Fishermen's fare catches on at Huwak'a
Sky City restaurant features seafood buffet on Fridays

Floyd Lowden holds a pan while Sky City Casino Executive Chef Leilani Wakefield fills it with crab legs. The casino's restaurant, Huwak'a, will offer a new seafood buffet on Fridays beginning today. The buffet will include a variety of sea food with several types of fish, shrimp and crab. [Photo by John A. Bowersmith/Independent]

By Jim Tiffin
Cibola County Bureau

PUEBLO OF ACOMA — Giving customers what they want is part of operating a restaurant, especially one with a large buffet line, said Leilani Wakefield, executive chef at Huwak'a Restaurant at Sky City Hotel Casino.

Beginning today, the restaurant will open a permanent seafood buffet dinner, she said.

"Our customer base is about 70 percent local, and they have told us that they think a casino should have a seafood buffet on Friday nights," she said. "So we are going to give them what they want."

Two popular items with area residents and customers will be featured every Friday: Snow crab legs and cold peel and eat shrimp.

"The snow crab is coming from France right now. In the summer it comes from other parts of the oceans. The crab legs come from wherever the market is and what time of year it is" Wakefield said.

In addition to the crab legs, the restaurant will offer a baked fish and a fried fish, along with side dishes and the popular prime rib.

Wakefield said an example of the baked fish would be catfish.

"I find it interesting that most of our customers like the catfish baked, not breaded and deep fried." she said.

"They love it and they put everything on it," she said.

The catfish the restaurant receives for baking is mild and is farm raised, she said. The breaded catfish has a much stronger taste and is not farm raised.

The peel and eat shrimp will be on the salad side of the buffet, along with another major salad dish and the side dishes.

The restaurant is changing its presentation on the salad side with more attractive and easier to reach oblong shaped black gondolas instead of the round glass bowls previously used.

Wakefield said customers wanted the peel and eat shrimp so they could peel the shell and eat it with their hands.

"A lot of people like to eat with their hands and there is something to touching your food with your hands," she said.

An added touch will be baked potatoes and the restaurant will continue having New England (white) clam chowder on the buffet line on Fridays, Wakefield said.

The buffet will retain the taco bar including the Mexican food and will continue to offer a variety of salads, she said.

The buffet will cost a little more, $15.95, which is in the middle range of seafood buffet prices in the area and begins at 4 p.m., she said.

It includes drinks, desserts and a line of sugar free desserts for diabetics, such as apple and blueberry pie and cheesecake.

"We are adding something new to the area, trying to accommodate our customers," said Mike Coy, general manager of the hotel and restaurant.

The restaurant is open from 6 a.m.-10 p.m., Sunday through Wednesday and until 1 a.m., Thursday through Saturday.

— To contact reporter Jim Tiffin, call (505) 287-2197 or e-mail: jimtiffin1@msn.com.