| rev:text
| - Holy Jesus, Mary, and Joseph: This is the single greatest buffet... ever. Of course the value of the $85/person price tag is going to be tied to how much you eat and whether your reeeeeallly like seafood, but if you're like me...
BTW: I decided to write this review anecdotally, so forgive my indulgence. Let's start with the fact that the world's greatest buffet is at Ballys.
BALLYS?:
Yes, I know it's at Bally's which makes this whole experience a bit out of place. No matter - when we approached the restaurant, things got quieter and the atmosphere began to change, starting with the patron's apparel. Around the restaurant, people were suddenly wearing golfing outfits, collared shirts, and pleated well-pressed pants. It reminded me of the oasis that is the Steakhouse at Circus Circus.
When we walked in, we were immediately served champagne. This usually rings hollow to most foodies being that the champagne is usually two-buck-chuck... but this was Perrier Jouet! Hell - my wife and I drank this after I'd proposed to her.
As we were seated, we were offered beverages other than our delicious champagne. Coffee & Orange Juice please. A glass & a cup appeared and lo-and-behold. the OJ was FRESH SQUEEZED and the coffee was smooooooooth - not at all sour or bitter. Things were lookin' awesome.
THE BUFFET:
I know what you're thinking. And you're right. I hate buffets. I've been to the Bellagio Buffet, the Le Village Buffet, the Wynn Buffet, the Rio Seafood Buffet, blah blah blah. I've got news for you. They're all marginal-to-moderately good. (although the Rio's gone into the toilet over the past few years) The other three are okay and have their strengths. They have reasonable quality and you're not going to get sick at any of them but you're not going to come away with an OMG-thatwassogood reaction.
This was completely different: None of the aforementioned buffets even comes close to the Sterling Brunch - it's simply in a class of it's own. The buffet literally glows under the warm incandescent lamps above. Here's a list of the things that I sampled from this embarrassment of riches that laid before me.
- Hot gourmet-prepared Lobsters
- Caviar with toast, blini, crème fraîche, onions, egg crumbles, & chives
- Steamed Alaskan King Crab legs
- Prime Rib with Au Jus & 3 different types of horseradish
- Rack of Lamb with Mint Jelly
- Extremely fresh fruit on ice including watermelon, strawberries, blueberries, raspberries, and various melon slices
- Huge shrimp... I mean really large prawns... with cocktail sauce
- Shucked oysters on ice
- Omelets ready-to-order with sausage, mushrooms, green onions, and a variety of other ingredients
- Sushi of all sorts (Didn't eat any of this)
- Lox & Bagels (Didn't eat any of this either)
...and a lot more that I didn't look at. Here's the menu if you want to see it:
http://www.harrahs.com/images/Property/blv/dining/BLV_SterlingBrunch_Menu.pdf
Normally, at a buffet - the shrimp are some of the first things you 'hit'. In this case, they were the absolute LAST things we tried. No joke. I mean, heck - we figured, you can get shrimp anywhere.
Understand, it was really hard not to just 'pig out'. What with all the champagne being poured and fresh coffee being decanted, and the bottomless glass of fresh squeezed, sweet orange juice that I was being spoiled with, I really couldn't tell you what I was doing other than stuffing my face and pretending I was a Roman Emperor. One thing I can recommend is for everyone to be selective about what you get. It'll be there later when you want to try it - they don't run out.
In all seriousness, any one of these buffet items would have been worthy of a delicious paid for meal in-of-itself. I told my wife that I could sit and gorge myself on the lobster alone it was sooooo sweet, soft, hot, and did I mention they had an endless supply of melted butter to go with the endless supply of lobster?
But no, the thing that I spent the most time with was the caviar. I love caviar.
(I had so much to write about my first experience at the Sterling Brunch that it exceeded the 5000 char limit of Yelp. I ended up writing a blog post about this, the environment, the desserts, and a little more about the caviar, so if you're interested in reading more:
http://kurtsthoughts.spaces.live.com/blog/cns!97895BBB8AD10F37!956.entry )
CONCLUSION:
I think it's safe to say that this will forever be on my list of places to go in Vegas from here on out. It's only available on Sundays, but I think it will be well worth it to "stick around" on Sundays to go to the brunch before heading to the airport.
This is truly the "One Meal to Rule them All".
|
![[RDF Data]](/fct/images/sw-rdf-blue.png)
![[cxml]](/fct/images/cxml_doc.png)
![[csv]](/fct/images/csv_doc.png)
![[text]](/fct/images/ntriples_doc.png)
![[turtle]](/fct/images/n3turtle_doc.png)
![[ld+json]](/fct/images/jsonld_doc.png)
![[rdf+json]](/fct/images/json_doc.png)
![[rdf+xml]](/fct/images/xml_doc.png)
![[atom+xml]](/fct/images/atom_doc.png)
![[html]](/fct/images/html_doc.png)