Bayside Buffet Mandalay Bay, 3950 Las Vegas Blvd S, Las Vegas, NV 89119
Ah, Vegas buffets. Outside of gambling and clubbing, Las Vegas buffets are probably the one thing that most tourists get excited about it. They are legendary for their extensive and endless variety of food and some of them are even pretty well respected as a food destination. I will say that even though I generally find buffet food to be kind of gross, I was a tad bit excited to check out at least 1 buffet while I was in town. Unfortunately, I didn't really have time except for Friday morning before I left for the airport and honestly the only reason I even went to one was because I got up around 6AM due to the time difference and was starving. I knew that the one at the Mandalay wasn't going to be a luxurious buffet but I figured Hey, it's Vegas, how bad can the buffet be?
Umm, the answer is kind of bad. For $20, I only managed to muster up one plate of food and the best part of the meal was the fresh squeezed grapefruit juice. The buffet is divided up in to the "main" buffet and the dessert section. The main section consisted of scrambled eggs, bacon, sausage, hash browns, pancakes, a make your own eggs benedict station, omelettes to order, steak, and a large baked salmon. There's also a bagel station, fresh fruit station and ice cream station. Truly underwhelming basic selection of breakfast food. It reminded me of the buffets I used to love when I was a kid at Bob's Big Boy but that was also over 15 years ago and also when I had a less discerning palate. It only took one glance at the food to see that it was truly mass produced food. The food looked like it had been sitting out for a while as well. I nibbled on some bacon which was a bit too greasy for me and eggs w/salmon, which wasn't that great since the salmon was too dry. The hash browns were nice and crispy and that was probably the 2nd best part of the meal after the grapefruit juice. I also tried the steak which was over cooked and dry. The bit of smoked salmon that I got was fine, not awful but not amazing either. I remember the last time I was in Vegas I went to the breakfast buffet at the Paris Hotel and was so blown away by the sheer variety of food that I probably spent hours there just because I wanted to try everything. It was the total opposite experience here and maybe I set my expectation levels too high because I spent about 30 minutes and then left. I finished off my meal with a plate of fruit because I felt like I had to get something else for my $20 besides what amounted to a Denny's breakfast. I don't think I would complain so much about it if it was $10 but for $20 I should have definitely saved myself the money and gone straight to the lounge and had some pretty decent lemon ricotta pancakes and herbed eggs with a fresh glass of champagne instead.
Photo Credit: Yelp
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