I’ve never been a big fan of buffets – but I hoped the world-famous spread at Caesar’s Palace in Las Vegas would convert me.
Sadly, I couldn’t have been more wrong. The Bacchanal Buffet charges each diner an eye-watering $90 for just 90 minutes of unlimited food.
It is the most expensive buffet in a city that is famed for them. But Sin City has seen tourist numbers slump by 11 percent in June and five percent in July amid complaints prices are too high.
And The Bacchanal Buffet will do little to dispel that anger. Each of its Roman-themed self-serve station groans under plentiful quantities of fish, meat and vegetables in upscale surroundings. But the quality of the food is sorely lacking.
Things got off to a bad start when my colleague and I had to wait 30 minutes for our table – despite making an online reservation for 3:30pm, so we wouldn’t have to deal with the crazy dinner rush.
I had to line up with all the other people who had the same idea as me. I felt more like I was at the DMV rather than in one of the world’s most popular resort cities, known for its gambling, entertainment, fine dining and nightlife.
Others told me they’d been waiting for an hour-and-a-half
The hostess who showed us to our seats warned us we had a 90-minute time limit, then sat us in the back area where it was dark, close to the doors from where the wait staff came and went.
When I asked if we could get a different table she nearly lost it. She said we would have to go back to the line and wait until another table opened.
I told her we’d stay. Before walking away she repeated ’90-minutes’ to hammer home that my welcome there was a limited one. I felt like I was being scolded.
At the buffet, the atmosphere was charged and felt manic. Everyone was clearly thinking how long they had left.
There was no time for casual conversation with the person I was dining with.
A glass of wine felt out of the question, even though the buffet is named after Bacchus – the Roman god of the delicious alcoholic drink.
The clock was ticking and we had to hurry. It felt like a job – and we had work to do.
As I stood near the buffet, there were lines of people balancing two and three plates at a time that was piled high with food.
One of the busiest stations was the steamed snow crab legs. Watching people load up their plates with these leggy sea creatures was shocking.
And seeing them eat them – as they cracked the legs then sucked the juice out of them – was plain disturbing.
The lines at the buffet were buzzing. People at the seafood station were using tongs to grab the whelks, head on prawns, and Jonah crab claws.
The food was going at an alarming rate and the workers behind the counter were trying to keep up.
At one point, I saw one of them turning over a plastic container filled with pounds and pounds of seafood into one of the stainless steel dishes.
Intrigued by the shrimp cocktail, I popped one of the shellfish in my mouth and soon regretted it. The texture was rubbery and slimy.
But there was no time to complain. The clock was ticking and I had to keep moving.
As I snaked over to the other side of the room there were eight other serving stations. I was pleasantly surprised with the variety on offer: Mediterranean; Italian; Mexican; Filipino; Asian.
The marinara pizza looked fresh and under the light appeared to have just come out of the oven.
Looks can be deceiving though, it wasn’t hot and crispy but cold and soggy. The Caesar salad was another sad option that was bathing in dressing so much that I couldn’t eat it.
About a half-hour left I was still on the hunt for something I’d like.
From a distance, the plated sushi looked delicious, but once it hit my mouth I knew I made a bad decision.
It was so fishy and tasted so bad that when no one was looking I spat it out in my paper napkin.
Fans of seafood will know that it is not supposed to taste fishy if it is fresh.
I should have known better since the color of the wasabi was bright green rather than a more natural shade. It also had an unpleasant soup-like texture.
I was still hungry and went for the roasted vegetables but again the buffet left me wanting.
The vegetables weren’t ‘roasted’ as advertised but instead mushy and tasteless.
When the server told me that the brunch buffet on Sunday had 1,600 patrons and another 1,700 for dinner – more than 3,000 total in a day – I was absolutely stunned. Seems like I may be one of the only people in Sin City who left the buffet hungry.
But don’t just take my word for it – everyone else I spoke to at The Bacchanal was equally unimpressed.
One couple told me the buffet ‘was gross’ but felt they had to get their money’s worth after spending $90 each.
Another woman I spoke to said she felt so pressured by the 90 minute time limit that she barely came up for air between mouthfuls.
A third was horrified they’d run out of her favorite dessert – vanilla ice cream.
Natalie Nguyễn, 21, and David Hoang, 22, were visiting Las Vegas from Houston and agreed the quality of the food was poor.
‘It was like you have lobster but it is not good lobster,’ Nguyen said. ‘The tacos – same thing. They had all these tacos but it was meh. I liked the snow crabs but it got tiring very quickly.’
For Hoang, the hamburger sliders were a big disappointment.
‘Honestly, they tasted weird. I would not eat them again if I come back. The texture was a little off. It had a weird bitter taste to it. It wasn’t for my palette.’
Natalie said, ‘I felt pressure about the time because I wanted a few seconds to wait before I got dessert.
But then I was like, “Wait I only have 20 minutes left of our 90-minute time.”
Three guys from Belgium were on a boys trip. It was their first time in Vegas.
‘It is too expensive for the quality of the food. I had a little bit of everything. I don’t think the meat was very good,’ Ward Coolman, 25, told the Daily Mail.
Manuel Nevrinck, 28, said the quality of the food in America was worse than Europe. In Europe the food standards are higher. The beef tacos, the lobster and the crab he said was ‘not so good.’
‘The lobster legs was dry and had less taste.’
Thibault Van Haute, 25, said ‘we had higher expectations.’
‘The meat was sloppy and not so much taste.’ The big meat like the steak. I liked the Asian food and the salmon was good and the dessert.
Regarding the stories of the decline in tourism Ward said, ‘I was shocked that there were so few people here. I thought it would be busier.’
He said that he doesn’t think Vegas is dying but has seen some tourism down because government has put a lot of restrictions for instance, China.
One of the buffet servers said, ‘he isn’t feeling it though,’ and said ‘we get a lot of customers’.
‘Some people eat four to five plates and drink three to four beers and I wonder ‘’where do they put all that?”