THE WYNN BUFFET

Going to Vegas with my parents is often fun, cause they sometime know employees of the hotel (they're often called hosts) who can get you show tickets, or let you check in in the VIP room. The fun thing about getting to use the VIP room is the free stuff you get from coffee, teas and sodas to alcohol and even a Continental breakfast. We were only spend one night in Vegas, so we planned on having our big buffet meal for lunch, and decided to make a light breakfast out of the offerings of fruit, pastries and coffee in the VIP room.

It was pretty good. Afterwards, Tom and I took some time walking down the Strip. We played video games at NY NY, did some window shopping at Caesars and the Venetian and I also did some chocolate shopping at the Bellagio. Afterwards, we played some slots, which I must admit, are kinda fun. It's like playing video games except when you win, you get to win actual money. After playing around for a while, we went looking for my parents, and pretty soon, it was lunch time.

Now, I'd heard that the Wynn has a pretty decent buffet, with lots of different stations and diverse foods. (I'd also heard there'd be snow crab legs, but apparently, that's just for dinner. sigh). And in fact, there really was a ton of stuff to eat. Disappointed that there wouldn't be crab legs, I told Tom that I was gonna eat shrimp cocktail until I turned orange (but actually, I got sick of them after a while). So here's my first plate of food

You can see the shrimp of the left, but there was actually a ceviche section, and a section that offered fried chicken (it was ok).

I also took a pic of my mom's plate to show you the diversity of foods offered. Vegas is a big gambling destination for newly rich Asians. And we were there a week before Chinese New Year (and all the hotels were decked out for the celebration), so there were lots of foods that appealed to an Asian palate like sushi, and noodle soups.

Here's a pic of Tom's plate, where you can really see the diversity of food offerings since there's a slice of pizza sitting atop sushi. And here's a look at what one of the hot stations looked like:

Overall, I'd say that the food wasn't bad, though it certainly wasn't the most spectacular buffet I'd ever visited. For all my dad's griping about the buffet not being great prior to us getting there, I gotta admit, he was right (See, this is where my eating pickiness really started, from my parents).

But my favorite station overall was the dessert station, where I could have all the ice cream I wanted, pick my tops AND, the ice cream was actually quite excellent. Certainly better than many of the ice creams I buy from stores. To finish off, take a look at Tom's trip to the dessert bar. Yes, he picked up all these desserts for himself.
Luckily, though, he didn't actually finish eating all of them. See that's the great thing about going to a buffet- you can sample a little bit of everything.

DINNER IN VEGAS

Ok all, I realize that it's been over a month since Tom and I went to Vegas, but better late than never on these posts. So why were we in Vegas in the first place? Well, it started off with my little sister. She works for Fox (or will for one more day) and every year, they have a conference in Vegas. This year, she got to have a room all to herself, so she invited us to stay. Then Virigin America launched it's flights from SFO to Las Vegas, and when it launched, they had a deal to buy one get one free on airplane tickets. Ok, so there was really no reason not to go. Then my parents heard that we were going, so they decided that they wanted to go, too. And rather than us crashing with Cathy, they booked us a hotel room with them at the Wynn.

I hadn't been to Vegas in over 7 years- 4 days before I turned 21 and Tom had never been there at all, so for this trip, I vowed to show him around and eat myself silly. (especially since my parents were paying for the whole thing. ) We landed in the afternoon, and my parents had made dinner reservations at the Corsa Cucina, a more casual Italian restaurant inside the Wynn that they had been to before and enjoyed.

When we arrived for our reservations a bit early, before 7, the place was already pretty packed. The restaurant is also kinda open, and adjacent to the casino and theatres, so it was pretty loud inside, but I did like the modern decor of the place. I wasn't super hungry (having snagged a bunch of cookies and chocolates in the VIP lounge when we checked in)l, but I still ordered a bunch.

To start off with, my parents ordered two appetizers. One was their version of a mushroom pizza (on the left) and the other was grilled shrimp on white beans.

The "pizza" was actually not bad. It was basically like a mushroom pate spread on a very very thin crust and covered with cheese, and that was put in the oven. I kinda enjoyed it. And the shrimp were also pretty good.

For my own appetizer, I had this deconstructed version of a Caesar salad, which was pretty good. I was having this weird Caesar salad craving that whole week.

And for my entree, I ordered an agnolotti with guinea hen and mushrooms. The words agnolotti on the menu just made me dream of the amazing chesnut agnolotti that I had at Per Se over a year ago, and though I knew I would never get anything like that, I was hoping for something close. Unfortunately, my pasta turned out to be WAAAAYYYY over cooked and totally mushy, the sauce was far too salty and the guinea hen was a bit tough. I didn't each much of it, but was pretty full by that point, anyway.

But you guys know me. I always have to order dessert, so I got some fresh apple donuts that were filled with this cooked apple mixture and served on a caramel sauce and topped with ice cream. The donuts themselves were actually pretty good. I'm totally a sucker for freshly fried donuts, but overall for dinner, I think in the future, I'd stick with a selection of the appetizers and generally avoid the entrees.