The flop, the fold, the pho

When Daniel Negreanu gets a yen for a salad with chickpeas and peppers and hard-boiled eggs, it doesn’t matter that it’s not on the menu; the kitchen is happy to oblige. And if Jean Gluck wants her New York steak -- 12 ounces, crusted with cracked black pepper and seared in butter -- cut into bite-sized pieces, it will come cut into bite-sized pieces.

These folks are not regulars at the Polo Lounge, nor are they aboard the QE2. They’re guests at the world’s largest card room, the Commerce Casino in Commerce.

Gluck eats at Commerce four or five times a week, and she never pays for a meal. That’s because she’s a high roller; you can often find her at a table where the minimum bet is $40. Negreanu is a poker star who comes to Commerce for big tournaments; he’s now playing in the World Series of Poker in Las Vegas, whose main event starts Thursday.

“Sometimes,” Gluck says, “my boyfriend and I consider going out to a restaurant, but usually we think: Why bother? We can get anything we want, any way we want, here.” She loves the delicate poached orange roughy, enlivened by a mango and papaya salsa, which she says is peppery and not too sweet. “Everything’s fresh and cooked to order. It’s like having my own private chef,” she says.

Food-wise, poker fiends in Southern California are among the luckiest in the world. That’s true even for low-stakes players, who must pay for their dinners and cut their steaks themselves, not to mention sit in a more crowded room with less attentive service. The food, however, is vibrant and fresh and carefully prepared, and the menus amazingly wide-ranging, with particular emphasis on Asian dishes -- not only at Commerce but also at the other three large area card rooms: Hollywood Park in Inglewood, the Bicycle Casino in Bell Gardens and Hawaiian Gardens in Hawaiian Gardens. The competition is fierce for poker dollars in Southern California, and the card rooms use good food at bargain prices to keep players and their money at the tables.

“No one else could afford to spend on food what we spend,” says Jim Griffo, Commerce’s food and beverage director. “We consider it marketing for the casino. We are very proud of what we serve on the plate. We make up for a lack of ambience with the quality of the food.”

Plenty to choose from

For those of us who love poker, the ambience is actually a huge draw. Overlit by ridiculous chandeliers and peopled with glassy-eyed rogues? Certainly. But to us it’s all high drama, a kaleidoscope of shifting odds and body positions that carry potentially lucrative secret messages. Writ large, the card rooms offer a mass of heaving humanity: broken hearts, bad sports, boisterous jokers, occasional breathtaking graciousness and utter joy. Who needs a restaurant?

Gamblers pick their card rooms based on geography first, but all other things being equal, Commerce is the place to beat for good eats. It’s the favorite of professionals such as Negreanu (whom many expect to see at the Texas Hold ‘Em championship final table a week from Saturday).

Commerce’s six-page menu offers about 200 dishes, from bun cha gio ($4.75, crisp, cut egg rolls over a heaping bowl of vermicelli noodles and served with a tangy hoisin-oyster sauce dressing) to a tidy club sandwich with fresh roasted turkey breast, tomatoes and bacon (also $4.75). In between is a full page of Chinese food, including soups, noodle dishes and steak Cantonese style (meaning with fresh ginger and oyster sauce) and another page devoted to Korean, Vietnamese and other specialties.

“We’re constantly changing our menu to keep people at the table,” says Griffo. “We were getting a lot of requests for Vietnamese soups from between midnight and 4 a.m. So we’re in the process of adding eight new soups to the menu.”

Among the soups executive chef Tony Ortega is trying out are two rice-noodle phos: one with thinly sliced beef and Vietnamese meatballs, another with a lobster-lemongrass base that features shrimp, squid, mussels and whitefish.

One of the most popular entrees at Commerce is perfection sea fish: a whole silver pompano, lightly breaded and fried and served with a garlic-red chili sauce and fluffy white rice. With it comes an appetite whetter, golden chicken consomme with mushrooms and fresh cilantro. In the Thai column at $9.75, this whole fish is one of Commerce’s most expensive entrees, a substantial dinner that is also light enough so that a player will not risk feeling logy at the table afterward.

The food and beverage operation at Commerce is huge. Between the casino floor, the banquet room (where the health department sometimes holds dinners) and Commerce’s two restaurants, the casino serves about 6,000 meals a day. On the floor alone it serves about 2,100. It has three main kitchens, two restaurant kitchens and a food staff of 600, including nine sous chefs, 11 lead cooks and 120 cooks.

Griffo says that when he joined the casino in 1987, the menu was like that of a standard coffee shop, with some Chinese food thrown in.

“The business grew and the diversity of the customer base grew,” he says, “as did people’s sophistication about food and nutrition.” Commerce dramatically expanded its operation, adding four new kitchens and hiring local Korean, Vietnamese, Chinese and Thai cooks to join its staff and ensure authenticity in its Asian menus.

It’s playtime

As everyone by now knows, poker is the world’s exploding pastime, a democratic sport that can turn the geekiest math nerd into Joe Cool. Certain women who no doubt throw like girls also thrive on the psychological acuity required; it’s a game that does not consistently reward the aggressive, the coordinated and the strong. Jean Gluck has all but forsaken her construction business to play poker virtually full time. Poker has become a way of life for all kinds of folks -- schoolteachers, social workers and writers.

One night I interviewed four people randomly on the lower-stakes floor at Commerce, and most of them ate at the casino at least twice a week, stopping in after work or on weekends. They may not come here specifically to dine, but they find eating an extremely satisfying part of the poker experience. When regulars come in, the people who work on the floor greet them by name and, when they sit down, a waitress brings them a cup of coffee just the way they like it.

House rules

So what’s best to eat while you’re playing Texas Hold ‘Em? Conventional wisdom dictates you want to be alert and comfortable while playing. You don’t want to play on either an empty stomach or on a very full one, and you should avoid junk food, which will make you antsy before it makes you tired. Commerce makes it especially easy for players to stay in their seats and meet those criteria.

You call out for a menu or for “food service!” and a floor person makes sure you are promptly served. Your food and drink are placed beside you on a rolling cart. Some players like to stop playing but stay at the table while eating to observe how others are playing between bites. Players who stay in the game while eating tend to play “tighter”: that is, they stay in fewer hands in order to get in a few more bites between deals.

At Commerce, you have to play to eat the food on the casino floor. Here’s three pieces of advice to enjoy your time there: A full house beats a flush; if your opponent leans forward he is probably bluffing; and you can’t go wrong with the Korean galbi.

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How to feed your poker face

Because it’s best to wait for the right hands, I find I often have to play poker for five hours or more to win money, so I frequently need to eat at the table. That’s a good thing to do, because you can stop playing but continue observing how others bet. Or, you can eat and play. Here’s how to make the most of your meal and your hand.

* Keep your poker chips on the poker table and your food and drink on the rolling tray. Otherwise you’ll be in for a tongue-lashing from the dealer.

* Unsure what to order and not feeling up to dealing with a large bowl of rice noodles? Two dishes that the card rooms always seem to get right: a club sandwich and chicken wings, which are miraculously not over-greasy and are always served with plenty of napkins and moist towelettes.

* Turn to the side when eating. Looking cool is important, and you won’t look cool with chicken in your teeth.

* Because it’s boring to drop out of the game, a common mistake in poker is to play too many hands. While eating, you’ll find you will play “tighter,” meaning you’ll play only the best hands because you want to get back to that club sandwich. Consider this good practice and play this way all the time.

* Since other players are expecting you to play tighter when you’re deeply involved with your meal, you can sometimes take advantage of this and bluff. When dealt a particularly lousy two cards, put down your sandwich, which you obviously have been enjoying. Wipe your mouth. Sit up straight. Glance briefly at your sandwich but pull your gaze immediately back at your hand. Bet big. It just might work.

* Tempting as it is, don’t overeat. An overly full stomach is just as distracting as an empty one.

* I know I have the upper hand when a player reeking of alcohol sits down at my table. Don’t drink and play.