Las Vegas Food #1: Buffets (Le Village Buffet, Flavors, Spice Market, & Paradise Garden)

I found some very cheap flights and went on a very short trip to Las Vegas. Of the many eating options in the city, Las Vegas does have a reputation for buffets. Upon arriving, I saw advertised that there was a deal where you got unlimited 24-hour access to five buffets in various casinos in the Harrah's chain for $49.99. I was only going to be in the city for about 36 hours total, so this seemed like a good way to go. Timing wise, I was able to get four meals out of this deal, working out to under $13 per buffet before tax and tip. 

Le Village Buffet in Paris:

I arrived in Las Vegas early in the morning. This meant it was time to have breakfast. I stayed in Paris, so after arriving at the hotel, I bought into the buffet deal for a late breakfast at Le Village Buffet. This was the only highly themed buffet I dined at. It was set in a Paris street, with a cloud filled sky up above. The restaurant would have fit right in at Epcot.

Le Village Buffet was somewhat themed foodwise. There was all the standard breakfast items you would expect, along with more French breakfast items such as crepes (which I did not sample because of huge lines), quiches (which I did sample, both the meat and vegetarian versions, both of which were good), and smoked fish (smoked salmon and smoked trout- I enjoy smoked fish).

One major disappointment. There was no French toast on the buffet. I wanted very much to say I ate French Toast (which isn't French) in a casino buffet pretending to be Paris in the Nevada desert. Besides the lack of French Toast, this was actually the best of the buffets I sampled in Vegas. Read on...

Flavors in Harrah's:

This was buffet #2 for lunch. Of all the four buffets I sampled, this was the most unappealing, heading towards the Golden Corral level of food. The cigarette stench from the casino floor also drifted into the buffet, which is a bit disgusting. Wonder how long it will be for all these casinos in Las Vegas to go smoke free?

The buffet was vaguely internationally themed, with various world cuisines. Everything I tasted here was really mediocre. Not impressed. Flavors lacked the flavors...

Spice Market in Planet Hollywood:

Spice Market was buffet #3 for dinner. Similar to Flavors, Spice Market was also internationally themed. The food on this buffet seemed better quality with a better variety. I'm not sure if this is the difference between lunch options and dinner options on buffets owned by Harrah's.

First plate of food included a trip to the Mexican section of the buffet, with quesadillas, rice, beans, and guacamole.  From the American section of the buffet, I had some BBQ ribs (meat wasn't very tender).

Plate #2 mostly consisted of the Mediterranean section of the buffet. This seemed to be what they were pushing in all of the buffet's advertisements. There was lamb skewers, tabouli, roasted vegetables, stuffed grape leaves, and large cubes of feta. Just like the ribs, the lamb was a bit too chewy.

Paradise Garden in The Flamingo:

My final buffet in my 24 hours was at Paradise Garden in The Flamingo. This was my second breakfast buffet in Las Vegas. They had pretty standard breakfast items, although I preferred Le Village Buffet for breakfast. I found it interesting that they had French toast on the buffet in this restaurant, but the French themed buffet did not.

I had a strawberry filled crepe here as well.

Desserts were interesting, especially for breakfast. They were very colorful tarts. The weirdest one was the fruit tart which came with a syringe of raspberry syrup.

Overall, this was a good deal for food for my short time in Las Vegas. Breakfast buffets seemed to definitely be done better compared to the lunch and dinner buffets I tried, which were sort of hit or miss. After this trip, I can cross the Las Vegas buffet thing off my list...

Planet Hollywood Observatory in Disney Springs

This was my first visit to this restaurant since they renovated from regular Planet Hollywood to Planet Hollywood Observatory. When Downtown Disney rebranded themselves as Disney Springs, I guess a giant globe filled with movie props didn't fit into the story of a small town built around a spring water bottling plant that Disney came up with. Instead, the globe was painted grey and it is now an observatory to view stars. In doing so, they ripped out all of the movie props that made the old version of the restaurant interesting and replaced the majority of them with video screens projected on the walls. Guy Fieri was brought in to provide the restaurant's new menu, but celebrity chef fame doesn't do much when the menu ended up as boring as it was. Looking over the menu, very little spoke to me and everything was generic and overpriced.

I ended up ordering the Championship Pulled Pork Sandwich. This had pulled pork, barbecue sauce, coleslaw, pickles, and onion straws. I know I was sort of dissing Planet Hollywood's menu, but this sandwich was okay. The pork was tender, and they kept it interesting by adding more than just meat and sauce on the sandwich. Fries and a pickle were served on the side.

My pulled pork sandwich was good enough, but I don't think I'll be rushing back to the Planet Hollywood Observatory soon. I might as well go to an Applebee's for an equivalent generic chain restaurant menu for half the price...

Gnocchi from Buca Di Beppo

I ate at the Buca Di Beppo in Maitland, FL. My last visit to their location in Daytona Beach left room for improvement, but this time I enjoyed the restaurant a lot better. Just like my last visit to Buca di Beppo, the meal started out with a Mixed Greens Salad. Unlike last time, the salad was served as it was described on the menu. It wasn't just iceberg lettuce and had a mix of different types of lettuces, hence the mixed greens.

Mozzarella Garlic Bread was also ordered. I won't complain about garlic bread covered with melted cheese.

For the main course, I shared the Gnocchi al Telefono. I don't speak Italian, but does that name translate to Gnocchi of the Telephone? The gnocchi were topped with a tomato cream sauce with pieces of fresh mozzarella and basil. I had no complaints about the dish. The person I shared the dish with was unfamilar with gnocchi and didn't seem to believe me when I said gnocchi are kind of like potato dumplings. When the waitress was asked, she also denied that the gnocchi contained potatoes. That wasn't good enough for me, so I emailed Buca di Beppo's cooporate email address to find out from the source when I got home. It turns out their gnocchi do indeed contain potato.


One thing I thought was interesting about the whole eating experience was how many times we were told that Buca di Beppo was bought by Planet Hollywood. During the course of the meal, the staff mentioned this at least a half dozen times. It was printed all over the menu, and I thought this was a bit strange. Plenty of other restaurant chains are connected, but none that I can think of go out of their way to point out the parent company's other stores. When you go into Carrabba's, they don't point out throughout the meal that they are owned by Outback Steakhouse.

Downtown Disney's Planet Hollywood

I ate at Planet Hollywood in Downtown Disney on January 30, 2008. The restaurant at Walt Disney World is the biggest Planet Hollywood that I've seen. Compared to the Planet Hollywood in Myrtle Beach, this restaurant is humongous. The whole restaurant is housed inside of a giant 5-floored globe filled with tables and lots of movie props. Not only is this Planet Hollywood larger than Myrtle Beach's restaurant, it also has a larger menu, and everything costs a few dollars more.

My meal was started with an appetizer of Chicken Crunch. It was basically fried chicken strips dipped into a sweet batter. Sweet and chicken don't go together in my opinion.

For the main course, I had the Garlic Shrimp. This consisted of soba noodles topped with shrimp, sugar snap peas, onions, peppers, garlic, and ginger in a slightly spicy sauce. I liked it, but at a price of $19.99, I didn't feel it was the best value for the food given. A few hours after I ate the meal was a problem though. Something in the Garlic Shrimp caused me to repeatedly burp out a horrible smell that reminded me of salami, meatballs, and Pepsi, all combined into one foul smelling gas. Beware...


After eating, I took the steps down from my 5th floor table and looked at some of the movie props. Before heading downstairs, this was my view from where I sat:

And here are some of the movie props I took pictures of. Here's a witch from Hocus Pocus:

Woody from Toy Story:

A giant moth from the original Dr. Dolittle:

A robot from some science fiction movie that I don't recognize:

One of the buildings from The Nightmare Before Christmas. Much of the sets and puppets from this movie used to be on display at MGM Studios. Rumor is that when Disney decided to update their exhibit, a few of their minimum wage employees got very lucky when they found a slew of Jack Skeleton puppets and most of Halloweentown in a dumpster somewhere on Disney property. Imagine what that stuff would go for on ebay...

And then there was this saw blade from a David Copperfield TV Special:


And finally, in the pond outside of Planet Hollywood was The Jenny from Forrest Gump:

Myrtle Beach Planet Hollywood

After getting back from eating cruise food, I ate dinner at the Planet Hollywood in Myrtle Beach at the Broadway at the Beach mall. It was a really small Planet Hollywood compared to the restaurant in Orlando. Orlando is a multi-floor monster restaurant, all inside of a huge globe, while Myrtle Beach's Planet Hollywood was a single story building with a few balconies, all hidden behind a globe facade out front. It also had a smaller menu and lower prices than the Orlando Planet Hollywood by a few dollars.


I ate Chicken, Penne, and Broccoli pasta. It was okay, but nothing exceptional. I wouldn't go out of my way to order the pasta again.