Do You Believe In Miracles?
In a stunning upset, after seven plates plus a three-dessert round, I have scored as the winner, and NEW buffet champion of the world, the Wynn.
You read that correctly: Down goes Bellagio! Down goes Bellagio!
The scoring:
1) Pizza: Wynn provided a quality quattro formaggio and faster turnover of pizzas. Bellagio has two pies of type up at a time, and the one eaten second cools too fast. Wynn also uses their pizza oven for pizza bianca and focaccia. Round to the Wynn.
2) Cold Seafood Plate: Bellagio had high quality cold-smoked fish. Wynn had five kinds of ceviche. Round to the Wynn.
3) Shrimp: I don’t know where they get their shrimp, but the Bellagio is unstoppable on this plate, especially with the addition, this year, of high-quality mixing-in horseradish proximate to the otherwise bland house cocktail sauce. Wynn was average. Round to the Bellagio.
4) Hot Plate: Wynn: Kobe meatballs, fried chicken, a variety of pastas, and fish. Bellagio: Duck legs, omelet station, french toast, waffles. Bellagio placed too much emphasis on breakfast. Round to the Wynn.
5) Notable carvings: Bellagio: Beef, Chicken Wellington, turkey breast. Wynn: Flank steak, lamb. Based on unfulfilled expectations that had been raised to the skies by last year’s devastating deployment of a bacon-carving station at the Wynn, round scored a draw.
6) Bread: Draw. Both bland and pointless. Bread of this quality is, as Notorious is fond of saying, truly just useless filler. Guys…bread isn’t a toughie. Stop phoning it in. Round scored a draw.
7) Intangibles: Service to the Wynn, atmosphere to the Wynn, history to the Bellagio, seating location to the Bellagio, busing was a draw (neither was fast enough). Wynn had a variety of soups and more sushi. Bellagio had a greater variety of bland, pointless bread and cheap sparkling wine. Neither had remarkable coffee. Round scored a draw.
8) Desserts: The pastries on the Bellagio buffet, which are made by the same place that supplies my new favorite en-route-to-the-airport stop in Las Vegas, Jean-Philippe Patisserie, are spectacular. The Wynn simply cannot compete with Jean-Philippe’s desserts at the Bellagio head-to-head. This year, they didn’t try, going with cookies, a small selection of excellent desserts, and a genius marketing move of labeling the same thing “Flan” on one side of the room and “Creme Caramel” on the other. Pushing them over the top was Wynn’s gelato station, which completely outshone the Bellagio’s cheap-seeming soft-serve machine. Round to the Wynn.
Wynn shocks the world and takes the title from the Bellagio by TKO, 4-1-3
May 10th, 2007 at 1:56 pm e
Quoth Al: “Wynn had five kinds of ceviche.”
Quoth I: Some. Day.
May 10th, 2007 at 2:52 pm e
I, too, prefer the Wynn. Although, I suspect that my sinuses will remain clear for the next month thanks to the Bellagio’s “high-quality mixing-in horseradish.”
Note to self: Taste, then add.
May 10th, 2007 at 2:56 pm e
Guess what? I still hate you.
May 11th, 2007 at 8:00 am e
The Big Man’s favorite thing about the Wynn buffet was his lobster-and-crabmeat omelet. Personally, their cafeteria-like setup was slightly offputting, and I felt like Bellagio was a big more elegant.
In other news, my sister-in-law is *still* pregnant (at this point, on her way from being well done to burnt) and now threatens to put a serious kink into our plans of hosting a Mother’s Day celebration barbecue tomorrow. I mean, I’m happy to be getting another niece or nephew, the miracle of life, blah, blah, blah, but the birth of this kid is really screwing up my social calendar.
May 11th, 2007 at 8:36 am e
The Wynn is to Mayweather as Bellagio is to De La Hoya. Wynn by a hair, although some would claim a robbery, only to be settled by a rematch next year…
May 11th, 2007 at 1:14 pm e
As long as neither of them require making lenghty phone calls to Barb.
May 11th, 2007 at 1:42 pm e
My other favorite on a buffet is Prime Rib with horseradish suace. Sounds easy but more fail at it than succeed. Advantage Wynn. Although maybe the Bellagio was off that day for me.
May 11th, 2007 at 3:06 pm e
“devastating deployment of a bacon-carving station at the Wynn” I could base a trip around this.