Palace Casino: Aces Grill - Breakfast

I heard about Aces Grill, a restaurant in West Edmonton Mall's Palace Casino, from a group of seniors who go there for the weekday breakfast special. It costs $3.99 for one of three choices: pancakes, two eggs with toast and hash brown, or ham and cheese omelette. Brewed coffee is complimentary. It sounds like a good deal, but I wouldn't choose to come back again given the lack of service and mediocre food. As expected, the clientele was mainly comprised of seniors, many of whom were regulars. Some of them were just dropping by after an early morning in the casino. Nobody greeted us when we walked in, and I had to walk up to the counter to ask a staff member if we could sit wherever we wanted. She said yes, and we proceeded to seat ourselves. Menus arrived shortly after, but it took a while for the waitress to return to take our order. And after we placed our order, we had to wait nearly half an hour for the food, while the restaurant wasn't even half full!

The food, when it finally arrived, did not look very appealing. The eggs were too brown and the hash brown was dry and lacked oil. I'm not a fan of grease, so I never thought I'd say that. It's obvious in the picture that there is no oil glistening on the potato chunks, which were also under-seasoned and bland. Add on dry toast, and that completes this flavourless dish.

The pancakes were just as underwhelming. No buttery flavour and no fluffiness. The texture was actually kind of mushy. I'd rather have McDonald's hot cakes because they at least have some flavour to them.

I suppose $3.99 is a reasonable price for breakfast, but in terms of value, I'd take IKEA's $1 breakfast over this any day.