December, 2000
We’ve had an opportunity to closely compare the breakfast buffets at Paris and Bellagio by visiting each within a four-day period.
Today, Christmas Day, we tried the Bellagio breakfast buffet in a party of five, and it’s our unanimous opinion that the Bellagio offering is noticeably superior to the good one at Paris.
The Bellagio breakfast buffet was the normal one served on most days, even though it was Christmas. But at 11:30 a.m. it switched to an all-day holiday buffet priced at $28.95 per person I believe.
We arrived at 9:30 a.m., and there was almost no line to get in at that hour. The price was $10.95 p.t., the same price that Paris charges. By the time we left a bit after 11 a.m., the waiting line was the longest we have ever seen at that venue, stretching for quite a ways along the outer edges of the casino. As we expected, locals and visitors had not come out in great numbers for a Christmas breakfast meal, but now they would be out in regiments for the rest of the day and evening.
The food at the Paris breakfast buffet is excellent, but Bellagio exceeds it in terms of variety, quality of preparation and taste, and the ambition expressed by the chefs in terms of “gourmet” offerings.
I’ll eschew listing the expected and mundane items on the Bellagio menu (think bagels, pancakes, etc.) in favor of a shorter listing of thedishes that made this buffet tasty and unique:
Salmon terrine
Muscovy duck rollups with pumpkin, in a lime dressing
Chicken terrine
Smoked sturgeon with green onion and asparagus salad
Szechuan marinated flank of beef
Marinated scallops and cucumbers
Tomato marinated shrimp
Loin of pork with caponata cream
Breakfast pasta (delicious sweetened noodles similar to what Jews and
Germans know as kugel)
Roast leg of ham
Creamed marinated herring
Cream of parsnip and apple soup
Breakfast pizzas
Asian-style stir-fried string beans
And much, much more.
--Happy holidays from David in NV
