TR SNIPPET - WHERE AND WHAT I ATE

It used to be that Vegas was food indulgence place for me. In fact, it was one trip of too much food and rum that spiked me into diabetes.

So much of the way I do food takes that into account as well as my intent to make this a frugal adventure and pay for any gambling losses.

So, my food reports are unlike those upscale reports of fancy meals prepared and presented by well known chefs. I can't eat much of those anyway, and generally I am solo when going to fancy place is not as much fun. When I am with poker buddies or my son, a simple frugal buffet holds plenty of good tastes for us, and for me some simple pleasures that I don't indulge at home but can in Vegas.

ORLEANS

I ate six free buffets here, one paid for by a comped room. Two on senior Wednesday when just 50 earned points got me a free breakfast and another 100 earned points got me a free late supper.

Another was earned with points.

I was very hungry when I first hit the buffet directly after booking in after a long flight on a Tuesday. That one came free with my booking, and I was very pleased.

I could easily find foods on my diabetes diet. I did tend to overeat, but I did not suffer a sugar spike except once and that day I could not exercise due to a bad foot.

I love the menudo in the Mexican section. I just skim off the broth of the menudo. I could make a meal on just that. The deep fried pollock was very good and since this buffet carries cholua hot sauce on the table I can spice it up the way I like. I use the sauce of the veggies as well. There was a fine plain mix of beans and carrots and things, but also some tomato beef dish and a few other veggie based possibilities. The beef at lunch was flavorful but tough. Au jus and good horseraddish made that quite a treat, but I wished I opted for some good looking chili instead.

At the breakfast buffet were some of the same foods. The pollock was there as was the roast chicken. I also had two eggs over easy, but they were a bit overdone. I found a piece of crispy bacon but that was not the usual.

The buffet at supper in October was very different with an Octoberfest station serving a saurbauten, potato pancakes, sauerkraut, bratwurst. I did not much care for the sauerbraten. It was not well made but the regular beef was much nicer, tender and very good. Along with the meal came a complimentary cup of light or dark beer. The dark was delicious.

In November I came on rib night and there were St. Louis style ribs as well as Hawaiian style.

A roasted chicken breast found at all buffets was delicious, mildly spiced with something I could not quite name. I asked if sugar was used and the fellow behind the counter said no, that it was just salt and lemon.

The weakest part of the selection was the fruit although the watermelon was just fine. For desserts I had a small green key lime no sugar added cheesecake and a blueberry version that was tasty and a raspberry cheese cake. Once I had a small eclair.

The service is just swell and the ambiance pleasant.

I usually eat just one buffet a day, but when they are free, I take advantage and have two.

Key attractions for me are Cholula hot sauce and a very tasty grapefruit juice.

I did not have the Mongolian Grill with chosen vegetables, but I thought of it. One night I took the chili and added salsa, cheese, mushrooms, and collar greens.

ARIA BUFFET

I probably would not have tried this buffet from the reviews I read had it not been for getting free ones on my last trip from MyVegas. This trip I ate there three times paying a $25 lunch price and happy to do it on the weekday and $32 on Saturday.

I get that a traditional meat and potatoes eater who does not like new tastes or unusual foods would shy away from this place, but I was delighted with so many interesting dishes that I could not sample them all. And I did not raise my blood sugar by eating there.

Vegetables were everywhere and very good. The last time I was there I was a pescatarian. Now I am a carnivore again, but I actually only chose one taste of meat, a couple small pieces of carnitas, Mexican pork fried. It was dry and not the crispy taste I look for. I also tried the chorizo rope sausage, and that was just wonderful. There was a selection of sausage one called Portuguese sausage I'll have to try.

The steamed crab legs were the next poorest dish. It was a bit too dry, but it may be that we are spoiled by all that stone crab in Florida. I tend now to skip the crab at most buffets.

For seafood I had two kinds of shellfish: a New Zealand mussel, large and tasty cold with lime, a black mussel also cold, and then steamed clams in a broth of tomato and just a bit of corn for taste. I liked all, but I could have made a meal on what really was clam soup.

Clams, mussels, and such are some of the healthiest seafood. Far down the food chain, they do not attract or retain as much pollutants, the opposite of farmed salmon or tuna fish.

Also, environmentally they are a fine choice because they are not over fished but grown easily, and they clean the water they live in.

The assorted olives and chunks of blue cheese were delightful chewed together. I think there were three or four cheeses.

Two healthy salads I loved: one of greens (tender kale I think) made with thin slices of tasty green apple. Another was a quinoa salad with small beans, perhaps endame and small squares of something I could not figure out, either a fruit or jimaca.

Off my diet I had one stuffed grape leaf. It was delicious, especially chewed with delicious chorizo.

And I had one Mexican wedding cookie. A real treat. With it I had small sugarfree slice of pumpkin spice and it was as good as anything sugar free.

On my second visit I tried these fruits:??

On my second visit I retried these tastes: olives, rope chorizo , steamed clams, green salad, crispy bacon (I had to dig under the limp) pineapple sausage, quinoa salad, green salad.

And added a fine plate of smoked salmon with red onion, tomato, capers and some creamy horseraddish sauce that was not with the salmon, but with the beef at the carving station.

I don't know quite why the chefs in Vegas don't serve this dish with creamy horseraddish. Here they put up some wasabi. At the Golden Nugget I had conversations with people including one food manager. He looked at me like I was crazy. But that is the way it is served in New York and in lox, we are the authorities. Ironically, the Nugget has the creamy horseraddish for later meals, but not at breakfast with the lox. I ask and sometimes they will scoop some out for me.

I finished off my diet with a white chocolate pop (called that but really dark chocoate sqaure on a stick) and a slice of pecan pie topped with chocolate mose?? and a sliver of nice chocolate leaf.

I did not suffer a spike if sugar, but it was dangerous even in those small portions.

The service was just wonderful, the hostess giving me exactly what I wanted in a chair that does not face the wall the way those that complement booths do. She joked with me. She knew there was no sugar in the grapefruit juice but apologized that it was not fresh squeezed and had pulp. It was just wonderful.

The place if brightly lit and the tables are spaced for comfort from other diners. I was sat under a collection of long, clear tubes that collected light and sparkled beneath a black piece of ceiling. I loved it.

I went once with my son because he had a 2 for 1 from MyVegas. For the free buffets he would have had to be staying in one of the hotels, but they honored the 2 for 1. He also had some freeplay but he could not use that.

FREMONT BUFFET

I went here once on a 2 for 1 with my Slink and Bill. I like the buffet, but it is not on the top of my list. There were no sugar free desserts. However, they did serve flavored coffees.

MONTE CARLO

As well as putting me in a freeroll tournament my poker play at Monte Carlo gave me enough food comps to almost pay for a breakfast the morning I left. I enjoyed it, but it was not like Aria.

The bacon was crispy and the fried bannanas a treat.

I also ate roasted yellow peppers, keilbasa, brocolini, pollock, corn, biscuits with the creamy gravy and finished with some fluffly lemon cream sugarfree pie.

PLANET HOLLYWOOD

I always get some good tastes here. My favorite is lamb, but I missed that again this trip by eating at lunch time. I use the American Casino Guide 25% coupon or the destination.com $5 off coupon to reduce the cost.

Tempura shrimp is a favorite although I don't over do that.

For breakfast when I stayed there I had lox, but it was hard to find all the ingredients. The red onions on two mornings came late, the creamy horseraddish was at the beef station. I did find capers and tomato. Once I tossed on some salsa and that was very good.

I had the best beef of any buffet here. It was a spiced flank steak and not as tough as most buffet beef seems to be.

I loved melon balls in mint and will have to make that at home.

With the biscuits came a fine creamy gravy and a circle of spice sausage.

At the waffle station I found blueberries and had a bowl.

Once my waitress here was a bit strange. She was too familiar in a very quirky kind of way.

PALACE STATION

The buffet has crispy bacon. Very nice. It also had a very tastly watermelon. Wild Bill loved the beef and barley soup as it is his favorite. It was a basic buffet, fairly priced.

RED ROCK CANYON

My son Frank and I took the American Casino Guide and went to the buffet after hiking in the Canyon.

LINK TO FRANK AT RED ROCK

I had heard good things, but my diabetic diet often does not let me take advantage of the rich choices most folks enjoy.

Red Rock turned out to be perfect.

I filled up on roasted vegetables, one of my favorite dishes. There were brussel sprouts and carrots and a mixed section, at least three separate section of roasted veggies.

I have forgotten other tastes, but I know I was pleased.

And then I looked at the desserts.

At home I eat nothing for dessert but fruit. Sugar free does not mean carb free. No sugar added does not mean sugar free.

However, with all the exercise my blood sugar rates had been tolerating one sugar free taste per buffet, just once a day.

Generally, there is only one that appeals to me.

At RedRock the sugarfree section was huge.

I took four.

I still remember them, a cheesecake, a chocolate chip cookie, a plain cookie and this piece of rich chocolate cake.

With these on my plate I called a fellow from behind the counter and asked,

“Are all these really sugar free?”

“Did you get them from the section that is labeled?”

“Yes.”

“Then, yes, they are all sugar free.”

Well, I ate three of the four. The plain cookie was not very tasty. The chocolate cake was absolutely wonderful. Half way through I told Frank this could not be sugar free and I supposed I would spike my sugar count.

But it was. Two hours later I tested at 99 a number I can't seem often to hit here at home.

GOLD COAST BUFFET

I like this simple buffet, although I can't figure out why the Orleans can have Cholula and the Gold Coast be stuck with that damned Tabasco as the only choice.

Breakfast biscuits can be topped with one of three creamed gravies. I chose the redeye gravy.

GOLDEN NUGGET BUFFET

I like this buffet as well as any. I can always find very tasty fruit such as strawberries or good tasting pineapple still in the rind. At least part of smoked salmon with capers. Sometimes it is hard to get the red onions as they put them out late. Most times it is very hard to get a creamy horseraddish dressing because they don't seem to get that it is the topping to put on lox, and the salmon may disappear at lunch or be moved to a new spot from day to day so that even the servers are confused. One day I asked the manager and he did not know where it was.

I love smoked salmon with capers and red onion and tomato and creamy horseraddish. I just wish they knew to serve it all in the same spot.

Coffee here comes in a carafe so I can drink a lot of it and never ask anyone for help.

They have grapefruit juice.

They have crispy bacon, a rarity on buffets.

Their sugar free dessert included pumpkin pie that was good and did not spike the old sugar readings.

Live poker play for four hours gets a $10 voucher. I tell the poker toom that the buffet prices have risen and the voucher should rise with them. I doubt it will.

PARIS BUFFET

 

On Veterans Day supper was free here and I took advantage. It was really as good as I remembered.

There were five kinds of shell fish as well as mussels with shrimp. I love shellfish and they are good for me and good for the environment.

The turkey was tasty.

The duck was really fine and I ate a good bit of that.

Cheeses were great as should be expected.

I went off the diet and had a bit of flan for dessert.

ROOM SNACKS

I brought from home my favorite peanut butter made in Saratoga New York. It is organic with no added sugar and has a distinctive taste and texture. I used to need to get to the Farmer's Market for this, but just last month they started to stock it in some groceries, including the one near my house. I spread it on Joseph's flax oatmeal and whole wheat Lavish wraps to make a nice breakfast. These have no sugar and only 7% carbs. I wish I had brought more of them. I also have some popcorn rounds for the peanut butter once the wraps are gone.

I also brought a bag of mixed nuts from home. Next trip I'll pack in a banana. It seems like I should easily be able to shop, but I just don't get to it.

After the movies at the Orleans my rooms snack was the left over popcorn on the free refill.