{"id":1288,"date":"2012-08-02T03:35:51","date_gmt":"2012-08-01T19:35:51","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.marga.org\/foodblog\/?p=1288"},"modified":"2015-01-21T12:40:33","modified_gmt":"2015-01-21T04:40:33","slug":"le-village-buffet-review-paris-hotel-las-vegas","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.marga.org\/foodblog\/2012\/08\/le-village-buffet-review-paris-hotel-las-vegas\/","title":{"rendered":"Le Village Buffet Review – Paris Hotel – Las Vegas –"},"content":{"rendered":"

UPDATE: Please check out my updated review<\/a> of Le Village Buffet<\/strong><\/p>\n

My husband and I love French food and had been happy enough with our last experience at the Paris Buffet (back at the turn of the millennium), that we decided to give it a try again for dinner when we visited Las Vegas last month (July 2012).\u00a0 This despite the fact that the buffet now gets mixed reviews<\/a>.\u00a0 In all, I have to say we were pretty happy and it was easily the best of the four other buffets we ate in Vegas using our Buffet of Buffets pass (Planet Hollywood, the Rio, Harrah’s and Main Street Station).<\/p>\n

Three things make the Paris buffet special.\u00a0 One is the Disneyiske setting, in an open-air plaza, under a fake sky, surrounded by cute French-looking houses.\u00a0 My kids loved it, but so did I.\u00a0 A second is the fact that the food actually tries to be regional French, it doesn’t always succeed, but it’s a valiant effort.\u00a0 Finally, it’s the fact that the menu is limited enough to at least give you a chance to try everything you want to try (not everything there is, of course).\u00a0 I tried a lot of stuff.<\/p>\n

The food stands are divided by French region, though there is a station dedicated to soup, salads and seafood and another to desserts.\u00a0 I tried the French Onion soup here and was underwhelmed.\u00a0 The onions had not been caramelized enough and the broth was too weak.<\/p>\n

The first region I visited was Provence.\u00a0 Here I tasted some beef braised in a dark sauce.\u00a0 My husban liked it quiet a bit, but I felt the dish needed some sweetness, some wine in the sauce or caramelization on the beef.\u00a0 The saffron rice tasted like plain buttered rice, it was good but there were no hints of saffron.\u00a0 A dish of pasta in a cream sauce was quite satisfying, though I think it would have been helped by some grated cheese on top.\u00a0 A stewed chicken gave a hint of having been cooked in wine, but otherwise lacked seasoning.<\/p>\n

My next region was Alsace, a region in the border with Germany that has gone back and forth between the two countries.\u00a0 I’ve both eaten and cooked<\/a> Alsatian food before and I’m quite fond of it.\u00a0 Unfortunately, I wasn’t too fond of the chocroute garni, the meat was a tad too sweet and too spicy for me, while the pickled cabbage was too vinegary for my taste.\u00a0 The rest of the offerings were better, but not Alsatian.\u00a0 The cassoulet was nicely done and the meat was flavorful,the caramelized pearl onions were delicious, though a little underdone, and the scalloped potatoes were\u00a0 wonderful.<\/p>\n

My venture into Savoie (a region I don’t know at all) was even more successful.\u00a0 Here I tried the grilled pita bread, lamb, tri-tip and chicken – apparently they like to grill in Savoie.\u00a0 They were all great, in particular the lamb and the tri-tip.\u00a0 Don’t bother with the chateubriand sauce, however, it wasn’t that good and would have ruined the meats.<\/p>\n

This station also includes a sample of cheeses.\u00a0 The smoked gouda (or a cheese that tastes as such) was particularly delicious.<\/p>\n

Normandy offered a stuffed sole which I loved.\u00a0 It had a beautiful crust and a delicious flavor, once you added a squeeze of lemon juice.\u00a0 Mike wasn’t as fond of it, and I can’t really understand why.\u00a0 The ham and cheese quiche was less successful, it tasted very much of Parmessan.\u00a0 There is also a small sushi section, but I didn’t try that at all.<\/p>\n

Finally, I was surprised that there was neither beef bourguignon nor coq au vin in the Burgundy section but I then realized that this was actually the American station.\u00a0\u00a0 Here you can find rotisserie chicken (I didn’t try it), prime rib (very good), roasted pork with apples (so salty as to make it inedible), roasted and mashed potatoes (good enough) and mac & cheese (lacked flavor).<\/p>\n

For dessert, I first headed to the Breton<\/a> section where you could try apple crisp and bread pudding (homey, but nothing to write home about) as well as made-to-order crepes.\u00a0 The crepes were the standard French variety, rather than Breton buckwheat galettes<\/a>, but they were delicious.\u00a0 I had mine with strawberries and bananas covered with fudge and hazelnuts.\u00a0 The one problem is that the strawberries were already macerated and too sweet, so make sure you add some element to compensate for that.\u00a0 Still, it was sooo good.<\/p>\n

We also visited the dessert station and here I tried several things.\u00a0 There was a chocolate mousse pastry on a hazelnut crust which was delicious and a lemon cookie sandwich that was out of this world.\u00a0 The other desserts impressed less.\u00a0 The cheesecake was less inspired that at other buffets and the creme brulet lacked umf.\u00a0 I liked the peanut butter cookie, but the sugar cookie was nothing special.\u00a0 The kids loved the soft custard (aka ice cream).<\/p>\n

I had the unlimited mimosas\/champagne\/wine deal for dinner ($14, I think), and it’s a good deal if you’re planning to drink alcohol and are not too picky about quality.\u00a0 I enjoyed the mimosas and the champagne.\u00a0 The wine tasted like $2 chuck and I would definitely not have it again.<\/p>\n

Probably the worst part of the evening was our waitress.\u00a0 She was efficient but seemed to be having a crappy night and there was never a hint of smile on her face.\u00a0 I’m sorry, but dining is an experience and unhappy waitresses bring it down a notch.<\/p>\n

All in all this is a good buffet\u00a0 and I’d defintiely do it again.<\/p>\n

Marga’s Restaurant Reviews outside the Bay Area<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

UPDATE: Please check out my updated review of Le Village Buffet My husband and I love French food and had been happy enough with our last experience at the Paris Buffet (back at the turn of the millennium), that we decided to give it a try again for dinner when we visited Las Vegas last […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[8],"tags":[159,253,156,252,28],"class_list":["post-1288","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-restaurants","tag-buffets","tag-french","tag-las-vegas","tag-paris","tag-reviews","post-preview"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.marga.org\/foodblog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1288","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.marga.org\/foodblog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.marga.org\/foodblog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.marga.org\/foodblog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.marga.org\/foodblog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=1288"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.marga.org\/foodblog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1288\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.marga.org\/foodblog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=1288"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.marga.org\/foodblog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=1288"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.marga.org\/foodblog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=1288"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}