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Vodka for Breakfast, What Else Would You Expect from a Buffet in Las Vegas?

Last weekend, Twitterer HeartBreakTheeo was thrilled to see that the Paradise Garden Buffet at The Flamingo gave out little vodka bottles during brunch. But we're not that surprised. This is Vegas! Of course, they are going to hand out little vodka bottles with breakfast.

Actually, this is probably a part of the buffet's "Bloody Mary" brunch which runs from 7am to 4pm and costs $24.99 per person. The first Bloody Mary is included but you have to pay up for the rest. You can, however, mix your morning hangover cure to your own delight as Paradise Garden provides the toppings and mixers.

Aside from alcohol, there is actual food at Paradise Garden. In the mornings, you can expect to find ade-to-order Omelets, several breakfast meats, buttermilk biscuits, waffles, country-fried potatoes and freshly baked pastries. The breakfast of champions indeed.

Tags: Tweet of the Weekend / Twitter / Buffets / Drinking / Gambling / → All Tags

Tweet of the Weekend: What Is the Total Vegas Experience?

Many people got trashed in Vegas this weekend, and lots of them told the world about it. So, every Monday we’re bringing you our favourite tweet of the weekend. And don’t forget to follow us at @vegaschatter.

What is the Vegas experience? Drinking a souvenir drink, surely. Seeing a show, possibly a Cirque one. Obliterating yourself until you have blackouts. That sounds about right.

@raisegrate has another - getting flashed at:

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Tags: Buffet of Buffets / Buffets / Harrah's / Scams / WTF / → All Tags

Guess What? Harrah's Just Upped the Buffet of Buffets Price. Again.

Even our camera got emotional and quivery

We knew it. Just as the Pope’s a catholic, bears do their beeswax in the woods and all men are bastards, casinos will always let you down. Yes, just as we were adjusting to the new Buffet of Buffets prices, and working out how to squeeze every last minute out of our wristbands, we get another whammy.

The Buffet of Buffets price has just gone up from $34.99 to $39.99.

Yep, on April 28 they upped it from $29.99 for everyone to $34.99 for Total Rewards members and $39.99 for everyone else. And now, 10 weeks later, they’ve gone up to $39.99 or $45.99 for non TR members. It’s now a third more expensive than it was at launch, and it’s only been going three months.

Unsurprisingly, Harrah’s have kept this on the d-low. In fact, we’d noticed a few $39.99 signs over the past couple of days, but assumed it was some advertising technicality about not being able to trumpet the lower price when it’s not available for all.

But no, turns out the prices were silently hiked over the weekend. Thanks guys!

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Tags: Snapshot / Weddings / Excalibur / Buffets / WTF / Only In Vegas / → All Tags

Only In Vegas Would You Hold Your Wedding Reception at an All Day Buffet

Please tell us they went on to party with Thunder Down Under

As the ever-wonderful Alex Acuna says, this is why we love Vegas – because it really does have something for everyone.

As we were busy tweeting on Friday night, some friends of ours were up for the weekend and decided to hit the Excalibur all-day buffet. On trip four, in the evening, they found themselves dining next to a wedding party.

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Tags: Survival Strategies / Buffet of Buffets / Buffets / Harrah's / → All Tags

How to Squeeze Every Last Minute Out of Your Buffet of Buffet Pass

Brandish it, scan it, then get back in line

It’s been a while since we’ve heard anything about the Buffet of Buffets. Since our fondness for it palled after their PR-blundering price hike (and the fact that we're still struggling to lose our buffet baby weight after we did the whole seven-in-24-hours thing) we haven’t felt like hitting the buffets, but if you are, here’s how to squeeze as much value as you can out of your $34.99 (for Total Rewards members, $39.99 for plebs).

Some Gossy-loving friends of ours bought the BoB passes at the weekend, intending to use them for lunch on two consecutive days. They hit up the Rio for meal number one, and, the following day, headed over to Planet Hollywood to end it on a high. They got there at 12.30pm – their passes were down to expire at 1.20pm.

Only problem was, the queue was humungous. They asked what would happen if they expired in line, and were told the passes would just expire. Sure enough, by the time they got to the front, it was 1.30pm and they weren’t allowed in.

Fair enough – except then they got talking to the people behind them who told them that what they’d done was to jump the queue and get their wristbands scanned as soon as they arrived, and then gone back to queue for an hour for a table, getting in after their expired time. Clever!

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Tags: VegasChatter Reviews / Buffet of Buffets / Paris / Buffets / Food / → All Tags

La Vie Est Pretty Rosy At Le Village Buffet In Paris

Hungry? Can’t afford the In Suite Cooking Programme at the Signature? Time for our weekly rundown of a Buffet of Buffets contender. This week: Le Village Buffet at Paris.

First Impressions:

Depends on what you think of Paris in general. Personally, we’re very fond of the whole cobbled streets, faux-French vibe (we also love the fakey bits of New York New York), so for us the idea of eating sur les cobbles, filling our plates from little French cottages, and being served by wenches in floral dresses, is hilarious.

Our regular Dining Companion, though, is a spoilsport and thinks the place looks like Disneyland. So he classes the buffet as “intrinsically tacky”. Snob.

Location:

Towards the back of the casino, in its own little gated community. A bit like what Montmartre looks like in the early scenes of La Vie En Rose.

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Tags: VegasChatter Reviews / Buffet of Buffets / Planet Hollywood / Buffets / Food / → All Tags

The Planet Hollywood Buffet Will Spice Up Your Life

Hungry? Time for our weekly rundown of a Buffet of Buffets contender. This week: the Spice Market Buffet at Planet Hollywood.

First Impressions:

We’d always heard fabulous things about the PH Buffet so we were expecting things to look good. And they did – so good, in fact, that half of the Strip seemed to have had the same idea as us and had descended on the buffet. The queue wasn’t as big as the one at the Rio, but we were still kept waiting a good 20 minutes before we could be seated.

Location:

Down in the bowels of PH – take the escalator down from the casino floor. But, lack of windows aside, the room is pretty spacious for a buffet and although it’s a little dark, it doesn’t feel claustrophobic. It’s all open tables though (no booths) so there’s not much privacy while you stuff the goodies down.

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Tags: VegasChatter Reviews / Buffet of Buffets / Imperial Palace / Buffets / Do Not Do / → All Tags

The Imperial Palace Buffet Is Straight From The 70s In More Ways Than One

Although we’re still blissed out over Vegas Uncork’d, it’s time to get back to impoverished reality. And nothing says impoverished reality like the Emperor’s Buffet at the Imperial Palace, right? Time for our weekly rundown of a Buffet of Buffets contender.

First Impressions:

Surprisingly good. The IP buffet was, out of the seven, the one we were most dreading. Once, when we joked to a friendly Harrah’s spy that we were so hungry we could eat a horse, he advised us to hop over to the IP buffet where we could, most probably, eat a horse.

But the room looked ok (well, compared to what we were expecting) and the ladies on the door were exceptionally friendly. Maybe we’d misjudged it? We did that with the IP once before.

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Tags: Buffets / Buffet of Buffets / Harrah's Casino / Food / Restaurants / VegasChatter Reviews / Harrah's / → All Tags

The Harrah's Buffet May Drive You To Drink

So, Buffet of Buffets. Originally we were planning on rolling out one review a week but last week’s price shenanigans made the bile rise a bit in our throat when we came to writing it. Unless that was just because we were thinking about the Harrah’s buffet – either is equally believable.

So today we’re trying again. Here’s what we thought of the Flavors Buffet at Harrah’s.

First Impressions:

Positive. The queue was zilch (mainly, we suspect, because we arrived at 10pm) and the staff on the till were friendly. At first glance the buffet looked nice and big, if deserted.

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Harrah's Is Still Advertising the Buffet of Buffets as $29.99 (But This Could Work For You)

UPDATE 15.30: Harrah's have confirmed that if you show them a pic of the ad, you'll be entitled to the buffet at the old price. Happy eating!

Hey Harrah’s, you know how we pointed out yesterday that you were still advertising the old $29.99 Buffet of Buffets price even though you’d upped the price by a third for non Total Rewards members and $5 for the TR gang?

Well, we appreciate you tweeting that you were having the old ads removed asap (although we don’t think we’re being difficult by suggesting that you might have liked to have done that before you implemented the price hike).

We were pleased to be informed that the big $29.99 banner on the walkway between O’Sheas and the Flamingo has gone. And we hope that the fact that we’ve heard no more reports of the mobile trucks cruising the Strip means that you hauled them off the road as well.

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Tags: Buffet of Buffets / Buffets / Harrah's / Scams / → All Tags

The $29.99 Buffet of Buffets Was Too Good To Be True

UPDATE 10.50: Harrah's have announced over all their Twitter accounts that they are implementing the price rise "to keep your wait short and service up to par". So they're intentionally pricing you out. Just FYI.

UPDATE 2 13.30 This is how Harrah's have reacted on their blog. And they actually apologize! We're still angry, but props to them for having had the grace to admit they messed up.

Oh, say it isn’t so, Harrah’s. We woke up this morning to scurrilous reports coming from the Strip about the Buffet of Buffets having its price go up today.

Our angry (and hungry) spies told us that the buffet has shot up from a straight $29.99 for everyone to a two tier system: $34.99 for Total Rewards members and $39.99 for everyone else.

Hmm. The webpage for the BoB is still talking about a “ridiculously affordable” $29.99 so we called Imperial Palace (assuming they’d be the least busy of the buffets – sorry guys).

No, said the operator, the BoB was $29.99. She put us through to the concierge, who said the same thing. Then, at our request, he called the buffet to confirm.

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Tags: Buffets / Buffet of Buffets / Caesars Palace / Food / Restaurants / VegasChatter Reviews / → All Tags

Caesars Buffet: Nice Puds, But Not One To Fantasize Over

A week on from our 24 hour buffet extravaganza, and we’re still feeling a little delicate. If you’re not up for devoting seven days of recovery to meat sweats and carb comas, we understand – and we’re rolling out individual reviews of all the buffets so you can choose which ones you’ll want to hit, and which to skip. Today: Lago Buffet at Caesars Palace.

First Impressions:

Swanky! Our regular buffet dining companion had warned us that the Caesars buffet was disappointing, but at first glance it looked like we were proving him wrong. Decor was well swish, right down to the color-flecked tables (all the better for hiding grease stains, but pretty nonetheless).

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