VegasChatter

Exhibit One: Carcasses Galore

We actually did a little scream when we waltzed over from the salad counter and saw a whole dead piglet staring at us. And we wanted to vom when the guys at the meat counter saw how grossed out we were and decided to chop its head off, peel the skin back and remind us exactly where meat comes from by scraping a plateload from off the carcass.

Needless to say, we didn’t take any suckling pig. And we couldn’t bring ourselves to eat the hunk of beef that we’d already picked up. But we were confused: we thought this was the country that’s so squeamish about meat that you reshape all your ham joints into cutesy little gymballs of flesh, lest we wince at seeing a bone or any reference to a body. Were we being intentionally put off our food?

Exhibit Two: Over-observant Staff

As we were picking at some lettuce, still trying to get the dead piglet out of our head, our dining companion, who has worked his way through many a Vegas buffet, came back from the salad bar looking a little shaken. As he was piling his plate, the guy at the salad counter had looked at his plate, then at him, and said: “Good load you’ve got there.” Trying to be friendly and misfiring horribly? Possibly – we don’t want to think he was actually being rude.

Whichever way, though, Dining Companion was offended, and said he’d also never been to a buffet where eyeballing staff kept such tight tabs on what people were putting on their plates. After all, the last place you want to be judged is when you’re going up for your fourth round.

Exhibit Three: Mislabeling of Dishes

OK so we go by sight at the buffet table anyway, but we couldn’t help noticing that quite a few of the dishes at Aria were mislabeled – like this dessert bar. The peanut butter jelly is down as “Exotic Glass” (the perfect name to get nobody eating it) and if that’s actually carrot cake on the left, well, we’ll eat a suckling pig.

Exhibit Four: The Decor

Dining Companion thought it was alright, but we were reminded of a school canteen trying to distract us from its school canteenish aspect with some weird lights. Not our vibe.

Conclusion

None of this, it goes without saying, stopped us from indulging: we polished off ten plates between the two of us and left sporting a fine preggo buffet belly. The food was pretty good, too, so we probably got our money’s worth. But if you’re not as brash as us, or determined to play Aria at its own game, you may want to take your precious moneys and eat your buffets somewhere else.