Shorelines Casino is located at 3800 Fisher Drive in Peterborough, about 140km NE of Toronto. It has a Fri. and Sat. night dinner buffet, featuring roast beef on Fri. for $29.99 and prime rib on Sat. for $33.99; we went for the latter. Be sure to get a free Club membership card at Guest Services for $5 off, and correspondingly higher discounts will be had with the paid memberships. Shorelines is very large and quite popular, at least on the night we went, and there will probably be a lineup for the main hot buffet, although the side buffet tables are always accessible. AYCD fountain pop is included in the price which is excellent.
Ogórkowa dill pickle soup was surprisingly good with plenty of flavour and an excellent combination. Vegan tomato vegetable soup was also better than expected considering it looked like the same vegetables in the entree dishes, but was well-seasoned and balanced. Rice pilaf was also excellent with plenty of savour and a good seasoning mix... better than expected.
Meat pizza was excellent, possibly the best item offered, and fresh with a chili-like sauce and good crust. I ended up having seconds. Eastern rice was good with plenty of curry flavour. Coleslaw was very mild, almost muted, but quite fresh. Potato wedges were good and well-seasoned. Mashed potatoes were nice and buttery. We both noticed that the maple-glazed carrots really didn't taste of maple but I didn't mind them, although they seemed a little more like parsnips.
Chef’s pasta with its curly noodles was quite good. For the bok choy, we both came to the same conclusion that it required washing; it had an odd flavour. Thankfully the star of the show prime rib was quite good, and didn't have much fat on it, and also had plenty of flavour and the gravy complemented it well so it made the dinner worthwhile. Yorkshire pudding was very good and went with the prime rib very well.
For dessert, ice creams were chocolate and vanilla and twist soft-serve, with sprinkle toppings and caramel, strawberry and chocolate sauces. Chocolate ice cream with caramel sauce was a great combination. Vanilla with strawberry sauce and Oreo crumble was even better. Butter tarts were very good, larger than the store-bought variety and appear to be made on premises. Strawberry shortcake was also quite good and probably made here. Tiramisu cake, while understated, was quite good and very light and fluffy. No-sugar-added cheesecake was quite good although of course was even better with a little of that strawberry sauce.
It was an enjoyable dinner, and moreso than expected. There were some stand-out items and only one that needed work. The $5 discount drops the weekend dinner price to $28.99 Saturdays and $24.99 Fridays, and given that this includes AYCD pop it’s an excellent value these days which factors into the rating... many other casinos’ management seem to have forgotten that a good value buffet gets the customers in to gamble. We’d happily return.
Rating: 9.5 / 10
