Pauma Bay Cafe

Cheap buffet for less than $10 a person (used to be $5.95 but now it's $9.95. still worth it)! The food is primarily American cuisine (lots of carbs yumm), but it's great quality and the environment makes you feel like you'e having a home-cooked meal. There's a noodle/pasta bar and an omelette bar, where they make it for you on the spot. The dessert area has pecan pie, apple pie, lemon bars, cheesecake, cookies, etc.

The service is good and the staff serves you the desserts and the food at the noodle/pasta and omelette bars. Sometimes you'll see people who stay for both lunch and dinner, while there's lines of hungry people watching them as they take their time eating so they can enjoy the cuisine for both lunch and dinner haha.

The Pauma casino is really a strange, strange place.  I suppose that statement could be saved for a review of the overall premises, but the strangeness does rub off to their cafe so it's at least partially relevant.  We were at the casino to watch a friend's band perform, and had some time to kill before the show so being hungry and not wanting to eat at the hotdog stand we went inside the cafe.  I ordered the $16 filet mignon.  I know I know, what was I expecting?  Well here's the thing... for that amount of cash I usually can get a decent filet at a place like Outback.  So channeling my inner gambler I figured I'd give it a shot.  What I got (while edible) was chewy and flavorless.  I think it's the first time I've put salt and pepper on a filet in a long time.  The baked potato was more sour cream and butter than it was potato.  The vegetable side was okay.  Our server was nice, but very slow.  I have definitely experienced better, but if you're at this casino and hungry you really don't have that many options. Good luck!

They raised prices across the board for all items. It was not very good to begin with. The higher prices only make it that much worse. Had some pasta this time. So not memorable I cannot recall the name of it.