Las Vegas: The Food

I wish I could say that my recent Vegas vacation was much different in the food-department than vacations in the past.  But alas, that was not the case.  Even if I think I won’t go out of control and eat with reckless abandon, I am sadly mistaken.

So…you’ll be seeing me take off some vacation weight in the near future.  Oh well, at least I had fun.

We had planned ahead of time that we would buy the 24 hour buffet package at least once during this trip.  Basically, for $49.99 per person you get access to five included buffets (and three for an extra price) for a 24 hour period.  The problem is that they buffets aren’t open 24 hours so you sort of have to time it right for when your 24 hours begins.  We didn’t do quite as well with our timing and often felt rushed to eat “before the buffet closed.”  I remember feeling that way last time too.  We just didn’t have enough time and my efforts to eat small amounts each time never worked.

You will find in Vegas food is expensive.  So $49.99 to include any entre plus a full salad bar, dessert, and drink is a pretty good price even if you only go a couple of times.  The buffets in Vegas are terribly expensive so we wouldn’t go to them if it wasn’t for this deal.  You really just need to go twice to get your full-value money worth.

I digress.

On this particular trip the Sunday brunch, which included champagne and mimosas was $64.99.  We really wanted breakfast so we were still going to pay that price; I was just going to have to drink a lot of mimosas!  When we arrived at noon we were informed the price drops back down to $49.99 at 11am but you still get the mimosas.  Whoooohooo.  That meant I could enjoy my champagne but not feel like I had to make it worth the money.

It looks very wasteful but I really wanted to try several pastries.  I have a very tough time deciding on just one kind of sweet treat.  I took several and took a bite of each.  Then I decided on one that was “worth it” and ate all of it.

We met up with my friend Christine and her husband Bland, who were in Vegas for the National Finals Rodeo.  They were at a bar in MGM called Tap SportsBar.  We had the most AMAZING cheese curds.  We actually tried to order another round but they ran out.  I guess the WW Gods were looking out for me!

We also shared an order of spinach artichoke dip and drank some adult beverages.

Kenyon and I enjoy visiting The Cheesecake Factory whenever we visit Vegas.  It is our go-to spot and a tradition we look forward to.  We shared a pizza and some bread and then ordered the carrot cake cheesecake for dessert.

We tried a restaurant in our hotel called Buca di Beppo Italian Restaurant.  I did some scouting before our trip and signed up for their email club.  I got a free pasta coupon as well as a $20 off coupon for my recent birthday.  We knew the portions were large, as well as the price tag.  The pizzas looked amazing but we wanted to keep our food in check (this was day one of our trip and we were still trying to behave.  Obviously, we got off track).  We redeemed the free pasta for some baked ziti and ordered the Chicken Limone.  It was fantastic!  We hardly made a dent in the pasta but ate all of the chicken.

Still lots of pasta left over.  This was the "small" portion.

While we didn’t order dessert, I snapped a photo of the Italian cake dessert, which was super cute.  I was impressed with their all-day happy hour prices of $3 for beer and $5 for wine.  That might be one of the best deals in Vegas.

We had a $20 food and beverage credit at our hotel, The Excalibur as well as The Luxor next door, as part of our booking special but it was only for the expensive steak house.  So I decided to cash out my free money for drinks.  If you go to Vegas you must visit Steve the bartender at Flight in The Luxor.  I had told him I had the $20 to spend and ordered a beer.  Since I was playing video poker at the bar he told me he would comp that beer and I could use the $20 to take a drink with me to our show.  (Side note…if you ever go to a place that gives free booze for slot play go straight to the bar and play 25 cent video poker or blackjack.  You are right there at the bar so you get served promptly and you only have to play a quarter a time taking a break ever so often.  You can thank me later).  Anyway, Steve offered me another comped beer and we discussed I’d be back after our dinner to get my first ever Manhattan.  Kath’s signature drink is a Manhattan and I have always wanted to try one.  Steve assured me he could make a good one so I tipped him $5 and told him I’d be back after dinner.

The verdict?  Not my kind of drink as I like my drinks sweeter.  But, it was still fun to try and it only cost me the $5 tip (plus I had two additional beers).  I even won $1.25 on my video black jack.

One other restaurant we tried was T&T Tacos Tequila at The Luxor.  I think we have been here before.  We shared the Vegetable Enchiladas with black beans.  It was really good and I loved the poblano cream sauce.

There was other food consumed that went un-pictured.  A good time was had by all.