Las Vegas- Nevada
It's been almost two weeks since I've returned from my much needed escape to Vegas. I'm still suffering from massive Vegas buffets withdrawals despite all the time that has passed. Time does not heal all cravings, in fact, it accentuates it even more and distorts the cravings further. Just my luck.
The day before we set off for Vegas, I caught the cold. In July. Okay, what are the odds of that? My getting sick rate is about once every two years, and boom, I got sick the day before we departed for Vegas. WTF! I couldn't believe my luck, but I blamed my illness on the poor timing of my Physical Exam (two days before the departure), and I probably caught something there. Because really, where must one go to catch a virus in the summer aside for the doctor's office?
Despite the cold, I was not one to let it take me out. Upon arrival at the Vegas airport, we headed straight to our hotel, Bally's. Alright, so this hotel isn't anything to brag about, but it was a steal for what we got, and that's without having used the sandwich trick. Regrettably, I really wanted to try the sandwich trick, but the girl at the register looked super grumpy and unhappy, so I hesitated and thus missed out on the chance. Drats! She got us two rooms in the older tower. 450 square feet of old, beat up space is one thing, but Bally's is located right in the middle of the strip! It is across from the Bellagio's, and although we didn't get a room with a view of the Bellagio's water fountain, we were at least that much closer to the Bellagio buffet. Our room was pretty tight. There was a dining table, a smaller table, a sofa, a desk, a vanity table, refrigerator, kitchen area, and a gazillion chairs.
10th floor :)
After we dropped off our luggages in our hotel, it was about 9 pm, and we were all stricken with immense hunger, so we set out for Sura's BBQ. We were too late for the casino buffets, and since we were in Vegas, we wanted all you can eat, so we hit up Chinatown.
meats
ban chan
gal bi and beef brisket
cook baby cook!
This place is a true buffet. You pick what you want and how much of what you want to eat. Sura's BBQ was very lucky that I was inflicted with the cold and my team was tired from the flight, otherwise we could have taken that restaurant out with our hunger. The grill took sooo long to heat up, and this place was very smart with their filler foods (fried fish, tempura, rice, etc), that we loaded up on filler foods instead of the good stuff. Their gal-bi was one of the best gal-bi's I have ever eaten (though to be fair my nose was stuffed, and I couldn't breathe, but my taste buds were not compromised). I could have eaten more, and right now I wish I would have eaten more, but at that time I was so sick and tired that what I needed was a bed and not so much food. Afterwards, we went back to the hotel and crashed. I know, I know, what a waste of valuable Vegas time.
Amazingly, I woke up the next day feeling a billion times better than I had the day before. Though, I probably woke up 5 times in the middle of the night, but the swollen throat went away and was replaced by minor coughs. Yay! We spent most of our time just walking around Vegas. We hit up Planet Hollywood's Miracle Mile shop, the Hawaiian market place where we looked at tiaras and barrettes with gemstones, Coke world, M&M's, MGM Grand, New York New York, Excalibur, and Mandalay Bay. Vegas was slightly disappointing. For some reason, it was not as extravagant or glamorous as my memory had served me. I could have sworn it was a lot more bling bling before.
Planet Hollywood Miracle Mile Shops
he really liked this backpack at the M&Ms store
view of New York, New York
lioness at the MGM Grand
us at the Mandalay Bay
After touring Vegas, we were starving and ready to tackle the Buffet of Buffets challenge. The Buffet of Buffets is this sweet deal in Vegas where you buy a pass for $50 + tax and you can eat at any of seven Vegas buffets within 24 hours of when you purchased the pass. We did our homework prior to setting out and decided we wanted to eat at Planet Hollywood's Spice Market buffet. This place wasn't a complete bust, but the idiot who posted pictures of the split alaskan king crabs on Yelp needs to take it off, because they only offered split snow crab legs. Yes, snow crab legs is still crabs, but it's a far stretch from king crabs. I didn't get to take many pictures because my hunger had taken over me, and by the time I remembered I had forgotten to take pictures, I was too immobilized and stuffed from all the crab legs, shrimp cocktails, and prime ribs. Their desserts were okay, not great but not terrible either. Though their creme brûlée was off in both consistency and texture.
yumm
creme brûlée and fruit tart
i can't remember eating this for some reason
I don't remember what happened after eating at Planet Hollywood, but I think we all fell in a food coma and didn't wake up until the next morning. So there you have it, two nights wasted in Vegas, and we owed the second night to food. Lovely! The next morning we woke up hungry (how we had such a huge appetite, I don't know). Since the Paris Paris was connected to Bally's, we decided to swing by and grab some grub prior to setting out. This place was gorgeous. The inside of the buffet looked like a French village, with food partitioned off into sections depending on regions: ex, Normandy. It was really nice, and the atmosphere was amazing. The selection of the food was pretty good during lunch time. There were a lot of vegetables, carving station of different meats, and a huge desserts selection. I was impressed with their lunch servings and could only wonder what dinner would have been like.
nutella crepe with blueberries and banana
creme brûlée- a step up from PH
After lunch, we went to check out Caesars. The piggy in me wanted to drop by the buffet to see what it was like, but my team was too full so we only walked around the Forum and checked out the stores. Afterwards, we rushed on over to the Mandalay Bay because my bf had a poker tournament he had to catch so we made it from Caesars to the Mandalay Bay in about 40 minutes, and that's with the help of two Trams. While my bf was playing poker, the rest of us went and checked out the Shark Reef. The sharks were really big, but my favorite has got to be the jelly fish. The sharks were too fast so I couldn't get a non-blurry image of them.
pretty?
sting ray
After the Shark Reef, we met up with my bf and then we went to the New York New York so my sister could go on the roller coaster ride. At about 6pm, we took the Taxi over to the Rio and wrapped the Buffet of Buffets up with the Carnival World Buffet. It was the biggest buffet out of the three, and it had a lot of varieties and selection of food, but the crabs sucked. They had tiny snow crab legs and petite shrimps that were not previously peeled. This was a bust to me, but my bf liked it best out of the three. I didn't snap any pictures because I was very disappointed in the food, but it actually wasn't that bad. They had a soup station where someone will prepare udon, pho, or ramen for you. They also had a gelato bar and that was very different.
Afterwards, we returned to our hotel and rested, and then it was off to tour the other side of the strip. We headed towards the Venetian, and that casino was absolutely beautiful. We didn't see the casino, but we walked in the shops at the Venetian, and they built a little canal with boats to simulate the real Venice. We wanted to get on the boat, but it was late at night and everything was closed, so we could only look and take pictures.
outside of the Forums shops at Caesars
in front of the canal + boat inside the Venetian
lookie.. pretty?
i love everything about this place..
okay.. now we're obviously just camwhoring :p
The next day we went to Chinatown and ate there. We had dim sum at some Chinese restaurant. There was nothing spectacular or particularly bad about it. We did find this really cool place in Chinatown that sold these charms with letters and cute charms and we could spell out things and make bracelets or keychains out of them. My sister and I spent over an hour just picking out charms while the boys sat and watched. Then we went back to the strip. We hit up Gameworks because we had gotten a Groupon for an all-day pass. Gameworks was honestly a waste of valuable Vegas time. Had it not been for that Groupon, we wouldn't have wasted our time there. The games were so old that I could barely read the lines from House of the Dead. You can barely tell a zombie from a person! All the good games were taken, and when they were freed up and we went to play, we found out it was broken! This place was just terrible. Would not recommend. Then we went to Coke World and the M&Ms store again, and then it was off to the Bellagio's Buffet. It was about $32/person with tax included, and it had alaskan king crab! They weren't ginormous like the ones in my memory, but they were sweet and delicious! The shrimp cocktails were gigantic too. Bellagio's did not disappoint, though my bf wasn't a fan because he said it lacked it selection? However, I disagree because I think the quality of the food fa exceeded my expectations for buffet food. I had two plates piled with crab legs and shrimp cocktails and one plate of kobe steak and prime rib along with a plate of desserts. I'm shocked I didn't eat more! That stuff was amazing.
giant shrimp cocktails
king and snow crab legs for comparison
delicious creme brûlée
