortment of choices.  There was a cold table covered with ice and Saran on which were mussels, snow crab clusters, shrimp, and oysters on the half shell. There were dessert areas and several double banks of hot plates filled with all kinds of hot dishes, which I did not go to.  I was attracted to the fresh sushi area, where there was a sushi chef.

   The sushi area 

  Scott filling a plate with food and an attendant adding a fresh dish of food

I started with a dozen oysters, the shrimp and three mussels, which all seemed to have been previously frozen, but delicious.  I then moved on to the sushi area.  There was a lady there who served you and she gave me tuna, salmon,mackerel, and several octopus.  Perhaps the best choice was calamari, which seemed to have the best texture.  All of the fish, seemed to be previously frozen.  I thought I was on a cruise ship.  There were rolls also, I was attracted to the ones with fish and took several Caterpillar roll slices, one topped with salmon and one with tuna and of course slices of avocado.  There was also a lovely roll topped with Unagi (BBQ’d eel) and drizzled with the traditional teriyaki sauce.  I went back for seconds of sushi and Scott said, “We probably ate $40.00 of sushi.”

Even though I did not eat all the rice, I was stuffed by the time I finished my second plate of sushi, but I wanted to try one hot dish.  There is a dish I only have seen at one other buffet, also in Las Cruces, stir fried mung bean sprouts.  I also saw Manila clams in a black bean sauce so I took a scoop of each.  Unfortunately, the bean sprouts were cooked with jalapeños  were too hot for my taste. 

I tried a coconut shrimp that was not very good also.  Scott said he goes there almost every day, so I suspect we will return and I will try other dishes, such as the Mongolian BBQ. 

By 8:00 I was in bed and went to bed by 10:00 after a few phone calls and reding my New Yorker on my new iPad.

Also, I did rather well in trial,except I do not know how to raise an objection.  There was one statement made by the U.S’ witness that was incorrect and I said, “I object your Honor, that was a lie.”  Before the judge could rule on my objection, the U.S.’ Attorney made the witness offered the correct answer as a question to the witness, who agreed by saying,”Yes” and the record was thereby corrected. 

Bon Appetit