Tag Archives: buffet of buffets

Flavors at Harrah’s, Las Vegas – Breakfast buffet review

We visit Las Vegas every year, tagging along with my husband who goes to a conference, and we start our visit by getting a Buffet of Buffets pass and hitting several of the buffets that are included.  Flavors has never been a favorite, but this year Spice Island at the Planet Hollywood was mostly closed and the Rio’s buffet didn’t seem to be worth traveling to.  We hit Harrah’s buffet for dinner, and it was worse than I remembered.

I started with the New York steak, though the roast was so grayish that I wasn’t particularly sure that’s what I was getting when I asked for a slice.  It was flavorful enough, but it lack juiciness.  I had a slice of roasted pork which was as pedestrian, a very generic piece of beef with snap peas, and not much else.  My daughter was very disappointed with the pizza. My husband ate mostly shrimp.  The bread pudding wasn’t bad for dessert, but the ice cream was so low quality that even my daughters (who are not exactly picky in this department) rejected it.  Instead try the canoli, which was actually quite tasty.

My favorite part of this buffet is that you can actually get your own drinks so you don’t have to wait for them to be refilled.  That’s sad.

Again, this is not a buffet I’d pay for or bother going to again.  Others seem to feel the same way.  We got there around 6:15 PM on a Friday night and we didn’t have to wait in line to get in.

Flavors The Buffet
Harrah’s Las Vegas
475 Las Vegas Boulevard South
Las Vegas, NV
Website
Weekday Breakfast $21/12, Weekend Breakfast $23/12, Weekday Lunch $23/16, Weekend Brunch $28/16, Weekday Dinner $28/16, Weekend dinner $30/16. Groupon deal often available. Children price = 10 & under, Total Rewards members save $1.  Available with the Buffet of Buffets pass.

Marga’s Restaurant Reviews

This review is from July 2012.

This is probably the first breakfast buffet I’ve had aside from those that are complimentary at some hotels, and I was very happy with it. It offers plenty of choices – your standard American fare, some Mexican and Chinese stuff (though the latter seemed like left overs from the night before) and plenty of sweets.   That’s what I went for, and I was quiet happy.

The mini lemon cheesecakes, raspberry pudding cups, cheese blitz and apple crepes were all excellent  – you’d be happy if you got them at a 5-star restaurant.  Also nice were the bread pudding with vanilla sauce, the cinnamon roll and the brownie.  Less successful was the custard (not sweet enough), the croissants (a bit dry) and the bacon (good flavor but dried out).  The sausages, on the other hand, were great.  Skip the heavy, cakey doughnuts and the chewy bagels, though there is lox if you want them.  The pancakes and French toast could have been better, I wouldn’t bother with them.  The biscuits were good, but look for the ones in the warm tray.

Don’t skip the fruit, while the strawberries were tasteless, the watermelon, cantaloupe and honeydew melon were perfectly ripe and sweet – they were a hit with my husband and kids.  The pineapple was the canned type, but my youngest enjoyed it.

There is also a carving station (ham, I think) and make-to-order omelets, which we didn’t try.  You can order ice cream as well – I wasn’t too fond of the strawberry one.

As for drinks, the coffee was fine, the hot cocoa standard, I felt the chocolate milk was weak but my daughter liked it.

The minus part of the buffet is that we got it as part of the “Buffet of buffets” deal, but we were so full after eating it that we couldn’t take advantage of the lunch buffet that was included in the price.

 

“Buffet of Buffets” deal in Las Vegas

The Buffet of Buffets is a deal offered by Ceasar’s line of hotels which allows you to make as many visits of the participating buffets as you’d like, within 24 hours.  If you want to spend a day doing nothing but eating – and what is Las Vegas about, if not excess – then it’s not a bad deal.  We’ve done it twice and might consider doing it again, but given our last experiences with the quality of the participating buffets (see below), we probably won’t do it again.

How Much Does it Cost?

The Buffet of Buffets is $60 for weekdays and $75 for weekends.  You get $5 off that price with a Total Rewards card.  Children’s prices are the same as adults, but you can get the discounted Total Rewards price if a parent buys it for them.

Weekend prices apply 11 AM Friday to 11 AM Sunday.

Caesar properties often offer deals that include 2 Buffet of Buffet passes with a 2-day reservation.

Buffet of Buffets prices are for food only. They don’t include drinks (unless already included in the buffet price), nor VIP access to the buffet, which allows you to cut in line.

How Much Do you Save?

The Buffet of Buffet can save you money, but with some caveats. The pass costs about as much as a lunch and dinner buffet combined – so to get more than the pass value, you should use it for at least 3 meals – but don’t count on using it for more than that, it’s pretty much impossible to consume more than 3 buffet meals in 24 hours. There are no discount passes for children, so if you have children in your party, you may not save much money at all by using the pass.   To get the best value out of your pass, consider buying it for a late dinner, and using it again for an earlier dinner the following day.  The weekday pass is a better deal than the weekend pass – and the buffet offerings are not that different on weekends.

Also note that you can get 25% off passes for some of these buffets at Tix 4 Dinner (at $3 a head) and occasional discounts at Groupon.

Individual Buffet Prices & Comments (Adult/children & under, substract $1 for Total Rewards members)

Flamingo’s Paradise Garden Buffet: Open for Brunch, 7 AM – 2 PM. Weekday: $22/11 Weekend: $25/11, and weekend dinner, $30
Small buffet with mostly inedible food, but great view of flamingos. Groupon deal often available.  Children price = 4 – 9  yo

Harrah’s Flavors: Weekday Breakfast $21/12, Weekend Breakfast $23/12, Weekday Lunch $23/16, Weekend Brunch $28/16, Weekday Dinner $28/16, Weekend dinner $30/16. Groupon deal often available. Children price = 4 – 10  yo
The dinner buffet has gone downhill and it has mostly overpriced generic food.

Paris’ Le Village Buffet: Weekday Breakfast $22/13, Weekend Breakfast $24/15, Weekday Lunch $25/15, Weekend Brunch $31/16, Weekday Dinner $31/16, Weekend Dinner $31/20. Groupon deal often available. Children price = 4 – 10 yo
Quality has gone down as have flavors. Crepes are still great but long line!

Planet Hollywood’s Spice Market: Breakfast $20/13, Weekday lunch $23/$15, Sa/Su Brunch $28/$20, Dinner $31/$20 – $5 off coupon often available, Groupon deal often available. Children price = 4 – 10 yo
NOTE: the Spice Market had a flood and it’s now only partially open. Prices have also been halved from those above.  It wasn’t great before, I doubt it’s good now.

Rio’s Carnival World Buffet: Weekday breakfast $21/13, Weekend breakfast $24/15, Weekday lunch $23/15, Weekend Brunch $24/15, Weekday Dinner $31/18, Weekend dinner $36/20.  Groupon deal often available. Children price = 4 – 8 yo
Extensive array of mediocre food. Not worth the price.

Available for a supplement:

Caesar’s Palace Bacchanal: Breakfast $26/11, Weekday Lunch $36/14, Weekend Brunch $45/20, Weekday Dinner $51/22, Weekend Dinner $54/22, Buffet of Buffet Supplement: $15/Breakfast, $25/Lunch/Brunch, $30/Dinner. Groupon deal very occasionally available. Children price = 2 – 10 yo

Rio’s Village Seafood Buffet: Dinner only $45/25, Total Rewards members: $36. Buffet of Buffet Supplement: $15. Children price 4-10 yo.

 

Restaurant Review: Carnival World Buffet at Rio Hotel in Las Vegas

I am putting together a Las Vegas with Kids webpage, containing all my reviews for Las Vegas.  Some of those reviews never made it to my blog, so I’m adding them now.  This one is rather old, from July 2012, but as I’m not planning to return to the Carnival buffet, it will have to do.

We were not impressed with the Carnival World dinner buffet at the Rio.  The buffet offered tons of choices, I don’t think we tried even a fourth of what was available, but none were dishes worth going for a second helping.  The only exception to that was the steak with mushroom sauce.  It was thin, but tender and had a great beef flavor.

My daughters were not impressed with any of the child friendly items and ended up eating a lot of shrimp.  Hey, they have protein, but not worth the price of admission.  The crab legs, which they’ve enjoyed in the past, were very small and not worth the trouble of eating.

I can’t quite remember what I tried (which tells you something).  I know the prime rib was OK while the chicken parmigiana tasted like chicken nuggets (yuck!).  The pork ribs were tough, the beef ribs were better and had a nice BBQ sauce.    I can’t remember anything else.

The desserts we tried, OTOH, were uniformly good.  The kids loved the gelato, and I enjoyed the cheesecake and flan (though dig in for the caramel as otherwise it’s not sweet enough).  The one disappointment were the eclairs, as tends to be the case in most buffets.

In all, I wouldn’t go back to this buffet.  In particular given the wait – 45 minutes on a Tuesday night in July.   People who are paying full price (not using coupons or the Buffet of Buffets deal) do get in much faster as they have an express line for them.