Las Vegas buffets

Las Vegas is renowned as the Casino capital of the world. However it holds another title - the world Buffet capital. Almost all the big Casinos host enormous buffets where the sheer number of food options dwarfs anything you will see in any other location. And they are good - you get quality, volume and value no matter where you choose. Caesars Palace even features the "Buffet of Buffets" option, where for a fixed price you can visit any of five different Vegas buffets as many times as you like in 24 hours. We didn't take up this option although I did wonder whether, keeping with the Roman theme, a Vomitorium is available.

We tried two buffets during our five days in town, at Aria and The Cosmopolitan. Both featured multiple themed stations - for example American, Italian, Seafood. And of course separate stations for soups, salads and desserts (the range of desserts made Samuels eyes water). Each station had enough dishes to make a mini buffet in their own right and some stations would prepare various dishes on request - for example at the Cosmo the chef would cook up different varieties of Mac 'n Cheese. Taken together you could pretty much fill your stomach before you even visited some sections if you weren't careful.

For dinner at Aria I (Eric) prepared carefully, going on a 90 minute run beforehand and lunching on one lettuce leaf and two baby carrots. Alas there was still no chance I could even sample all the dishes that took my fancy.

While Vegas buffets are an exercise in outrageous gluttony, they are also quality dining experiences. All in all a must do if you're visiting Vegas.

Comments

New York: National Museum of Mathematics

When we first came to New York we all wrote down where we wanted to go while we were here. All of us included the math museum (confirms our status as a family of total geeks) so that is where we headed today. On the way we went to the LEGO shop. There was plenty of great Lego art and some pretty cool sets that Samuel hadn't seen before. The best part was the machine that used a palm print to generate your Lego avatar. Eric: Check out the six pack. Not sure where they got the toupee from though. Samuel is Johnny Depp? Amazingly accurate this one. The famous Flatiron building A nd the math museum? Of course we enjoyed it! It was all interactive with loads of old and new problems to solve. We even got to use maths in an artistic way. Tessellating Samuel and Eric were most entranced by a floor exhibit which changed periodically but had a range of practical problems. The museum was well populated in the morning with ...

Santa Cruz

Unlike our first island hop, Isabela to Santa Cruz was done by boat (see the addendum below for my thoughts about inter island boat travel). At least the early morning trip was a smooth one. Luckily we had managed to book an apartment in Puerto Ayora which meant we could do some of our own catering for a change. By the time we arrived we were slowing down some, we felt we'd seen much of the wildlife the islands offered and frankly, we were exhausted. So we didn't venture too far from Puerto Ayora. One nice place near town we did visit (Eric went twice) was Tortuga bay which was exactly what you would expect a tropical beach to look like. In fact it had two beaches, one a surf beach and one a quiet cove where you could snorkel with barely a ripple. There wasn't much wildlife here except a few Iguanas (and one turtle) but the warm water was great for a swim nevertheless. As with San Cristobal we took a taxi trip to the highlands, crawling in Lava tub...

Dining in Denpasar

A key part of any holiday experience is food. During the first week of our stay in Bali we had two nice and very contrasting dining experiences. Merah Putih is billed as the best Indonesian restaurant in Denpasar. It was just a few blocks from our Seminyak villa so we prebooked well ahead of time for a visit. The restaurant venue is very impressive - from the inside it looks a bit like a giant greenhouse, including the plants. The food was spectacular. While every dish was good, the Bak Pao Sapi (Beef steamed buns) and Semur Sapi (slow roasted beef cheek) were incredible. Then for Christmas Eve lunch we had booked at Starfish Bloo at W Bali, one of the swankiest Sunday Brunch venues on the island. Sunday brunch buffets are a signature Bali experience with many of the big international hotels putting on all you can eat extravaganzas once a week. Needless to say the meal was jaw dropping. We had a great table close to the beach where we enjoyed un...

EE & S Adventures

Search This Blog